The Schvitz Diaries Pt. 2: World Spa

Chilling in Midwood

Some people are big menu folks, others desire something more minimal, they like eating somewhere that takes a chance by offering you a couple of things and betting the house that they make the short list of items really well. I’m a big menu person in theory, but nothing gets my little anxious mind running around in circles quite like too many choices. I’ve written about my food anxiety thing more than a few times. I like choices and would rather have more to pick from and not, say, three main courses that I’m not so hot on, but at least with the smaller menu, there isn’t as much to think about. This was on my mind as I walked under the F train tracks of McDonald Ave. towards the recently-opened World Spa. That was on my mind, and I was also trying to remember exactly what stretch of the road the chase scene from The French Connection was filmed on as I walked through Midwood, a neighborhood I’ve got a history with and have always enjoyed any reason to stop by. I love the walk, especially going past the Jewish cemetery with the mix of old gravestones and newer ones of mostly dead Soviet Jews who told their loved ones they wanted to make sure that they could terrify little children long after death with their ghostly images staring out into the living world from stone slabs.

Come for the schvitz talk, stay for the gravestones. That’s what I always say. But since you, my dear reader, would rather me get right to the sweating, I promise that’s all I’ll talk about in terms of the neighborhood itself after I leave this one point: get off the train a few stops away and walk to World Spa. Get to know a neighborhood you maybe haven’t explored.

And that’s it. Now I will tell you about how I saved the day this past Saturday by deciding to call ahead and make sure that walk-ins are truly OK like it says on the World Spa site. I’m glad I did because I—supposedly—got the last two available tickets for the day. I felt like a hero walking up to the enormous entrance that immediately signals to anybody that this isn’t some tiny operation: World Spa hopes to live up to its name by offering people that want to sweat a Disney World It's a Small World schvitztravaganza. This place is huge and it promises sweat adventures from all across the globe. It’s for the big menu crowd which, as noted, I am—in theory.

World Spa opened last month and was covered by a fair amount of local publications and talked up by people who I tend to notice really love to use publicist speak (sorry to all the publicists out there who have had their copy plagiarized by so-called journalists) and take a lot of free fancy trips. I got the feeling they were aiming to get comped for a day at this 50,000-square-foot behemoth. And, truth be told, I don’t blame them. A free schvitz is the best schvitz of all.

But the truth is that I was more than willing to pay the $115 bucks because, my friends, I want to give you my honest take on my schvitz experience and the truth was I walked up to World Spa incredibly skeptical. It sounded like they were trying to do way too much. If this was a restaurant, the menu would be roughly the size of one tablets Moses brought down from the mountain with the (“fifteen. Oy”) Ten Commandments written on them. Looking over the World Spa site and I was a little worried because there’s so much to pick from, but this is also New York City. A place that big that promises so much is, more often than not, disappointing. Real estate being what it is, people can’t really go huge without noticeably cutting a lot of corners. I felt like I was walking up to a trap and that worry started going off in my mind as I stood in the airport security-like line waiting to get checked in. I’m there to relax and there is nothing as stressful as feeling like I’m at JFK.

Once I told the person at the desk it was fine they didn’t provide flip-flops because I brought my own (always bring your own is my little tip) and they gave me my blue wristband that I was told could do everything from open up my locker to charge my drinks and food, I got bathing suited up and walked out upstairs to the main hall. I looked around and all my worries were dripping out of me within minutes. When in doubt and faced with too many choices at a place like World Spa which offers over a dozen rooms and pools to pick from, I go banya. I’m of Eastern European stock and I want to sweat like my ancestors did after a long week of worrying about what the Czar was going to do next or if their children would marry outside the faith. Midwood has a big Jewish population and is right down the street from the beloved-but-now-gone Russian favorite Sandoony USA. I enjoyed Sandoony USA. I love a place where you were likely to see multiple thief-in-law tattoos around you at all times and was honestly a little surprised I didn’t see a single one at World Spa. I was a little sad about it, honestly.

Right off the bat I’ll say the banya (I believe I was in the larger or “Grand” of the two but didn’t have my glasses on when I walked in and forgot to look at the sign) is the best banya I’ve been to in New York City. It’s gigantic. Big enough that people coming and going, opening and closing the doors, doesn’t really bring the heat down that much. But even if it did, the attendants are in there making sure they stay nice and humid. I took a quick cold shower, sat in the pool and then decided to try out the beautiful Moroccan hammam. The Turkish one is lovely and I tried it later, but after a serious schvitz, I wanted something a little more chill and the Moroccan was just what I wanted before another round in the banya.

After my second trip inside the Big Pine (that’s what I’m calling the banya at World Spa), I decided to forgo my normal cold shower or plunge and tried out the snow room, one of the amenities I’d heard a lot about and was curious to try. I’ve schvitzed and hot tubbed in the snow and it’s a rather enjoyable experience. But a room that pumps fake snow and cold air for people that don’t want the shock of a dip in an ice-cold pool? That sounded strange.

And it sort of was. Not really my thing. Maybe it’s because the place was small and packed with about five bodies standing in there—me and the four women ignoring the sign outside asking for no phone use inside—but I didn’t feel much of anything and I was standing there all wet with nothing but my bathing suit on. No big deal. I decided on one more quick schvitz before lunch, this time in one of the saunas. I went with the clay and hay, influenced by the Central American temazcal. I heard a few women complaining it wasn’t hot enough when I was walking in, but it was exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t sweating like crazy right away, but once I was, it felt damn nice. The best way I could describe it is you’re experiencing the mud bath version of one of those vodka vaporizers. There’s no actual mud, but there’s a feeling similar to it. The essence of the mud bath, basically.

So that’s a lot of words and it really doesn’t scratch the surface. Basically, World Spa is lovely. It’s large, it’s airy, and the people behind it haven’t skipped any expenses. It’s a whole lot of opulence in the middle of an otherwise grey stretch of Brooklyn that I personally love, but I don’t think a whole lot of people really have any reason to visit unless they’re shopping for kosher groceries or looking for a headstone. I went on what I have to guess is the busiest time of the week (Saturday afternoon) and while it was packed, I had lots of room. It didn’t feel cramped at all and I could find my way around with relative ease. It’s also lit incredibly well, something I find very important after years of wandering the dark and dank basement that is Russian & Turkish.

The price thing did get me a little. In hindsight, I would only go again if I schedule a treatment because over a hundred bucks for four hours feels a bit steep. I mean, I get it; if you want a nice, massive place that looks that nice and doesn’t make you feel like you’re in a cattle car then you’ve got to pay and you can’t be greedy. If you want to spend over four hours sweating then that’s on you. Weekdays are a little less expensive and you can stay all day if you’d like or getting a treatment gets you two free hours of schvitzing, that’s really the way to go. Just book in advance. I will say my one small complaint is that I sat down for a little snack and a martini in the middle of things and the service was a little all over the place and the ordering system was a little confusing. I would say I spent a solid 40 minutes waiting to get seated, waiting for a server and then waiting for my order. Obviously, the kinks are getting worked out, but in the case of World Spa, time is money—my money. I’m paying a lot of it to sweat, then I’m paying a little more to eat. It would be nice if maybe the time I’m sitting in the restaurant could be somehow not count towards sweating time but, again, I can do a lot with two and a half or three hours. It would have just been nice to not feel like I had to rush.

Besides that, I can’t really say enough good things about World Spa. For me, it’s a relatively easy trip by train, bike or even walking, and the fact that it’s less expensive on weekdays and I could just bum around there all day makes me think that I’ll be spending a few wasted Tuesdays or Thursdays there in the future and maybe, just maybe, that I may have found my new regular spot.