Pickleball in New York Runs Until 2 AM Because Nobody Here Knows When to Stop

New York City Pickleball Took Over the Paramount Building

Pickleball in New York City has roughly forty venues across the five boroughs, a 37,000-square-foot flagship club inside the building where Paramount Studios once screened pictures, and at least one facility that stays open until 2 AM on a Tuesday. The sport arrived here the same way everything arrives here. Fast, loud, and with opinions about who has next.

CityPickle planted a court in the middle of Times Square in August and turned the New Year’s Eve Ball into a giant pickleball. Gotham Pickleball runs from 5 AM to 2 AM in Long Island City and is opening a second location before the year is out. PKLYN put five courts and an Alidoro sandwich counter inside a Gowanus warehouse with 23-foot ceilings and skylights. Pier 2 at Brooklyn Bridge Park has covered courts with the Manhattan skyline behind the baseline, free to anyone who shows up with a paddle and the patience to wait their turn.

None of this existed three years ago.

The Paramount Building Gets a New Act

CityPickle’s Times Square flagship opened in February 2026 inside the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, between 43rd and 44th. Seven courts on the eighth floor. Full-service bar and restaurant run by Kim Russen, whose résumé includes TAO Group. Private shower suites. Co-working phone booths. The Paramount Building originally housed Paramount Studios in 1926, and CityPickle leaned into the showbiz heritage, preserving exposed brick and the building’s rare column-free construction while adding dark green tones, leather, felt, and rift-cut oak.

It feels less like a recreation center and more like someone built a members’ club where the membership requirement is a decent third shot drop.

Only 120 memberships were offered in 2026. Open play runs $5. Clinics are $20. The two-minute walk from the Times Square-42nd Street station puts every subway line in the system within reach, which means the competitive pool draws from every borough. CityPickle was co-founded by Mary Cannon and Erica Desai, and they’ve been systematically claiming iconic New York real estate for pickleball since their first seasonal pop-up at Hudson Yards. Their Long Island City club was the city’s first indoor pickleball venue with a full restaurant and bar, one subway stop from Midtown on the 7 train.

Then came the Wollman Rink deal. CityPickle signed a 20-year agreement to operate Central Park’s iconic rink during non-ice-skating seasons. Fourteen courts. In Central Park. For the next two decades.

That’s not a pop-up. That’s a real estate play disguised as a sport, which is the most New York sentence you can write about pickleball.

In late August, CityPicklePalooza took over Times Square Plaza for five days of free play, professional exhibitions from Major League Pickleball athletes, and brand activations from Prince, Rhone, and K-Swiss. One Times Square transformed its New Year’s Eve Ball into a giant pickleball for the event. The image of a pickleball where the ball drop happens on New Year’s Eve is the kind of thing that only makes sense in a city that takes everything exactly one step too far.

Gotham Pickleball Doesn’t Believe in Closing Time

Gotham Pickleball runs from 5 AM to 2 AM, seven days a week, at 5-25 46th Avenue in Long Island City. Twenty-one hours of daily court time.

The bagel shops close before Gotham does.

The original location opened in December 2024 with four courts and an 8,000-square-foot facility. It reached capacity almost immediately. The courts are Laykold Cushion Plus surfaces, tournament-grade, and the entire club is autonomous. You book through the app. You unlock the door through the app. You can record highlight replays without staff present. The place runs like a self-service bodega for competitive pickleball at hours when the rest of the city’s courts are dark. Non-members pay $80 an hour off-peak or $110 during prime time. Open play sessions are $40 per person. Clinics follow a curriculum developed by the Racket Professional Organization, founded by Collin Johns.

The expansion tells you everything about NYC demand. Gotham signed a 10-year lease for 26,000 square feet at 52-37 Second Street, still in Long Island City, near the Hunters Point Ferry terminal and the Vernon Boulevard station on the 7 train. Six indoor courts, two outdoor courts, and flexible event space. The outdoor courtyard was what caught founder Goldberg’s attention: outdoor courts in a city where finding outdoor pickleball space is a blood sport of its own. The second location is opening this fall.

NYC Pickleball, the grassroots community organization, runs league play at Gotham’s Hunters Point location across every skill level, from beginner sessions on Saturdays, 3.0 to 3.5 rounds on Sundays, and a Monday night league that draws players from all five boroughs. The league structure isn’t a nice-to-have in New York. It’s the connective tissue. Without organized play to sort skill levels, open play in a city this competitive turns into a situation that requires its own vocabulary.

From Brooklyn Bridge Park to Roy Wilkins in Queens

The Brooklyn pickleball story starts at Pier 2 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where a group of players during the pandemic brought their own nets, their own tape, and their own intensity to the handball courts. That crew grew into the thousands. One of them, David Friedman, decided Brooklyn needed a real facility and built PKLYN.

It opened in Gowanus in late 2024. Five professional indoor courts plus a dedicated dink court inside an 18,000-square-foot warehouse at 80 4th Street, right off the F/G at Carroll Street. The ceilings are 23 feet. The walls are purple. The court surface is asphalt, chosen for optimal bounce and visibility. A central mezzanine with glass guardrails gives you a 270-degree view of all five courts from above. Below, there’s a full bar pouring Threes Brewing on tap and Social Hour cocktails. Alidoro supplies the sandwiches from their SoHo shop. Court reservations are $110 an hour for non-members.

Pier 2 itself still runs. Four covered, lighted courts with the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge overhead, arguably the most scenic pickleball courts in the country. They’re also the only ones where you can borrow a paddle from a roller rink. Play is free, first-come first-served. When courts are full, you stack your paddle in a single line, left to right, and wait. Games run to 11, win by 1. The etiquette is self-enforced because this is New York and nobody is paying a referee to manage a free court at a pier.

CityPickle’s Dumbo location is the next chapter. An 11-court complex at Anchorage Plaza underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, on a site that was closed to the public for 15 years. Sixty thousand square feet. Cabanas adjacent to the courts. Food trucks. The site will operate seasonally, March through November, with pedestrian amenities available year-round. CityPickle won the contract through a request for proposals from NYC Parks in 2024 and broke ground on a three-year license agreement with options for extension. The Brooklyn Bridge location is listed as opening summer 2026.

Where can I play free pickleball in New York?

Free pickleball in New York City is available at several locations across the boroughs. Hudson Yards offers free CityPickle courts with free paddle rentals and free pro-led lessons at 10 Hudson Yards, walk-up, no reservation needed. Pier 2 at Brooklyn Bridge Park has four free covered courts, first-come first-served. Roy Wilkins Park in St. Albans, Queens has public courts. Dean Street Playground in Prospect Heights hosts a growing community. Staten Island has three outdoor courts.

The NYC Pickleball community organization tracks every court in every borough, sorts pickup games by skill level through the TeamReach app, and functions as the grassroots guide for anyone trying to find a game that doesn’t require a membership or a reservation two weeks out. The range tells the whole story of New York pickleball. A 37,000-square-foot flagship in a Paramount Studios building and a free covered court at a Brooklyn pier, existing in the same city at the same time. The sport scales up and down to meet the city.

Why It Feels Like a Martin Scorpickle Film

Pickleball in New York inherited the same DNA that runs pickup basketball in this city. The courts are contested. The wait lists have politics. Someone always has something to say about your backhand, your serve, your choice to dink when you could have driven it, and whether that ball was actually in. The trash talk at open play sessions across Manhattan and Queens has the specificity and conviction of people who have been arguing about sports in this city for generations. It’s not mean. It’s theater.

CityPicklePalooza drawing crowds to a court set up between Broadway theaters and Midtown billboards makes a particular kind of sense when you think about it. Pickleball in New York was always going to become a show. The players are the cast. The courts are the set. Everyone in the city who’s ever waited 45 minutes for a paddle sport with a crowd watching knows the feeling of finally stepping onto that court with something to prove.

The Paramount Building used to premiere pictures. Now it hosts people who dink like their reputation depends on it. Take the paddle, leave the ball.

If someone at your open play session in Long Island City is wearing a VHS cover from a movie that never existed, starring characters named Vinny “The Pickle” D’Amico and Sal “The Bruise” Rizzo, don’t worry about it. They probably earned those names at a 6 AM Tuesday session at Gotham when nobody else was watching.