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On
my first trip to Doug’s Gym in downtown Dallas, I climbed a sagging
wooden
staircase to find a rundown old gym with peeling paint, sagging tin
ceiling, and ancient
equipment. It was dilapidated to the point of beauty. I had avoided
gyms for most of my
life, but I joined this one for its themes of memory, loss, and
mortality, which have
preoccupied me in my photography.
Doug Eidd, eighty-seven years old at the time, owned and managed the
gym since it
opened in 1962. He worked ten-hour days, six days a week, running the
gym and
training members who sought out his considerable expertise. More often
than not, he
had a lit cigar in his hand or mouth. In his heyday he worked with
professional boxers
and bodybuilders, but in recent years, people of all backgrounds and
body shapes joined
the gym for its unpretentious atmosphere.
Doug was a character. He smoked cigars all day, but no one seemed to
mind the
perpetual smoky haze. For lunch he ate high protein low calorie food.
His favorite was
herring filets, which he ate with a jackknife, right out of the tin can.
Facing increased rent and declining health, Doug reluctantly closed the
gym on short
notice in the spring of 2018. It came as a shock to all of us, but we
knew it was
inevitable. I returned every day for several weeks as the gym was
dismantled and its
pieces hauled away. Doug also came to tie up loose ends and help pack
up. On the very
last day Doug, who had spent most of his life in this gym, turned out
the old fluorescent
lights and turned over the key to the landlord. I always knew Doug’s
Gym was a time
capsule waiting to be buried. The time had finally come.
Doug set up his equipment in his backyard, and his people still came and worked
out. He passed away on July 7th, 2024 from pancreatic cancer. He
was 93, and here is his obituary.
Brief video Norm Diamond made interviewing Doug at the opening of Norm's show
at Afterimage Gallery on February 28, 2020 (slightly before the pandemic).
Return to Norm Diamond's Doug's Gym: The Last of Its Kind
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