Can you hear the howls of horror? The gnashing of cosmetically-whitened teeth? That would be the noise emanating from Bauer Media headquarters in Sydney following the announcement Friday that the fabled Fifty Four Park St gym is set for closure.
An internal memo was despatched to all staff in the Tower of Bauer to inform them the owner of the gym, James Packer's Consolidated Press Holdings, had decided to shutter the glamorous fitness factory.
Word on the treadmill is that with all the recent upheaval at Bauer, memberships have been tough to maintain. Coupled with the proliferation of gyms in that part of the city, the economics of maintaining an inner-city gym - complete with indoor pool, steam rooms and a dedicated day spa and beauty salon - simply didn't add up anymore.
The closure comes only three months after the gym relaxed its exclusive Bauer-and-CPH-employees-only membership policy and threw open its doors to the public. So clearly that didn't work.
Just stop and think for a moment how many fashionista buttocks have been toned and magazine maven eyebrows have been sculpted in the subterranean gymnasium. Surely there's an argument for it to be heritage-listed? Can the National Trust not step in? Surely Ita Buttrose could petition someone.
The gym's closure comes at a time when staff morale at Bauer is on a similar downward trajectory to the circulation and ad sales of its once all-conquering print titles - and coincides with a visit to Australia of Yvonne Bauer herself.
Mrs B has been in town this week, casting her eye over her Aussie investment (or what's left of it). There was a suggestion late Friday that Bauer may try to take over the operation of the gym. Presumably because the only thing worse than a thinning stable of magazine employees is a stable of ever-widening ones.
