Next-Wave Sensory Deprivation Floats Slightly Claustrophobic Correspondent’s Boat
It’s a stormy morning when I enter the Carroll Gardens brownstone that houses Lift/Next Level Floats, but you’d never know it from the inside. The atmosphere is tranquil: fluffy white pillows line the walls, like they would at any upscale Equinox gym, and a young, scruffy man scribbles in a moleskin notebook and sips chamomile in the lounge after an hour-long “float session” in a sensory deprivation tank, of which Lift houses five.
David Leventhal, the sotto-voiced co-owner of Lift, is apparently on good enough terms with his young customer that when the hipster pauses to pay on the way out, the former lawyer waves him away. “Get us back next time,” Mr. Leventhal tells him. This isn’t mere generosity: for the burgeoning movement—or removement—of private floating relies on word-of-mouth and repeat business. Mr. Leventhal, who began floating in his college days in the late ’80s, believes that most clients will (and should) be back.
