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Pilates emigrated to the US in 1925 and lived there until his death 42 years later. He opened his New York studio at 939 Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen in 1926, in a building that also housed dance studios. This accident of geography shaped his entire career, since the studio’s proximity to dance spaces was why dancers discovered him; these celebrated practitioners included George Balanchine, Martha Graham and Jerome Robbins.
Stories of Pilates’s behavior are numerous. He reportedly ran and worked out on the Manhattan streets in winter dressed only in swimming trunks. He conducted his sessions with a cigar clamped firmly between his teeth; his studio was often so full of smoke that students had to open the windows.
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