On a Tuesday morning in late winter, before most of Allentown’s downtown has finished its first cup of coffee, the Parkettes gym on Union Boulevard is already loud with the thud of landings and the squeak of chalk-dusted grips on steel. The girls — some barely past six years old, some chasing college recruitment packages — have been rotating through bars, beam, and floor since just after seven.
The Parkettes have been producing elite gymnasts in Allentown since 1958, which puts them in a category that almost no gymnastics program in the country can claim. What started as a small club operation under founder Bill Coco has grown into one of the most consistently respected training programs in U.S. gymnastics — coaches here have developed national champions, Olympians, and World Championship team members across several decades. These aren’t idle credentials on a lobby wall. They’re reflected in the coaching staff’s fluency with technical detail that stops visitors mid-sentence during a tour.
The facility itself sits on Union Boulevard on the east side of the city, not far from Route 22. From outside, the building reads as a converted industrial space — which, essentially, it is. Inside, the floor opens into a working competition gym: spring floor, multiple beam setups at different heights, a pit filled with foam blocks for skill development, and a full apparatus arrangement that mirrors what gymnasts encounter at invitational and national meets. Observation areas are available during public events and some class sessions, though the daily elite and pre-elite training is closed to casual visitors by design. That’s not a slight — it’s how serious training programs protect their athletes’ concentration.
What’s accessible to the broader community is the recreational and competitive class structure. The Parkettes offer programming for children as young as three through a preschool gymnastics format, and the pathway continues upward through USAG-competitive levels for kids who want to pursue the sport more seriously. Tuition varies by program and hours, but recreational classes for younger children generally run in a range comparable to other structured youth activities in the Lehigh Valley — roughly $80 to $150 per month depending on frequency and level.
Several times each year, the gym hosts invitational meets that draw clubs from across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and beyond. These events are open to spectators and offer something genuinely worth seeing: the full range of competitive gymnastics in a single building, from Level 3 routines performed by nervous eight-year-olds to polished optional-level work that would be at home at any regional championship. The energy in the gym during a meet — parents pressed against railings, coaches conferring at the edge of the floor, scoresheets shuffling — is specific and absorbing in a way that even non-gymnastics families tend to find compelling.
The Parkettes occupy an unusual position in Allentown’s landscape. They’re not a tourist attraction, exactly, and they don’t try to be. But they represent something the city has quietly sustained for more than six decades: a world-class institution operating without fanfare on a working-class street, doing its work at a level most comparable programs simply can’t match. For parents exploring gymnastics options in the Lehigh Valley, the reputation carries real weight. For anyone curious about what sustained excellence looks like in a physical discipline, one of their open meets is an afternoon well spent.
