The BIPOC, Queer-Owned Pilates Studio Bringing Joy Back to Movement – Now Coming to NYC

Ken Pilates, the Hoboken movement studio founded by dancer and Pilates instructor Kennyth Montes de Oca, will open its first New York City location at 541 Sixth Avenue, at the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue. Preview classes are projected to begin in September 2026, with a grand opening and full teaching schedule to follow this fall.

The New York facility is the third location for Ken Pilates, which operates two studios in Hoboken, New Jersey. It marks the company’s entry into the Manhattan market six years after Montes de Oca began teaching one-on-one sessions out of a spare bedroom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

From a Spare Bedroom to Two Studios

Kennyth Montes de Oca was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He arrived in the United States at 16, settling with his family in Union City, New Jersey, without speaking English. He found his way in through the arts: at Union City High School, dance and performance became both a language and a discipline.

That path led to Rutgers University, where he earned a BFA in dance and choreography from the Mason Gross School of the Arts. While still an undergraduate, he completed his comprehensive Pilates certification through Polestar Pilates, and began taking clients referred by physical therapists. Mornings were spent in ballet class; afternoons were spent learning rehabilitation, contraindications, and how to adapt the Pilates repertoire for bodies that did not move like a dancer’s. That combination (performance training on one side, clinical work on the other) became the foundation of the method he teaches today.

After graduating, Montes de Oca took that background into New York City, teaching across the city’s most established boutique studios and for large-scale fitness operators. He built a reputation as an instructor who could hold a full group room and a rehabilitative private session with equal precision.

Then, in March 2020, all of it stopped at once. Dance, performance, and group fitness were among the first sectors shut down by social distancing restrictions, and Montes de Oca lost every stream of work simultaneously. He moved to Hoboken, found a two-bedroom apartment at a reasonable rate, and turned the second bedroom into a private reformer studio.

What began as a way to keep working became something else. Alongside one-on-one sessions, he began teaching over Zoom and on Instagram Live, at times reaching hundreds of people in a single class, people who had lost their studios, their gyms, and their routines.

Demand outgrew the apartment. The second bedroom became a first brick-and-mortar studio on Grand Street in Hoboken, where Montes de Oca and co-founder Matthew Cunningham added mat classes alongside privates. The turning point came when they introduced Springboards: wall-mounted spring apparatus that supports a full group class in a small footprint. The format took hold quickly, and Ken Pilates became Hoboken’s first dedicated Springboard studio.

The community that formed around it grew organically, and deliberately reflected its owners. As a Black, LGBTQ+, and Latinx-owned business, Ken Pilates has kept identity at the front of the operation rather than in a footnote: in who it hires, the music in the room, and the programming it produces. The studio has hosted queer comedy nights, inviting rising New York comedians to perform sets in front of the Springboards, and Bachata nights led by recognized social dance instructors.

“For us, community is part of the method,” said Montes de Oca, Founder and CEO of Ken Pilates. “People come back because they feel like the room was built with them in mind, not adjusted to accommodate them.”

In 2024, the company opened a larger second Hoboken location on Washington Street, a 15-station Springboard studio designed from the ground up around that point of view. Ken Pilates now reports more than 20,000 five-star reviews across its locations and a membership base its founders describe as diverse for the category.

Inside the New York Facility

The Sixth Avenue location is the fullest expression of the company’s method to date, and its founders are deliberate about not calling it a studio. It is a facility: three distinct movement spaces plus full amenities, sitting at a transit-dense corner within walking distance of Greenwich Village, the West Village, Union Square, Flatiron, and Meatpacking.

The infrared heated mat room. Ken Pilates treats heat as equipment. The mat room is fitted with 12 infrared panels and can run well above 100 degrees, building on the mat work the studio’s Hoboken members know while adding a recovery-oriented, sweat-forward dimension. The design brief for the space was escape, a room that removes you from Sixth Avenue entirely, and the programming brings the vibrancy of queer Latin culture into it, from the playlists to the energy of the class. Mats are set up before members arrive and cleaned after they leave, part of a concierge-level service standard the company is applying throughout the facility.

The Tower room. The Pilates Tower remains a niche apparatus in the American market, and Ken Pilates has built an entire curriculum and methodology around it. The programming moves beyond the classical repertoire, integrating strength training, yoga, circular and spiraling movement work, and other somatic practices into a well-rounded experience. Sculpt classes emphasize precision, care, and attention to detail; Strength classes are built to make members sweat. Each Tower station has its own dumbbell rack with weights from five to 30 pounds, so members can load the work to where they actually are. The room is airy and open and capped at 16 participants, positioned as the facility’s higher-tier offering precisely because fewer bodies in the room means more attention per person.

The private studio. The private space is staffed by a team of master instructors experienced across populations: rehabilitative and post-injury work, pre- and postnatal training, adaptive work for clients with disabilities, and members who simply prefer to train privately. Two reformer-Cadillac combination units allow for duets as well as one-on-one sessions, and the room is equipped for the full spectrum of Pilates apparatus: Cadillac, reformer, chair, tower, mat, and props.

Beyond the movement spaces, the facility includes bathrooms, showers, a locker room, and a getting-ready nook, along with retail merchandise. A FloWater Refill Station dispenses chilled, purified alkaline water with restored electrolytes and a coconut carbon finish, so members can refill their own bottles instead of buying plastic ones.

Founding Memberships Now Available

Ken Pilates is currently offering a limited run of 40 founding memberships for the New York location, capped to keep the founding group small.

Three tiers are available: All Access 8 at $295 per month, All Access 12 at $415 per month, and All Access Unlimited, with one class per day, at $495 per month. All tiers include access to both the heated mat room and the Tower room, one guest pass per month, one complimentary private session with Montes de Oca, access to preview classes ahead of the public opening, and a six-hour cancellation window rather than the standard 12. Founding rates are locked for as long as the membership remains active.

Founding memberships are available at kenpilates.com/nyc/become-founding-membership.