Legendary Bathhouses of New York City,

Legendary Bathhouses of New York City was part of a web effort launched in the summer of 2001 called The History of Gay Bathhouses, a work which did not develop naturally over the following decade, despite a plea from its web master, Eddie Coronado @ hotmail, who asked readers for "any interesting bathhouse stories or memorabilia." Both in its genesis and an unceremonious ending, when the plug was pulled on all its pages at the beginning of 2012, it evidences its design as a highly synthetic work product meant to influence the course of culture, or at least the backwash of history, at the dawning of the public internet age.

With a title that might as well sell Blackgama minks, Legendary Bathhouses wasn't the result of university trained historians, despite the prominent quote by George Chauncey, so we might assume its monetizing nut was its Links Page, an embarrassingly wan affair when first posted June 16, 2001, which by October 29, 2001 had dwindled to the near nadir of nothingness before giving up the ghost at the close of 2003. Great gay fortunes have made in such innocuous products as "Boy Butter," a personal lubricant, so Legendary Bathhouses should have been a consortium that steered traffic to the myriad of sites in the multi-billion-dollar porn industry. But the absence of signs of profit motive is only the first clue that something was seriously awry here.

With the help of archive.org I have traced the web presence of the pages from The History of Gay Bathhouses. A handful of significant images pertaining to the fire at Everard's Bathhouse in New York City on May 25, 1977 seem to have made their first appearance online here. For instance, the single and solitary image to be found on the web of the pre-fire facade of the Everard, constructed in 1920 and destroyed by derrick a day after the fire in 1977, appears in all the glory of a 5.94 KB thumbnail, with the following caption:

The Everard Turkish Baths, in a photograph taken in the 1930's. Since then, the building has been demolished. Now a popular flower mart stands in its place.

Mr. Coronado's dating of the "photograph taken in the 1930's," is the sort of untraceable, single-source authority that boggles the record of the fire, a fault compounded by his obliquely misdirected statement that "[s]ince then, the building has been demolished."



The page for Legendary Bathhouses of New York City was first captured off the web by archive.org on June 16, 2001, and concerned itself with both the Everard and its hardcore competitor in the official protection racket:  the "New Saint Marks Baths." (A second page, More New York Baths, appeared two months later, being first recorded online August 19, 2001, and featured a famous venue, the Continental Baths and an ethnic one for balance: the Mt. Morris Baths.)

That page's first outing contained only a 21-word sentence about the 1977 fire, part of a much broader themed paragraph:

Unfortunately, on May 25, 1977 a devastating four-alarm fire swept through the Everard complex, leaving nine men dead and many others severely injured. But that tragedy was relatively small compared to the larger tragedy which would force the closure of the Everard Baths in 1985: the AIDS epidemic.

It is small wonder that by the time of the page's second capture by archive.org on August 16, 2001, the significance of the 1977 fire was fleshed out with this addition:

Here is a personal write-up about the fire: "The fire occurred on May 25, 1977 there were 9 (nine) men killed and 12 injured. Accounts were published in the New York Times and the Daily News (a front page photo of a fireman saving a towel-clad patron was very moving). A sprinkler system had just been installed but was not yet operational. It was scheduled to be fully working on June 2. The windows were not all painted over. In fact, there was a small window on the second and third floors in the front overlooking the street. I remember crowding around the window one night watching torrential rains flood the streets. You could see the Empire State Building from that window. I have many fond memories of the Everard. I met my lover there in 1981 after it had been renovated. It finally closed for good in approximately 1985."

"This tragedy led NYC to enact a law that would not allow anyone to spend more then 12 hours at a time in a bathhouse (my how far we've come). Whether it's enforced these days I'm not sure, but you would get around that by checking out (usually physically) and checking back in again minutes later. This I'm sure was a bonanza for those places because depending on the day (or time of day) you would probably pay a rate increase. The building now houses a group of wholesale merchants."

Even at 47.5 KB, the additional image of a New York Daily News article remains illegible beyond the headlines. Posting it was not just a limited hangout, it was passive/aggressive to boot. The "front page [sic] photo of a fireman saving a towel-clad [sic] patron was very moving," only if one believes the fireman's job is to deliver the victim in front of a Daily News photographer's lens instead of to an ambulance. Both individuals are named, I believe, and their participation is due for a reappraisal (Likewise the two facially identifiable firemen. Where is Peter Duveen when I need him?)



A December 8, 2002 web capture shows the web master was staying au courant, no matter what I say, with the addition of this item:

Interestingly, a Fall 2002 eBay auction featured an original towel from the Everard Baths. The towel was auctioned off for $250, but it is my opinion that an original towel of this nature could have gotten much more money. These gems are rare, and they definitely deserve to be displayed at a gay museum someday. The following is an image of the the Everard Baths towel from 1953. (Sure wish I had it)

The prioritizing of what constitutes gay history would be sad if it wasn't so sickening, but at least we can read what's printed on the towel in the image size provided.

No other changes are noted in several web captures until January 10, 2004, when the Everard is found divorced from the New Saint Marks Baths, which was spun off to its own separate page (a.k.a. Legendary Bathhouses of New York #2). Suddenly appearing sui generis is a third piece of rare homosexual incunabula (not counting the towel): a photo of the cover of the special 15th issue of GaysWeek, addressing the Everard tragedy and costing a quarter (a factoid we can just barely make out.) What information the article contains inside (or as a queen might view it: Miss Information,) seems irreverent to the keepers of The History of Gay Bathhouses.


Another addition appeared on a April 9, 2004 web capture. It is a photograph along with the caption: The Everard Bath's facade in 2003. Although a doorway, however poorly photographed, does not a facade make, Eddie Coronado has remained vigilant about his dating of material. At 12.8 KB in digital size, it is slightly on the large side of the images provided.




Two years later, on a July 12, 2006 web capture, two 19th-century historical items appear together for the first time:



The well trodden lobby of the Everard Turkish Baths, taken from an advertising pamphlet circa 1880s.



A likeness of entrepreneur James Everard, taken from an advertising pamphlet circa 1880s.
It is an interesting question how such historical or archival material will make its way to the surface of a media outlets' remainder bin, let alone public consciousness. In an October 28, 2008, New York Times obituary, Herbert Mitchell, 83, Collector of Images, Is Dead, the Columbia University librarian and collector of rare ephemera was outed as the source for the following image.



The caption the Times' used: "The Everard Baths on 28th Street, where gay New Yorkers met," might imply Mitchell had some sugar in his tank, or was light in his loafers, but would that translate necessarily into his natural desire to preserve and disseminate the authentic history of an oppressed minority with whom he shared membership, or would his other memberships---say, for instance, any part he played in the ruling class, as symbolized by his career at an elite Ivy League institution like Columbia, trump his affectional desires? Quite frankly, I'd rather be a billionaire than a homosexual, and if someone told me I'd have to make the sacrifice for that result, I'd say Let's Roll! Bring It On!

To suddenly post to the web a rare pair of images from an "advertising pamphlet circa 1880s," is not in keeping with the intellectual integrity of the creators of Legendary Bathhouses of New York City, and to make that point I will use the following grammatical example from their Everard page:

A visitor to the Everard Baths in the mid 1970's wrote: "Everard in the West 20's was dark and run down, real seedy, like a skid row hotel. It had a huge, shadowy steam room with benches, and peeling paint on the walls and ceiling. The swimming pool was large and formally decorated like at one time it had been a gracious men's club or something grand from the turn of the century." (Robert, NYC)

Another patron wrote: "They called it the Old Dirty Foot. In my little coterie that's what we called the Everard because people smoked in that place and ashes were on the floor, and the management never swept the place. You could always tell someone had been to the Everard. They would have black scuz on the bottom of their feet...it took three days or so to get rid of it." (C.H., NYC)

The late author Arthur Bell had this to say about the Everard Baths: "Everard was a haven where I could stare at crotches in dimly lit hallways, wander the steam room, which smelled of sweat and Lysol, and screw with a cast of thousands, who, like the extras in Quo Vadis were faceless and nameless."

A visitor to the Everard Baths in the 1950's wrote this about the place: "...friends whispered about this black hole of Calcutta on West 28th Street, where steam hissed through leaky pipes and the fat, aged, and perverted indiscriminately banged each other. Everard's, they said, was Hades. But to me it was expediency."

"A visitor wrote..." "Another patron wrote..." "A visitor in the 1950s wrote..." Unnamed. Unverifiable. Unusual.

But "[t]he late author Arthur Bell had this to say..."

The Sept. 27, 1976 article Bell wrote for The Village Voice, The Bath Life Gets Respectability, was certainly not respectable to the standards of a middle class majority indoctrinated by pederastic priests and a political class that taught Hollywood everything it knows. (See the NSA Press Release dated July 17, 2002, National Security Agency Hires New Associate Director for Research, about Dr. Eric C. Haseltine, who was hired away from Walt Disney Imagineering, where he served as Executive Vice President for Research and Development. I'm less worried about the NSA sucking up my metadata than in their trying to foist another pixelated version of Aladdin reality, or George W. Pinocchio on the world.)

George Chauncey
June 10, 2001 [first web capture] Home Page, The History of Gay Bathhouses,
June 16, 2001 [first web capture] Legendary Bathhouses of New York City,
June 16, 2001 [first web capture] A History of the Baths,
June 16, 2001, [first web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay - Bathhouse History,
June 16, 2001 [first web capture] Links Page,
August 19, 2001 [first web capture] The Continental Baths - Mt. Morris Baths,

January 10, 2004 [The Everard given its own page, first web capture] Legendary Bathhouses of New York City,
January 12, 2004 [first web capture] The New Saint Marks Baths,
April 9, 2004, [first web capture with image of "The Everard Bath's facade in 2003"]

October 12, 2011 [last web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay Bathhouse History,
January 9, 2012 [last web capture] A History of the Baths,
January 18, 2012, [last web capture] The History of Gay Bath Houses,

January 26, 2012 [first web capture] A History of the Baths, [redirects now to GayTubs.com – Gay Bathhouses]
January 26, 2012 [first web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay Bathhouse History [redirects now to GayTubs.com – Gay Bathhouses]
April 16, 2013 [first web capture] The History of Gay Bath Houses renamed GayTubs.com -- Gay Bathhouses,

Web Master
Eddie Coronado,
EDDIECORONADO@HOTMAIL.COM
_________________________________________________________________________________

June 16, 2001 [first web archive capture] Legendary Bathhouses of New York City,

"The safest, most enduring, and one of the most affirmative of the settings in which gay men gathered in the first half of the twentieth century was the baths..." George Chauncey

Gay bathhouses have operated in New York City since the beginning of the twentieth century. While there is scant evidence to suggest that gay men "cruised" the city's municipal baths (which were established to "encourage cleanliness in the tenement districts,") it is certain that homosexual encounters took place in the private, more upscale Turkish and Roman bathhouses found in Manhattan. By the height of the Roaring Twenties, there were nearly sixty of these bathhouses in the city. Some of these facilities were located in the basements of hotels, and others had their own, lavishly decorated buildings, such as the famous Everard Turkish Baths, then considered one of the classiest bathhouses in New York City. Although the sexual activity in these early bathhouses was relatively discreet, there were various legal, military and newspaper accounts written at the time, documenting that a number of locations throughout the United States had become popular rendezvous for "fairies," "queers," and "perverts." To add fuel to the fire, publications of the day, such as the New York scandal sheet "Brevities," printed venomous articles about the gay bathhouse scene in New York and abroad, such as the article that appeared in the November 23, 1933 edition:

"The pansy men of the Nation---New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are just nuts about Turkish Bathing. Steam joints of the aforementioned cities are the gathering places of perverts...the clubhouses of joyboys on the make...and the ports of call for those despised parasites who pander to the desires of homosexual men...punks who will submit passively to the tainted caresses for the price of a drink or a pack of cigarettes."

Despite the negative publicity surrounding the evolving gay culture in cities like New York and San Francisco, those bathhouses which "tolerated" gay men continued to thrive long after the municipal baths had shut down, since the recent inclusion of bathtubs in all new tenements meant that the general population would no longer need to pay for a bath. Of course, gay men did not necessarily visit the bathhouses for hygienic purposes. Instead, they went for the camaraderie of other "like-minded" people, and their very presence year after year transformed the bathhouses into the first gay social institutions in the United States.

Almost a hundred years after the first documented raid on a gay bathhouse in New York City, the handful of bathhouses which have survived to this day serve as ancestors of the legendary sex palaces of the past. These were places where sex ruled the days and nights, and the familiar warm hue of the air, mixed with the faint echoes of slamming lockers and plywood doors, suggested to you, as you stepped into the steamroom, that it was all too good to last.

So, pay your five bucks and sign the ledger. It's time to go back to the baths...

Everard Turkish Baths


(Opened to the public on May 3, 1888 and closed in 1985)
The Everard Turkish Baths (sometimes referred to as the "Ever Hard Baths") served as a homosexual rendezvous for more than a half century, and was the longest-running gay oriented business in New York City. Originally a church, the Everard was converted into a bathhouse by the "prominent financier, brewer, and politician" James Everard, at a period in time when most of the dwellings in the city lacked adequate bathing facilities. For a one dollar admission fee, patrons could bathe, swim in the pool, or luxuriate in the steam room before retiring to the small cubicle (with a cot) that came with the admission price.

Gay men started frequenting the Everard by World War I, and by the 1920's it had established itself as a homosexual but clandestine bathhouse. As the years progressed, the Everard's salacious reputation extended beyond New York City, as was evidenced by the fact that some patrons came from relatively far away places, such as New Jersey, Philadelphia, Ohio, and even Europe. London offered "nothing compared to it," a Parisian friend told British actor Emlyn Williams, who paid a visit in 1927. Williams' description of the Everard bathhouse is as follows:

"Up some stairs," Williams wrote, "at a desk, an ashen bored man in shirtsleeves produced a ledger crammed with illegible scrawls. I added mine, paid my dollar, was handed key, towel and robe, hung the key on my wrist and mounted to a large floor as big as a warehouse and as high: intersecting rows of 'private rooms,' each windowless cell dark except from a glimmer from above through wire-netting shredded with dust and containing a narrow workhouse bed." Williams went on to describe how he took off his clothes, donned the robe and stepped into the passageway to witness men walking to and fro, apparently cruising. He saw a man "stop at a door which was ajar, give it a gentle push and peer inside" as though he might have been seeking a sexual encounter. Williams also wrote about a rather hilarious scene at the Everard in which someone's false teeth came loose during an act of fellatio.

Interestingly enough, the Everard was rumored to have been owned by the Police Athletic League, which enhanced its reputation as being safe from police harassment. Nevertheless, there were raids on the Everard, such as the one carried out on January 5, 1919, in which the manager and nine customers were arrested. The scene replayed itself only a year later when fifteen men were arrested in a similar operation.


The Everard Turkish Baths, in a photograph taken in the 1930's. Since then, the building has been demolished. Now a popular flower mart stands in its place.
Unfortunately, on May 25, 1977 a devastating four-alarm fire swept through the Everard complex, leaving nine men dead and many others severely injured. But that tragedy was relatively small compared to the larger tragedy which would force the closure of the Everard Baths in 1985: the AIDS epidemic.

A visitor to the Everard Baths in the mid 1970's wrote: "Everard in the West 20's was dark and run down, real seedy, like a skid row hotel. It had a huge, shadowy steam room with benches, and peeling paint on the walls and ceiling. The swimming pool was large and formally decorated like at one time it had been a gracious men's club or something grand from the turn of the century." (Robert, NYC)

Another patron wrote: "They called it the Old Dirty Foot. In my little coterie that's what we called the Everard because people smoked in that place and ashes were on the floor, and the management never swept the place. You could always tell someone had been to the Everard. They would have black scuz on the bottom of their feet...it took three days or so to get rid of it." (C.H., NYC)

The late author Arthur Bell had this to say about the Everard Baths: "Everard was a haven where I could stare at crotches in dimly lit hallways, wander the steam room, which smelled of sweat and Lysol, and screw with a cast of thousands, who, like the extras in Quo Vadis were faceless and nameless."

A visitor to the Everard Baths in the 1950's wrote this about the place: "...friends whispered about this black hole of Calcutta on West 28th Street, where steam hissed through leaky pipes and the fat, aged, and perverted indiscriminately banged each other. Everard's, they said, was Hades. But to me it was expediency."

Some Facts about the Everard Baths:

***The Everard was said to have been a favorite haunt of Rock Hudson and Nureyev.

***In 1977 you could rent one of the 135 cubicles at the Everard for only $7; $5 for a locker (on the weekends lockers went for $6, rooms for $9.25). ---New York Times, 5/26/1977

***In the 1970's, the Everard was known for Tuesdays and Thursdays when the sexual temperature was high.

THE NEW ST. MARKS BATHS

(The New St Marks, An ad from 1979)

"(At the baths) a nuclear physicist could meet a plumber. Bathhouses were the great leveler, a common denominator, a place where people did not have to be of similar backgrounds." -- Bruce Mailman, owner of The Saint and the New St Marks Baths, NYC.

The legendary St. Marks Baths, in Manhattan, was a good example of a bathhouse which made the transition from being a straight bath to an exclusively gay venue. Opened as a Jewish bathhouse by 1915, the St. Marks Russian and Turkish Baths catered mostly to businessmen in the area. Over the years, St. Marks became increasingly popular with residents of the surrounding neighborhood, and by the 1950's it served older Jewish men during the day and gay men at night. Sometime during the 1960's, it evolved into an exclusively gay bathhouse, although it was generally considered "unclean and uninviting" to some of the patrons, who eventually went elsewhere. But to those patrons with a proclivity to genuine sleaze, the St. Marks Baths was an aphrodisiac and a godsend. By the time the 1970's had rolled around, the aging bathhouse was already well-known for its hard-core S&M crowd, where "whippings and pot smoking" was the order of the day. Famed gay writer Edmund White put it this way: "After a horrifying fire destroyed the original Everard baths and killed several of its patrons, the heavy-sex crowd was without a home. The St. Marks filled that need. In place of the Everard's rotting marble, gummy tiles and terminal pool, the St. Marks substituted an unobtrusive, quietly masculine decor." White went on to say that the St. Marks had "no television, and disco music is confined to the front office and a back lounge, on the theory that nothing should compete with or mask the sounds of sex."

By 1978, after more than sixty years in service, the St. Marks Baths had become more of a liability than a profitable establishment. Business had been dwindling for a number of years, and the old bathhouse was in desperate need of a major renovation. So, in 1979 the enterprising Bruce Mailman came into the picture by purchasing the facility and refurbishing it as an efficient and stylish bathhouse that featured industrial deco black tile in the wet areas, giving it a "high-tech feel" that many remember fondly. "Our approach," said Mailman, "was to make people comfortable enough that they would not need to sign in under a false name or feel embarrassed if they ran into someone there they knew." When the costly refurbishing job was finally completed, the "New St. Marks Baths" was opened to the public. Billed as "the largest bathhouse in the country," it boasted three floors, a pool, roof deck, a steamroom with "shipboard portholes," 162 private rooms, and 250 lockers. The clientel of the New St. Marks Baths was a potpourri of "hot, toned men," a handful of geriatrics on the prowl (ghosts of the old St. Marks), and the many faithful disciples of S&M, who always seemed to have a generous supply of dildos and tit clamps on hand. Jason from Long Island remembered lots of handsome French and Canadian stewards, who used the place as an inexpensive "hotel," while a former employee, Jay Blotcher, recalled the attention-getting regulars who went there, such as the man "who would lie nude in his room with an array of phallic-shaped vegetables on his cot. His butt was turned up, and there was a small place card at his crotch that said, 'Do what you want.' He was known as the Vegetable Man."


This photo is courtesy of gay historian Ira Tattelman. Taken in 1979. This is the fondly remembered locker room of the New St Marks Baths. This was the first bathhouse in New York City which provided the necessities for it patrons to douche. For $1 you could buy a piece of rubber hose that fit on a faucet in the wall (next to the two toilets in the basement) and clean yourself before cruising the halls.
In December 1985, the New St. Marks Baths was shut down by the City of New York, which declared it a "public health hazard" because of the AIDS epidemic. The New York Times even got into the picture by running an editorial against the closing, saying that the baths should be kept open in order to disseminate AIDS prevention information. Nevertheless, the bathhouse reluctantly closed its doors, and shortly thereafter graffiti covered the walls, screaming "Finally!" and "Fuck Fags!" Refusing to give up, Bruce Mailman had tried for a number of years to reopen his bathhouse by arguing that the closure constituted an invasion of the patrons' right to privacy and freedom of association. The court, on the other hand, questioned whether the patrons' constitutional rights were truly infringed by the closure, observing that sexual activity in commercial establishments was not "protected." In addition, the City of New York presented evidence of high risk sexual activity at the New St. Marks, and the court upheld the City's decision.

The fifty-five year old Bruce Mailman died in June of 1994. In his obituary, The New York Times described his St. Marks as a "gay bathhouse and meeting place that was closed in 1985 by the New York City Health Department as a public health hazard." Not long after Mailman's death, the building was sold to a video chain.



(This image is also courtesy of Ira Tattelman. It shows the famous St Marks Cafe, where "Celluloid Closet" writer, Vito Russo, once worked. It was well-known for its sandwiches, but most people dropped by between encounters to camp it up with Vito.)
A regular of the old St. Marks Baths remembered it this way: "The steamroom was an institution in itself. Guys would pack in so tightly that you could hardly raise your arms. And there was a pool in the basement where I saw quite a few guys getting blow jobs under the water. Never could figure out how they didn't get a lung full of water." (Robert, NYC)

Another regular of the old St. Marks Baths remembered this incident: "I'll never forget this one...happened at the old St. Marks Baths one Saturday night in the late 1970's. There was a line out the door (probably about 1 in the morning). I was waiting patiently when, all of a sudden, the music stops playing from inside, and an ambulance pulls up. About 15 minutes later two men come out with a stretcher. On it was a guy in a rubber body bag! The reaction of the line was just 'business as usual.' A queen in front of me said, 'I hope I don't get HER room.' That was it for me---I was out of there!" (D.H., NYC) Although "D.H." did not remember why the man on the stretcher had died, there was said to have been an incident in which a man suffered an epileptic attack and drowned in the hot tub about the same time of this incident.

A patron of the New St. Marks Baths remembered this about the place: "The New St. Marks had a great hot tub and olympic pool. Showers were way hot, too. The rooms were tiny, attendants were all nice & would give you sheets, pillows, and towels if you needed extras. I had some hot times as a teenager there. They never proofed!" (J.T., Long Island)

Another regular of the New St. Marks remembered this: "I always tried to get the "corner room." There was a corner room which was oddly shaped because of the corner. It was right at the head of the stairs, so you could see everything and everybody as they passed by. It was great for cruising. It was also larger than the rest of the rooms because of the angles of the corner. So it was perfect for a small orgy. And I hosted many there!" (C.H., NYC)

Even before AIDS had crept onto the scene, patrons were receiving condoms (in a package that read "WHAT'S IN THIS COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE") and safe sex pamphlets from the management of the New St. Marks. During the onset of AIDS, however, anyone entering the facility was required to sign a contract agreeing to practice safe sex.

A regular visitor during the 1980's had this to say about the the safe sex paraphernalia in the bathhouses: "We didn't much like AIDS literature being in the baths. It killed the party atmosphere. Nor did we like politics or any reality penetrating the baths. We dealt with that stuff all day long. The baths were our places, where we could be ourselves. We didn't want anything like politics or business or whatever laying its heavy hand on our space." (C.H., NYC)

Fortunately, a there were a number of men who took the time and effort to record certain bathhouse experiences for future generations to read. The following journal entry was written by a patron of the St. Marks Baths in 1978. The diarist, a New Yorker who wishes to remain anonymous, obviously had a great time at the "tubs" that night so long ago:

"To St. Marks baths last night. Good time. Met a beautiful Puerto Rican, lean, hard body. A messenger. Nice guy. Got his number and gave him mine. Big dick, tight, hard ass. Came twice. Plan to see him again."


Another image taken by the famous gay historian, Ira Tattelman, used with permission. This image depicts the aging state of the building, which once housed one of the most popular of all New York City baths.
St Marks Tidbits

In 1967 a low budget movie was filmed at the St Marks Baths. It was called "Vapors/ The Drag Queen's Ball," and the film was a daring B & W feature about looking for love in New York's infamous St. Marks Baths, "an insane asylum for mad homosexuals".

HOME

NOTICE: IF YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING BATHHOUSE STORIES OR MEMORABILIA FOR SALE, PLEASE CONTACT THE WEBMASTER AT EDDIECORONADO@HOTMAIL.COM

LINKS
_________________________________________________________________________________

January 10, 2004 [The Everard given its own page, first web capture] Legendary Bathhouses of New York City,

"The safest, most enduring, and one of the most affirmative of the settings in which gay men gathered in the first half of the twentieth century was the baths..." George Chauncey

Gay bathhouses have operated in New York City since the beginning of the twentieth century. While there is scant evidence to suggest that gay men "cruised" the city's municipal baths (which were established to "encourage cleanliness in the tenement districts,") it is certain that homosexual encounters took place in the private, more upscale Turkish and Roman bathhouses found in Manhattan. By the height of the Roaring Twenties, there were nearly sixty of these bathhouses in the city. Some of these facilities were located in the basements of hotels, and others had their own, lavishly decorated buildings, such as the famous Everard Turkish Baths, then considered one of the classiest bathhouses in New York City. Although the sexual activity in these early bathhouses was relatively discreet, there were various legal, military and newspaper accounts written at the time, documenting that a number of locations throughout the United States had become popular rendezvous for "fairies," "queers," and "perverts." To add fuel to the fire, publications of the day, such as the New York scandal sheet "Brevities," printed venomous articles about the gay bathhouse scene in New York and abroad, such as the article that appeared in the November 23, 1933 edition:

"The pansy men of the Nation---New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are just nuts about Turkish Bathing. Steam joints of the aforementioned cities are the gathering places of perverts...the clubhouses of joyboys on the make...and the ports of call for those despised parasites who pander to the desires of homosexual men...punks who will submit passively to the tainted caresses for the price of a drink or a pack of cigarettes."

Despite the negative publicity surrounding the evolving gay culture in cities like New York and San Francisco, those bathhouses which "tolerated" gay men continued to thrive long after the municipal baths had shut down, since the recent inclusion of bathtubs in all new tenements meant that the general population would no longer need to pay for a bath. Of course, gay men did not necessarily visit the bathhouses for hygienic purposes. Instead, they went for the camaraderie of other "like-minded" people, and their very presence year after year transformed the bathhouses into the first gay social institutions in the United States.

Almost a hundred years after the first documented raid on a gay bathhouse in New York City, the handful of bathhouses which have survived to this day serve as ancestors of the legendary sex palaces of the past. These were places where sex ruled the days and nights, and the familiar warm hue of the air, mixed with the faint echoes of slamming lockers and plywood doors, suggested to you, as you stepped into the steamroom, that it was all too good to last.

So, pay your five bucks and sign the ledger. It's time to go back to the baths...

Everard Turkish Baths


(Opened to the public on May 3, 1888 and closed in 1985)
The Everard Turkish Baths (sometimes referred to as the "Ever Hard Baths") served as a homosexual rendezvous for more than a half century, and was the longest-running gay oriented business in New York City. Originally a church, the Everard was converted into a bathhouse by the "prominent financier, brewer, and politician" James Everard, at a period in time when most of the dwellings in the city lacked adequate bathing facilities. For a one dollar admission fee, patrons could bathe, swim in the pool, or luxuriate in the steam room before retiring to the small cubicle (with a cot) that came with the admission price.

Gay men started frequenting the Everard by World War I, and by the 1920's it had established itself as a homosexual but clandestine bathhouse. As the years progressed, the Everard's salacious reputation extended beyond New York City, as was evidenced by the fact that some patrons came from relatively far away places, such as New Jersey, Philadelphia, Ohio, and even Europe. London offered "nothing compared to it," a Parisian friend told British actor Emlyn Williams, who paid a visit in 1927. Williams' description of the Everard bathhouse is as follows:

"Up some stairs," Williams wrote, "at a desk, an ashen bored man in shirtsleeves produced a ledger crammed with illegible scrawls. I added mine, paid my dollar, was handed key, towel and robe, hung the key on my wrist and mounted to a large floor as big as a warehouse and as high: intersecting rows of 'private rooms,' each windowless cell dark except from a glimmer from above through wire-netting shredded with dust and containing a narrow workhouse bed." Williams went on to describe how he took off his clothes, donned the robe and stepped into the passageway to witness men walking to and fro, apparently cruising. He saw a man "stop at a door which was ajar, give it a gentle push and peer inside" as though he might have been seeking a sexual encounter. Williams also wrote about a rather hilarious scene at the Everard in which someone's false teeth came loose during an act of fellatio.

Interestingly enough, the Everard was rumored to have been owned by the Police Athletic League, which enhanced its reputation as being safe from police harassment. Nevertheless, there were raids on the Everard, such as the one carried out on January 5, 1919, in which the manager and nine customers were arrested. The scene replayed itself only a year later when fifteen men were arrested in a similar operation.


The Everard Turkish Baths, in a photograph taken in the 1930's. Since then, the building has been demolished. Now a popular flower mart stands in its place.
Unfortunately, on May 25, 1977 a devastating four-alarm fire swept through the Everard complex, leaving nine men dead and many others severely injured. But that tragedy was relatively small compared to the larger tragedy which would force the closure of the Everard Baths in 1985: the AIDS epidemic.

Here is a personal write-up about the fire: "The fire occurred on May 25, 1977 there were 9 (nine) men killed and 12 injured. Accounts were published in the New York Times and the Daily News (a front page photo of a fireman saving a towel-clad patron was very moving). A sprinkler system had just been installed but was not yet operational. It was scheduled to be fully working on June 2. The windows were not all painted over. In fact, there was a small window on the second and third floors in the front overlooking the street. I remember crowding around the window one night watching torrential rains flood the streets. You could see the Empire State Building from that window. I have many fond memories of the Everard. I met my lover there in 1981 after it had been renovated. It finally closed for good in approximately 1985."

"This tragedy led NYC to enact a law that would not allow anyone to spend more then 12 hours at a time in a bathhouse (my how far we've come). Whether it's enforced these days I'm not sure, but you would get around that by checking out (usually physically) and checking back in again minutes later. This I'm sure was a bonanza for those places because depending on the day (or time of day) you would probably pay a rate increase. The building now houses a group of wholesale merchants."

[Yellow new material.]






FORMER PATRONS TALK ABOUT THE EVERARD:
A visitor to the Everard Baths in the mid 1970's wrote: "Everard in the West 20's was dark and run down, real seedy, like a skid row hotel. It had a huge, shadowy steam room with benches, and peeling paint on the walls and ceiling. The swimming pool was large and formally decorated like at one time it had been a gracious men's club or something grand from the turn of the century." (Robert, NYC)

Another patron wrote: "They called it the Old Dirty Foot. In my little coterie that's what we called the Everard because people smoked in that place and ashes were on the floor, and the management never swept the place. You could always tell someone had been to the Everard. They would have black scuz on the bottom of their feet...it took three days or so to get rid of it." (C.H., NYC)

The late author Arthur Bell had this to say about the Everard Baths: "Everard was a haven where I could stare at crotches in dimly lit hallways, wander the steam room, which smelled of sweat and Lysol, and screw with a cast of thousands, who, like the extras in Quo Vadis were faceless and nameless."

A visitor to the Everard Baths in the 1950's wrote this about the place: "...friends whispered about this black hole of Calcutta on West 28th Street, where steam hissed through leaky pipes and the fat, aged, and perverted indiscriminately banged each other. Everard's, they said, was Hades. But to me it was expediency."

Some Tidbits about the Everard locker room: "One other thing came to mind - the lockers were walk-in lockers. It was a tight fit but sometimes you could even have sex in those lockers. I remember that the inside walls of these walk-in lockers were almost always covered in the most elaborate gay erotic art and graffiti - daisy chains of fucking and sucking, exploding cocks, exaggerated genitalia. The quality of the art in many cases was extremely high - Tom of Finland style art - while there were cruder but no less heartfelt depictions, as well, of gay sex and cock worship. It had occurred to me to photograph these priceless artifacts but the shallowness of the space, lack of light, and my own shyness prevented me from following through. When the Everard closed and I realized all that had been trashed I was hurt and bitter. I still mourn the loss of those treasures." Brian L. of NYC

Interestingly, a Fall 2002 eBay auction featured an original towel from the Everard Baths. The towel was auctioned off for $250, but it is my opinion that an original towel of this nature could have gotten much more money. These gems are rare, and they definitely deserve to be displayed at a gay museum someday. The following is an image of the the Everard Baths towel from 1953. (Sure wish I had it)

[One new images.]


Some More Facts about the Everard Baths:

***The Everard was said to have been a favorite haunt of Rock Hudson and Nureyev.

***In 1977 you could rent one of the 135 cubicles at the Everard for only $7; $5 for a locker (on the weekends lockers went for $6, rooms for $9.25). ---New York Times, 5/26/1977

***In the 1970's, the Everard was known for Tuesdays and Thursdays when the sexual temperature was high.

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April 9, 2004, [First web capture with image of "The Everard Bath's facade in 2003"]




The Everard Bath's facade in 2003. _________________________________________________________________________________

Everard
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January 18, 2012, [Last web capture] The History of Gay Bath Houses,

April 16, 2013 [First web capture] Page renamed GayTubs.com -- Gay Bathhouses,

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NYC Gay Bathhouse History: The Everard Baths Fire of 1977
Posted on February 4, 2013 by admin

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On May 25, 1977, nine men were killed in a massive fire that destroyed the infamous Everard Baths at 28 West 28th Street in Manhattan. Among the dead were seven men who died from smoke inhalation, one from respiratory burns, …Continue reading →

Posted in Gay Bathhouse History |Tagged bathhouse, DJ Jimmy Stuard,fire, gay bath house, gay sauna, New York City, the everard baths | Leave a comment

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The Continue reading → page was captured on March 17, 2013, but by some trickery the archived page now redirects to the generic opening page.


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June 16, 2001, [first web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay - Bathhouse History.

February 21, 1903.....In New York City, police conduct the first recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston on West 55th Street. There were 78 men caught in the raid, but 26 were arrested. Twelve men were brought to trial on sodomy charges, and 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.

December 11, 1977.....The Castro Steam Baths---the third San Francisco gay bathhouse in less than a year to be victimized by arson---goes up in flames. One man is killed.

July 11, 1981.....The largest San Francisco fire since the 1906 earthquake reportedly started in the Barracks, a gay bathhouse, with local news coverage blaming the blaze on the use of nitrate inhalers, or "poppers."

October 11, 1981.....San Francisco's Bulldog Baths---which billed itself as the largest gay bathhouse in the United States---celebrates its third anniversary with a "Biggest Cock in San Francisco" contest.

July 15, 1983.....The Hothouse---San Francisco's legendary four-story, ten-thousand-square-foot baths, devoted to the most bizarre forms of sexual expression, including bondage, water sports, fisting and scat---closes its doors in the wake of mounting concerns over the spread of AIDS. Meanwhile, the Club Bath chain reports that business at its New York and San Francisco facilities is down by more than 50 percent.

May 5, 1987.....San Francisco's last gay bathhouse, the 21st Street Baths, closes its doors for good. It's now a vacant lot, having been razed in 1996.

November 13, 1994.....From the Reuters News Service: At a gay sauna in Ireland, appropriately called "Incognito", two Roman Catholic priests administer last rites to a third clergyman who suffers a fatal heart attack there. The management later admits that the sauna's membership includes more than 20 priests!
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October 12, 2011 [last web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay Bathhouse History,

https://web.archive.org/web/20111012034721/http://www.gaytubs.com/dates.htm

February 21, 1903.....In New York City, police conduct the first recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston on West 55th Street. There were 78 men caught in the raid, but 26 were arrested. Twelve men were brought to trial on sodomy charges, and 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.

October 4, 1973.....On this date one of the most acclaimed American divas of all time, Eleanor Steber, star of the opera world, performed her legendary "Black Tie, Black Towel Concert" at the Continental Baths in New York City. Fortunately, RCA Victor recorded the event and released the gala affair on LP shortly thereafter. Here is what Rex Reed from the New York Daily News said about the concert: "Miss Steber appears from the steam room in a chiffon gown, loaded with diamonds and a black towel draped around her waist. Mrs. Leonard Bernstein, Suzy, Patrice Munsel, a lot of Metropolitan Opera stars and half of New York society love it. Miss Steber is in good voice, singing everything from Tosca to Strauss waltzes while boys yell, "Brava!"

Shortly after Eleanor Steber's concert at the baths, the then Mayor of New York City, the Honorable John Lindsay, sent a congratulatory letter to Continental Baths owner, Steve Ostrow, saying: "I wish to extend my congratulations to the Continental Baths and Health Club on the occasion of your black tie, black towel concert. Your sponsorship of the appearance of an opera singer of the stature of Eleanor Steber is a wonderful opportunity for the community to enjoy her great talent outside the Metropolitan's halls. I am sure this festive event will herald a response worthy of your fine preparation. I wish you continued success in extending the benefit of great music to the people of our city."

May 14, 1976.....In Canada, Montreal police launch a campaign of aggressive raids on lesbian and gay bars and bathhouses.

December 11, 1977.....The Castro Steam Baths---the third San Francisco gay bathhouse in less than a year to be victimized by arson---goes up in flames. One man is killed.

February 6, 1981.....In Canada, more than 3,000 men and women brave the extreme winter cold to protest the previous evening's brutal raid on four Toronto bathhouses, where 20 men were arrested as "keepers of a bawdy house" and 286 men as "found-ins."

July 11, 1981.....The largest San Francisco fire since the 1906 earthquake reportedly started in the Barracks, a gay bathhouse, with local news coverage blaming the blaze on the use of nitrate inhalers, or "poppers."

October 11, 1981.....San Francisco's Bulldog Baths---which billed itself as the largest gay bathhouse in the United States---celebrates its third anniversary with a "Biggest Cock in San Francisco" contest.

July 15, 1983.....The Hothouse---San Francisco's legendary four-story, ten-thousand-square-foot baths, devoted to the most bizarre forms of sexual expression, including bondage, water sports, fisting and scat---closes its doors in the wake of mounting concerns over the spread of AIDS. Meanwhile, the Club Bath chain reports that business at its New York and San Francisco facilities is down by more than 50 percent.

May 5, 1987.....San Francisco's last gay bathhouse, the 21st Street Baths, closes its doors for good. It's now a vacant lot, having been razed in 1996.

November 13, 1994.....From the Reuters News Service: At a gay sauna in Ireland, appropriately called "Incognito", two Roman Catholic priests administer last rites to a third clergyman who suffers a fatal heart attack there. The management later admits that the sauna's membership includes more than 20 priests!
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January 26, 2012 [first web capture] Dates to Remember in Gay Bathhouse History [now redirects to] GayTubs.com – Gay Bathhouses