MORE RIDES TO GYM 
The Westbury Christian School is buying the Westland Family YMCA at 10402 Fondren, south of South Braeswood, with plans to turn the building, its pool, and large playing field into a remote athletic campus. The 31-year-old Y is a little more than a mile west of the K-12 school’s main campus at 10402 Hillcroft. The property wasn’t up for sale, but “declining membership and increasing operating costs” convinced the organization to shut the facility. Members will be transferred automatically to the Y at 5801 W. Orem Dr. when the Westland location closes at the end of the month. [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photo: YMCA of Greater Houston
Sign up for the Newsletter
Sigh… thats where I learned to swim.
Both the YMCA and YWCA continue to close long-standing neighborhood locations because they are supposedly “unprofitable”. Downtown, the YMCA essentially no longer serves the poor or homeless after building a new urban country club where they apparently would not be welcome and served as they were in the former building. Why exactly do these private health clubs continue to garner non-profit status? Why aren’t these private clubs paying taxes?
I learned to swim there too, some of my fondest memories are from the Westland Y. My favorite: I was leaving swim lessons without my glasses (I was blind as a bat) and was running to my mom who was waiting in the car. I plowed into a really tall guy and knocked the wind right out of him. Hit him right in the breadbasket with my head. Couldn’t see him but I heard him laugh. There was no mistaking that laugh…I had run over Channel 2 weatherman Doug Johnson. I was mortified. My mom saw it all happen, but refused to get out of the car. She had the hots for Doug and she was on day two of “no washing your hair” after getting her giant bouffant permed at the Beauty Bunch. You know what they say, the higher the hair the closer to God, and my mom was really, really close to God back then.
The Y is a rolling wreck. No matter what the setback; two things are certain at the Y: Clark Baker will get a raise at the end of the year and clark baker will get a raise at the end of the year