Brooklyn Boulders is a solid addition to the climbing scene in Boston, and it’s rapidly gained a following, especially for folks like me who live in Cambridge/Somerville and can just walk to the gym. It’s also part of a fast evolving extracurricular economy blossoming in Somerville. There is a growing centre of hipness in this neighborhood, with Artisan’s Asylum next door, Esh Circus Arts (check the Esh Circus Arts article) around the corner, and a new microbrewery that has opened up in the same block.

Indeed, we have to understand that Brooklyn Boulder’s choice to set up show in this specific street with these specific businesses is more than a little deliberate. They are part of a neighborhood that is defining itself with edgy makerspaces, cocktail bars and other markers of the hip American zeitgeist, and BKBS is doing their best to be more than just a rock gym, but be a place for the locals to gather. There’s counters and tables for people to linger, and wi-fi so that I could telecommute from here if I wanted to. Their events page is festooned with upcoming movies, parties and competition nights.

And, oh yeah, it’s a pretty decent rock gym, too. They have their options of top-roping or bouldering, and there are gym apparati like treadmills and weights, but it kind of fades into the background given everything else that’s occurring in the building, the neighborhood and the city around it.