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City sports halls offer facilities for Jakartans
Wide space in crammed city: Teenagers play badminton at the Kemakmuran Sports Hall, Gambir, Central Jakarta, Thursday
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span class="inline inline-center">Wide space in crammed city: Teenagers play badminton at the Kemakmuran Sports Hall, Gambir, Central Jakarta, Thursday. Opened in July last year, the facility is also equipped with pool tables, a gymnasium and a boxing ring. JP/Indra Budiari
While technology has afforded a more sedentary lifestyle to urban residents, Jakartans in general love sports and the always-packed sports halls across the city are testament to the passion.
Besides the well-known Senayan Sports Complex in Central and South Jakarta, the capital has dozens of sports halls (GOR) managed by the Jakarta Youth and Sports Agency. The newest hall is GOR Ciracas in East Jakarta.
One center is GOR Kemakmuran in Gambir, Central Jakarta. Located on Jl. KH Hasyim Ashari, not far from Transjakarta's Harmoni shelter, the sports hall boasts several facilities.
'We have three badminton courts, a gymnasium, billiard facilities and also a boxing ring on the second floor,' H. Ishak, the hall's caretaker, told The Jakarta Post.
Ishak said most of the patrons of the hall were workers who spent after-office hours at the hall.
The hall's favorite facility is its badminton courts, which are also used by students of nearby schools for extracurricular sessions.
Ishak said to cater to the many patrons of the hall, GOR Kemakmuran was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
However, he said not many people knew the hall had a boxing ring that could also be used for other martial arts. 'There are only one or two groups that rent the ring in a month.'
Ishak said the fee for renting the badminton courts, for example, was Rp 40,000 (US$3.12) for two hours. To rent the boxing ring, patrons must pay Rp 60,000 for two hours.
Three kilometers away from GOR Kemakmuran, the city administration also has Gelanggang Remaja Grogol in West Jakarta, which is a sports hall-cum-youth center.
Built on 5,000 square meters of land, the Grogol center was inaugurated in 1973 by then Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin. The center has basketball courts, badminton courts, volleyball courts, a martial arts dojo, an outdoor climbing wall and an assembly hall.
GOR Grogol caretaker Hasanuddin said the hall opened seven days a week and added that basketball courts were the favorite at the facility, with people wait-listed during weekends and after-office hours. The basketball courts are rented for Rp 80,000 for two hours.
He said the basketball courts at the center were considered some of the best in the city and were sometimes used for competitions held by the Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi).
'However, during the mornings on weekdays we don't have a lot of patrons, so the staff take the opportunity to get some rest,' Hasanuddin said.
He said local people and university students occasionally rented the climbing wall, which is managed by the National Sports Council's (KONI) West Jakarta branch.
Less popular sports also have a home in Greater Jakarta.
The University of Indonesia (UI) in Depok, West Java, has a hockey field that is open to the public.
Firman Kurniawan, a recent UI graduate, said that he and his friends were active participants of extracurricular hockey when they were students and still liked to rent the field on weekends.
'It is considerably cheaper compared to the hockey field at Senayan. However, it has yet to meet international standards because it has grass pitches, while the international standard is carpet,' he said.
