In 1966, Face-o-Metrics were taught at Alexander’s department stores. (It was an era when department stores were still gathering places, vibrant agoras for more than just shopping.) These facial workouts were invented by one Jessica Krane, the “prophet of the basic woo and the ostrich,” as the paper described her. The basic woo, the article went on to say, is the shape your mouth makes “as if one were uttering a very intense woo” — go on, try it — and its practice, with variations, promised to erase lines around the mouth. The ostrich, designed to banish double chins and jowls, required leaning your head back as far as possible.

Another exercise was to obscure your age, if you were a woman older than 25. The article portrayed Ms. Krane’s own face as being wrinkle free, though it pointed out, rather nastily, that she did look as if she were over 25.

In 1969, The Times declared that exercise studios, particularly those run by a certain Russian émigré , had become as modish as restaurants. Women who were attuned to aspirational signifiers like the right hairdresser or, as the article said, “that little jewel of a manicurist” — these included a copywriter from Cosmopolitan, a filmmaker’s assistant and the wife of a television personality — were drawn to places like Alex & Walter on West 57th Street, where they might hang from rings like circus performers or real gymnasts.

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More populist was an establishment that cannily operated across the street from Macy’s, where fashion collided with reality on a daily basis. The trauma of the dressing-room mirror greatly benefited the Health Spa, as it was blandly named, which saw as many as 400 clients a day. “Hot pants, especially, have gotten us a lot of clients,” its proprietor said.