Nyc bathhouse gay
Everard Baths
History
The legendary Everard Baths, one of the longest permanent of New York’s bathhouses, attracted queer men probably since its opening in 1888, but, as documented, from at least World War I until its closing in 1986.
The building began as the Free Will Baptist Church in 1860. In 1882, it was converted into the New-York Horticultural Society’s Horticultural Hall. It became the Regent Tune Hall in 1886-87, then the Fifth Avenue Music Hall, financed by James Everard. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Everard (1829-1913) came to New York Capital as a young man, and eventually formed a masonry jobbing business that was successful in receiving a number of major city common works contracts. With his profits, he invested in genuine estate after 1875, and built up one the country’s largest brewing concerns. (He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.)
After the Music Hall was closed by the City over the sale of beer there, Everard decided to spare his investment by turning the facility into a commercial “Russian and Turkish” bathhouse, opened in May 1888 at a cost of $150,000. Lushly appointed and with a variety of
Debauchery (and a little detox) at an underground Brooklyn bathhouse rave
By Arielle Domb
It’s 1 a.m., and everyone is incredibly hot and nearly naked. The bathhouse has a faded majestic feel: tiled walls painted with an Edenic landscape, an assortment of erotic chiseled sculptures, an opal jacuzzi and an emerald plunge pool.
Glinting wet bodies are everywhere. Getting off on the red-light boogie floor. Getting it on in the water. Leaving steam rooms immersed in clouds of pearly vapor.
Guests begin their night in the Jacuzzi (Photo by Arielle Domb)
It could be a scene from a shiny ‘80s porno flick — gleaming torsos, G-strings, crotchless pants and a supercharged beat. It’s a sensorium of sweaty, sultry pleasure, somewhere between Berlin’s infamous nightclub Berghain and Ancient Greece.
This is Steamroom — a new Brooklyn bathhouse rave launched by Sam Liebling (who DJs as SEXAPPEAL) — and the latest sauna party to join New York’s underground scene, harking back to the city’s horny bathhouse heyday of the 1970s.
Following several (literally) steamy techno parties in Brooklyn locations — in a four story Bushwick warehouse and a Bed-Stuy block equipped with a hand-built sauna
The movement to revive the classic bathhouse spirit in the US started in San Francisco – in spite of, or perhaps because of, the evidence that bathhouses had not existed there since the city’s public health director notoriously ordered most of them to be closed in 1984, with the rest following suit thereafter. In 2004, DJ Bus Station John began decorating tiny, gritty dive exclude Aunt Charlie’s with senior bathhouse signs and pictures from vintage gay porn magazines for his weekly party, The Tubesteak Connection. He limited his song to the bathhouse era heyday, mainly 1974-1983, much of his vinyl inherited or sourced from same-sex attracted men who had died from AIDS. The designation “bathhouse disco” got attached to his style, and his parties now sketch visitors from around the globe. Along with queer London DJ quartet Horse Meat Disco, whose well-liked excavations of the disco sound brought a wave of old school charm to larger dancefloors, the bathhouse disco movement encouraged a wave of fledgling gay crews in cities across the US to embrace the pre-AIDS past.
While many of these “new queer underground” crews forego a purely bathhouse disco sound in favor of cutting-edge techno, classic and acid house, they uti
New St. Marks Baths
History
The St. Marks Baths opened c. 1915 to serve the local male immigrant population. By the 1950s, it served the immigrant collective by day and gay men by night. In the 1960s, it evolved into an exclusively gay bathhouse that was considered unclean and uninviting.
After the Everard Baths was temporarily closed in 1977 due to a fire, the St. Marks Baths began to draw some of its patrons, but remained rundown and was deemed more a liability than a profitable business. In 1979, entrepreneur and Off-Broadway theater founder Bruce Mailman (1939-1994) purchased the building, hoping to rotate around the bathhouse’s reputation and historic allure.
Mailman completely refurbished the interior into a sleek and stylish bathhouse. According to Mailman, the up-to-date design was meant to form patrons feel pleasant signing in under their legal call and not be embarrassed if encountering someone they knew. When it reopened in 1979, Mailman christened it “The New St. Marks Baths” and promoted it as the largest bathhouse in the country. It was open 24 hours a night, seven days a week