In a few hours Meadow Mill Athletic Club will close its doors.
It has been a great run. The landmark club in Baltimore opened on 2 November 1992 and it closes today 30 July 2021. That is 10,497 days (or exactly fifteen hundred weeks) of squash.
Fourteen singles courts, two doubles courts and everything else you’d need: spinning, yoga, child-care. For a long, long time it was proof that a giant squash commercial club could survive and thrive. I did a story on Meadow Mill for their twenty-fifty anniversary nearly four years ago:
In the last week, there has been many gatherings and a Close the House party; and today the courts are booked solid, especially the doubles courts which were perhaps the heart of the club.
“There’s not a big financial return for a squash-centric club like Meadow Mill,” said founder and owner Nancy Cushman, “but there’s a great return in every other way. I will miss all the friendships, the conversations after a match. Seeing all the kids learn the game, all the success with SquashWise. It is the people: that has been the best part. And with the opening of the Arlen Specter US Squash Center in Philadelphia the same exact month we close, there is a real passing of the torch for large public squash clubs in America.”
Cushman, an inveterate leader and builder, is now looking for a place in Baltimore to put up a doubles court. One door closes and perhaps another door opens.