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| Exercise and business groups meet at the Lenox Hill Senior Center, where older people are not ready to retire. |
There was the matter of bingo.
Fredericka Mabon did not really want to have bingo at the Lenox Hill Senior Center at St. Peter's Church in Manhattan. No knock on bingo, but elderly people hunched over bingo cards brought to her mind an uninviting image of old age. The game fed a stubborn stereotype of senior centers.
People who came to the Lenox Hill center said they did not want bingo, either. But Ms. Mabon, the director, wanted to see if they meant it. So she got a bingo cage. Set up a game. One woman played. She won everything.
The marketplace spoke. That was the first and last bingo game. These were Ms. Mabon's kind of people.
The elderly who patronize the center, which opened a year and a half ago inside St. Peter's, at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, view old age more robustly than past generations. For instance, many of them don't care for the word "senior." To them, it hangs heavy with the symptomatology of frail, sedentary people. That's not them.
So even though the official name of the center has "senior" in it, they prefer to call it St. Peter's Place, a destination for the "new older adult."
"The new older adult is someone who still has something to contribute," said Ms. Mabon, a warm woman of 63, whom everyone calls Ricky. "Doesn't want to be seen as an anachronism. Still active. Still healthy. Well educated. Better off financially. A lot of these people never thought of themselves as going to a senior center. But when they came here, it didn't feel like a senior center."
The center bustles with vigor. The average age of members is about 70, compared with 77 for regulars at other centers throughout the city. There are many 60-year-olds.
Outlook as well as age defines the members. While some will gladly elaborate on their innumerable afflictions, most exercise restraint. They are upbeat. One day, the center had a doctor come to talk about cancer. No one attended. Who wanted to hear about that? Someone suggested setting up a bereavement group, but the members didn't want it.
Many old people no longer act or think like old people. So a concern for senior centers is how to make themselves relevant to the "younger" elderly while continuing to serve the "older" elderly, who are themselves rapidly enlarging in number. Centers now attract people from 60 to more than 100.
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| Mary Lou Russell, a member of the senior center at St. Peter's Church, participated recently in an exercise class for youthful older people. |
Edwin Mendez-Santiago, the city's commissioner of the Department for the Aging, which finances and advises centers for the elderly, said directors are trying to wrap their imaginations around this challenge by experimenting with their program blends — offering things like yoga, meditation, Shakespeare classes. Some serve occasional cold meals and salads for the younger elderly who are mindful of their diets.
Mr. Mendez-Santiago mentioned that the United Hindu Cultural Council Senior Center, a new center in South Ozone Park, Queens, catering largely to the Indian population, is the first in the city to serve all-vegetarian meals. He said the department has urged centers to start walking clubs for more active members.
"Senior centers are much more than a place for bingo," he said. "That's what we're trying to promote."
But the effort to embrace a broader mix of people and activities is complicated by constricting budgets — an age boom colliding at considerable velocity with an economic bust. Many centers could use spiffier and larger spaces, more programs, more staff, more everything.
Being new, St. Peter's Place occupies an airy, well-kept expanse on the plaza level of the church. The center is a joint enterprise of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, St. Peter's and United Neighbors of East Midtown. In the late morning of a chilly day, it vibrated with activity.
Centers for the elderly are often a refuge from loneliness and despair, the contagions of old age. Mary Bates, 75, wandered past with a blissful smile. She began coming in April. "I was going through a little state of depression," she said. "A close traveling companion passed away, and I was left adrift."
Someone told her about St. Peter's Place. "I envisioned it as a sort of soup kitchen with Oliver coming around asking: `More? More?' " she said. "It's nothing like that. It's like a picnic."
She likes to have the lunch, and does an exercise class twice a week. She is a notary public, and on Friday she offers members of the center her services. The only remuneration expected is a thank you.
Carmela Zein, 67, was reading the paper. She walks to the center from nearby. She used to sell cars on Long Island. Her husband died last year, and she sold the house in East Moriches and moved to Manhattan. Her daughter and son-in-law insisted she get out and connect with a senior center. She chose St. Peter's because of its vitality.
"Selling cars, I'm used to an interactive, active environment," she said. "I'm not ready to just sit."
Lunch was sausage and peppers. People sat at tables of six. No saving seats — that way people mixed more.
Richard Rowe, 70, who was dressed smartly in a tie, said: "This is a cheery place. It's not a warehouse."
Anna Caruso, 73, said: "It's a very friendly place. You get to know everyone."
Mr. Rowe added, "We emphasize sharing thoughts and not kvetching."
He shared some information about his mother, who died at 94. "She was a recluse," he said. "Her idea of a good time was to sauté mushrooms at midnight with a brandy and watch `Dracula.' "
A tablemate said, "No kidding, `Dracula'?"
Mr. Rowe continued: "My motto is `Life is not a dress rehearsal.' I go out dancing as much as possible. I think seniors should just get out and not be intimidated by youth. You should just go out and have fun at your pace and not worry about what you're doing incorrectly."
Ms. Caruso said: "I do meditation. Does me wonders."
Ms. Mabon, the director, said: "In running the center, I try to think about how I would like to be treated. And I do identify with some of the members. I've noticed how your knees get a little stiffer. You lose family. And in the back of everyone's head is, `How valuable will I be?' That's a real existential question: what is life after the working life? What do you do with yourself?"
The arts and crafts group was making ornaments.
Bibi Gajraj, 71, comes from Elmhurst, Queens, to participate. She tried a center near her but didn't care for it. "They were interested in cards," she said. "Many were invalids. They seemed older."
Doris Diez, 78, who commutes to the center from the Upper West Side, said: "This is a center where I don't feel 78. I feel 16. The people who go to some of the other places come in with their backs crooked and grumble, grumble, grumble this and grumble, grumble, grumble that, and `Who opened the window?' Here we laugh."
Another day. The Seniors Resourcing Solutions group was holding its weekly session. In essence, it is a business group for members not ready for full retirement from work.
Around the table, members spoke in turn about their activities. A woman was crocheting handbags. Someone else was doing part-time work at H & R Block. A man stressed, "I'm not retired or semi-retired, I'm working." He was doing word-processing, graphic design and bookkeeping for small businesses. Molly Blayney, the chairwoman of the group, said she was a writer and editor and was hunting for a new project.
A member mentioned that someone had noted that he was 65, and he wanted to point out that he actually would not be 65 for another 20 minutes.
There was discussion about a flier advertising the group. Some members didn't like a graphic that depicted an elderly man and a not-so-elderly woman.
"She looks about 40."
"She looks about 12."
"Why don't we show that we're reasonably attractive people at 60?"
"I have a picture of Grandma Moses you could use."
There was discussion of a good idea that Julian White had had. He learned that a bank was paying a $20 bonus for new accounts opened by seniors: $10 to the applicant and $10 to the person who recommended the bank. Mr. White told the group to identify him as the person who had referred them and he would contribute his $10 bonuses to the group.
A member mentioned a friend, a jazz pianist who wanted to talk to the group. He was interested in advice to help revive his career.
Someone said: "I've got connections in the music field. I was just on the radio with Joe Franklin, and I could get him on Joe Franklin."
At the other end of the center, Gloria Jaeger, 74, was bouncing around. She is a regular.
"I'm here almost every day," she said. "There's an atmosphere that makes me feel young, even though I'm 74. My feeling is I'm going back to school, and I was a happy student."
She rarely misses lunch. "It's so hard to cook for one," she said. "If I make a beef stew, I have to eat it for a month. Who wants to eat beef stew for a month?"
The Stretch n' Strengthen group was well into its paces. The class is mostly for those not limber enough for the yoga group, which has members who can still stand on their heads. A tai chi group meets on another day.
"Hands on the table," the leader said. "Now step back as far as you can go and stretch. Bend down at the waist. Keep bending as far as you can. Keep bending. And relax."
In the back room, French lessons were in progress. This was fun French. No grammar. Just words to use. Today, parts of the body: "la bouche," "l'oeil," "le bras."
Most of the students were learning because it was enjoyable and they found the language beautiful. Or they were still dreaming. One woman said she planned to win the lottery and buy a house in France, adding, "You're never too old for that."
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