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CARACAS - Venezuela has discovered a new tool to combat rampant street crime and gang warfare: a vertical gym.
A four-storey steel-and-glass sports complex with a roof-top football pitch has been credited with slashing crime rates by almost a third in a tough neighbourhood of the capital. Since it opened in 2004, the gym has been inundated with local youths who are given free membership. Municipal statistics state muggings, killings and other crimes in the vicinity have tumbled 30 per cent.
A second vertical gym is to rise over a Caracas slum this year, and New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is considering building one on Governors Island, off Manhattan's southern tip.
The idea for the vertical gym came when the municipal authorities wanted to build a US$1 million ($1.4 million) sports complex at Barrio La Cruz, a slum in Caracas, but found there was not enough space. A group of architects, civil engineers and planners from a local firm was commissioned to build upwards from a former football ground.
The result was a four-level, 2500sq m facility that looms over the warren of tin-roof dwellings. A series of ramps connects basketball courts, a dance studio, a weight-lifting room, a running track, a rock-climbing wall and an open-air football pitch.
Regular visitor Gregorio Rondon, 13, said . "Thanks to this place this barrio is much better than the rest of Caracas".
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