New St. Marks Baths

The New St. Marks Baths
The New St. Marks Baths
	Site of the bathhouse in 2009 (left), after being extensively renovated for retail use
Former names	The Saint Marks Baths
General information
Type	Gay bathhouse
Location	Manhattan, New York City, New York
Address	6 St. Marks Place
Country	United States
Coordinates	40°43′45″N 73°59′22″W
Opened	1913
Renovated	1979
Closed	December 9, 1985
Owner	Bruce Mailman
Other information
Facilities	private rooms, sauna

The New St. Marks Baths was a gay bathhouse at 6 St. Marks Place in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City from 1979 to 1985. It claimed to be the largest gay bath house in the world.

The Saint Marks Baths opened in the location in 1913. Through the 1950s, it operated as a Turkish bath catering to immigrants on New York's Lower East Side. In the 1950s, it began to have a homosexual clientele at night. In the 1960s, it became exclusively gay.[1]

In 1979, the bathhouse was refurbished, and the name was changed to the New Saint Marks Baths. In 1981, the neighboring building was purchased, with plans to expand.[2]

The AIDS epidemic caused some activists such as Larry Kramer to urge its closing.. In October 1985, an emergency resolution updating the New York Sanitary Code (10 NYCRR) § 24.2, authorized the New York City Department of Health to close any facilities "in which high risk sexual activity takes place."[3] Despite providing information on AIDS and condoms to all who entered, the New St. Mark's Baths was shuttered permanently on December 7, 1985. [4]

References

Leap, William (1999). Public sex gay space. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10691-2.
Moore, Patrick (2004). Beyond shame: reclaiming the abandoned history of radical gay sexuality. Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-7956-1.
"Court Upholds Power to Close Gay Bathhouses - City of New York v New St. Mark's Baths, 130 Misc. 2d 911, 497 N.Y.S.2d 979 (1986)". Biotech.law.lsu.edu. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
Purnick, Joyce (December 7, 1985). "City Shuts a Bathhouse as Site of 'Unsafe Sex'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-09-13.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] Leap, William (1999). Public sex gay space. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10691-2.

[2] Moore, Patrick (2004). Beyond shame: reclaiming the abandoned history of radical gay sexuality. Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-7956-1.

[3] "Court Upholds Power to Close Gay Bathhouses - City of New York v New St. Mark's Baths, 130 Misc. 2d 911, 497 N.Y.S.2d 979 (1986)". Biotech.law.lsu.edu. Retrieved 2009-11-18.

[4] Purnick, Joyce (December 7, 1985). "City Shuts a Bathhouse as Site of 'Unsafe Sex'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-09-13.