Four Amazing Massage Spots in NYC
This is my highly coveted and very dialed-in rotation of affordable places that I'm always telling friends about.
One of the most cherished emails in my Gmail inbox is from Jim Nelson, the former EIC of GQ, a bon vivant of the highest order and the dude who hired me in 2015. I was lucky enough to taste a few final crumbs from the golden age of magazine making, when budgets were mere suggestions. (Within two weeks of starting the job, I was asked if I had my passport because our retreat the following week was in Tulum lol.)
In 2019, after Will Welch took over as EIC and kicked off the era of New GQ, I fired off an email to Jim on a whim because I was getting married soon and our honeymoon was in Thailand—namely Bangkok, which was one of his favorite places in the world and somewhere he’d often disappear to for a long weekend.
Ordinarily, getting him to respond to anything over email in a timely manner was a tall order. I wasn’t expecting anything, really. But within 20 minutes of hitting send I received an extremely funny, highly-tailored-to-my-tastes ~1000 word narrative-slash-listicle that included phrases like “Chinatown’s new-wave bar scene” and “absurdly hidden natural wine bar that is worth the hunt; it’s one floor beneath Ku Bar, which you have to go through.” That email, to me, remains a magnificent digital relic that I hope to never accidentally delete when my Google Drive is full. (Jim, in the off chance you’re reading this, please know that your former employees all agree: a travel newsletter would be big money.)
But far and away the single best recommendation on his list? A massage at Asia Herb Association, which is, by an order of considerable magnitude, the best massage I’ve ever gotten. (It was only like $30, including tip, for two people.) The massage took place in this teak building out in the back of the main reception area. After changing, my wife and I were ushered into a cozy dark room where two extremely strong Thai women had us lay on floor mats. They then proceeded to rhythmically work us like pizza dough for 90 minutes straight. My bones were liquified. I felt like I had the hip flexibility of a newborn. At the end, we stumbled out into the mid-morning sun squinting like we were drunk.
That massage… it haunts me. And, in some ways, it set me off on a path of taking recovery seriously, of spending money I would’ve ordinarily spent on a round of High Lifes to instead have my muscles and ligaments tended to.
These days, I work out four to six days a week, and despite the violence of my chosen proclivity I’ve never had a serious injury. A small part of that is because being in my late 30s has forced me to take an extremely peasant-ish LeBron James/Tom Brady/Martha Stewart approach to recovery.
I see my weekly massage as maintenance, an investment, as softer, more pliant muscles don’t tear as easily as stiff rigid ones. And massages have somehow become a useful part of my process for big writing projects. On a reporting trip, once I finish all my interviews, I’ll often book a massage to let the source material gestate, to have some forced non-screentime that lets my mind wander through ideas around structure and what I actually want to say in a piece. (I got a good chunk of my Mark Hoppus story written in my head during a particularly bad massage at Wi Spa in LA’s Koreatown.)
Anyway, I think we should all be getting massages regularly! Here in New York, I’ve tried a ton of different places. Most are pretty good, a few are forgettable, and a small minority are just sad. (DM me and I’ll tell you about the semi-popular massage place in Fort Greene that is actually quite wack.) I’ve gotten the $400 massage at Shibui Spa at the Greenwich Hotel (amazing special occasion gift), but really, I’ve dialed in a regular rotation of affordable places that serve different needs. These are the small businesses that I’m always sending friends to.
And now dear HEAVIES reader I’m sharing them with you. (If you aren’t a paying subscriber go ahead and save this list somewhere because it’ll go behind a paywall after two weeks. OR… you could subscribe for the monthly cost of a single iced dirty chai latte and have access to this post and future posts like it forever.
Grand Nature
Cost: ~$72 for an hour (this figure includes a $12 tip)
What it’s like: GOATED. This place is not for the faint of heart. I forgot who originally recommended this place to me, but I was told that a lot of yoga people and ballet dancers go here. That said, Grand Nature is NOT somewhere you go to relax. The overhead lights are bright and fluorescent. There are no viby wood flute covers of My Heart Will Go On. In fact, the only sounds you hear at Grand Nature are the muffled screams and aghaghhhhhhhhhs of other clients getting tuned-the-fuck-up through the thin curtains. You go to Grand Nature to get your neck snapped off your shoulders but you walk out feeling like a totally new person. (Because of the intensity, I only go once a month because I’m a weak baby.)
I told the homie Delia Cai of Deez Links about this place and now she’s also evangelizing the Grand Nature gospel:
What sets Grand Nature apart from other places is it’s run by a bunch of brolic Chinatown grandpas who are so strong they can like bend softball bats with their hands and maybe even open a Rao’s jar on the first try.
Who to ask for: If you go, David is great but the main guy Charlie is who you really want. He’ll quickly feel out what he calls your “underlying scar tissue” and transform you into a bucket of goop.
145 Health Spa
Cost: $60 for an hour (this includes a $10 tip)
What it’s like: I started going here before the pandemic because a few competitors from my Muay Thai gym went there, and it is just consistently excellent. There was a woman who used to work there, Amy, whose build and haircut gave her a strong resemblance to Blanka, and she was maybe just as strong as him. Amy would just kind of casually manhandle you, treat you like an origami, until your internal organs were resettled in different places. She’s since moved back home to the Mainland but the good news is everyone at 145 is extremely good at their jobs.
Here’s what to ask for…
