Gym With Sauna Above Penn Station: Life Time PENN 1

Life Time PENN 1, at 235 West 33rd Street, sits directly above Penn Station and pairs a full athletic club with an infrared sauna lounge. Adult memberships start at $348 a month with no annual contract, and the club is open from 5am to midnight Monday through Friday. For anyone hunting a gym with sauna access between a commuter train and the office, few Manhattan clubs are this close to the platform.

Life Time opened PENN 1 in August 2023 inside the office tower that wraps the station, a club of about 54,000 square feet according to Life Time's own blog. The second phase came on April 15, 2024, when seven indoor pickleball courts opened and the company promoted it as the largest indoor pickleball destination in New York City. That mix explains the crowd. You will see suited commuters, league pickleball players with paddle bags, and trainers running clients through the strength floor at lunch.

The building context matters for how you use it. You can walk off a Long Island Rail Road or New Jersey Transit train, change, sweat, and still be on a desk in Midtown within the hour. Life Time positions the club as an athletic country club, so the price is higher than a neighborhood box gym. In return you get attendants in the locker rooms, towel service and a recovery area that is not an afterthought.

The official amenities list names a Revitalize Infrared Sauna, along with a lounge and social sitting areas, complimentary wifi, a juice bar and a bar with alcohol service. The club FAQ states it plainly as well: PENN 1 offers pickleball courts and a sauna alongside its studios and recovery spaces. Infrared heats the body more gently than a classic Finnish room, so most people can stay in longer without the sharp, breath-catching heat of a dry rock sauna.

Life Time's blog also describes an LT Recovery area with Hyperice tools, Normatec compression boots and CryoLounge+ chairs. A sensible routine after a heavy leg day is fifteen to twenty minutes in the infrared room, a long shower, and then the compression boots while you rehydrate. If you prefer high-heat Finnish sessions above 180 degrees, skip this club and look at a traditional dry sauna, because PENN 1 is built around infrared.

The amenities page lists private showers in the adult locker rooms, toiletries, hair dryers, keyless lockers, a locker room attendant and towel service. In practice that means you can arrive with only your training clothes and leave with the same bag. Keyless lockers help on mornings when you are juggling a laptop bag and a coffee. Bring your own flip-flops anyway, since the floors near the sauna get busy at the 7am rush.

The signature class lineup on the official page includes Alpha, ULTRA FIT, GTX, MB360 and CTR, which are Life Time's own small-group strength and conditioning formats. If you are new, the floor staff will usually point you to an Alpha session first, because it is coached and scaled. Pickleball courts are booked through the member app, and evening slots go quickly once leagues start.

Life Time PENN 1 does not publish a public day pass price. The official route for a visitor is either a free tour of the club or a member's guest pass. Members receive four complimentary guest passes per month, the member has to be present at check-in and accompany the guest, and each guest can use a pass once every 60 days. Guests must show a valid government-issued photo ID at the front desk.

Guest access runs on a shorter window than member access. Guests are welcome from 7am to 8pm Monday through Friday and from 8am to 6pm on weekends. Anyone under 18 needs a supervising adult and a parental agreement on file. If you only want one sauna session and have no member friend, a tour will show you the room, but it will not get you a sweat.

Adult membership starts at $348 per month, and every plan is month to month with no long-term commitment. That number sits at the top of the Manhattan market, so the honest test is how often you will use more than the weights. If you play pickleball weekly, use the sauna three or four times a week and like the attended locker rooms, the price starts to make sense against separate court fees and a sauna studio.

If all you want is a hot room after a run, a YMCA branch with a sauna will cost far less per month. PENN 1 earns its fee for commuters who value being steps from the train and for players who want indoor courts all winter.

Club hours are 5am to midnight Monday through Friday and 6am to 11pm on Saturday and Sunday. The commuter peaks are easy to predict. Expect a crowd from 6:30am to 9am and again from 5pm to 7:30pm, when trains empty into the building. Late evenings after 9pm are the calmest time for the sauna, and Sunday mornings are quiet until the pickleball leagues warm up.

Madison Square Garden sits right on top of the station complex, so on game nights the surrounding sidewalks fill quickly after 6pm. Leave twenty minutes early if you are heading to an event, or stay put and let the crowd pass. A short walk east brings you to Macy's Herald Square and the pedestrian plazas along Broadway, which are a decent place to cool down after a long sauna session.

For a slower reset, walk west toward Hudson Yards and the High Line, which you can join near 34th Street and follow south above the streets. It is a fifteen-minute stroll that turns a lunch workout into a proper break. On rainy days the underground passages of Penn Station keep you dry between the club and the trains.

Address: 235 West 33rd Street, New York, NY 10119. Club hours: Monday to Friday 5am to midnight, Saturday and Sunday 6am to 11pm. Membership from $348 per month, month to month. No public day pass, so plan on a free tour or a member guest pass with photo ID. The nearest trains are the 1, 2 and 3 and the A, C and E at 34th Street–Penn Station.

Use the Karpo APP to line up your workout with a train time, a lunch spot nearby or a game at the Garden, so the sauna becomes part of a planned day rather than an afterthought.