The Senior Games Cruises Through Its Infancy

Wednesday night at the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club in Gowanus, Brooklyn, was fairly typical: You had a burlesque DJ, a Moroccan food truck, cocktails made with exotic gin and coconut water.

But earlier in the day, the NYC Parks Senior Games descended on the club for what it's nominally for: a shuffleboard tournament. 

This was the second year that the Senior Games, now in its third year, offered shuffleboard. 

"Last year was the first time we did it, you know," Ella Evans, a retired hospital worker who now competes for the Brownsville Recreation Center, told WNYC. "I learned that if you continue to practice on a regular basis, you become perfect. It’s a great game—exciting, rejuvenating, and it calms your stress. It makes you feel good."

Despite the venue—and the quasi-beer league theme running through some of the other events (cornhole, ping-pong, cards, bowling)—the bar was not open. The NYC Parks Senior Games is all about health.

"I also do Tai chi, I do martial arts, aerobics, cardio, everything," Evans told us. "That's how you're going to stay healthy. As you age in place, you gotta stay busy." 

"I play a little pickleball, but shuffleboard is my favorite," says Veronica Davis, 75, of Brownsville, Brooklyn.

(Jennifer Hsu/WNYC)