In a wacky real estate turn of events, the former New York Mercantile Exchange “pit” on the third floor of 300 Vesey, or One North End Avenue, is now a tennis facility — Hudson River Tennis Club — and has four courts and a gym, lounge and kitchen to come. It’s a 55,000-square-foot space, and while they could not fill me in on the lease arrangement, it looks pretty permanent.

M. caught sight of an announcement on Instagram this week and a couple days later they had a website up. It opened just days ago.

The business is owned by Kent Hospitality, the operators of The Racquet Lounge in Southampton, which also has pickleball and padel. That facility opened in 2023, and the company is now eying two more locations in Brooklyn for facilities that will be called Kings Athletic.

Right now the club is open to the public for fee-based play; it will likely move to a membership model eventually, said Noah Rubin, the company’s director of tennis. (The other locations are private only.)

Court fees range from $200 to $350 an hour, based on the time; clinics are $200 an hour per person; Noah’s fees(he’s been a pro player since freshman year in college) are $250/hr and other pros are $150/hr.

The trading floor is actually floors 3 and 4 — hence the crazy-high ceilings. The gym will be built out in a glassed-in mezzanine, which is part of the 4th floor. “It still has the essence of the exchange — it’s a really unique feel,” Noah said.

The Mercantile Exchange was acquired by CME Group in 2008, and I believe they still occupy the rest of the building. The exchange has been mostly electronic since 2006, but the NYMEX maintained a small venue, or “pit”, that still practiced the open outcry trading system, in which traders employed shouting and complex hand gestures on the physical trading floor. NYMEX closed the pit permanently at the end of trading  on December 30, 2016, all according to Wikipedia.

Hudson River Tennis Club
300 Vesey | North End Avenue just south of the Irish Hunger Memorial
info@hudsonrivertennisclub.com
212-931-4782
6a to 10p, seven days