View source for Everard Baths, New York City: 1888 to 1985

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everard_Baths Accessed from Wikipedia, Everard Baths, December 24, 2010.]

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The '''Everard Baths''' or '''Everard Spa Turkish Bathhouse''' was a [[gay bathhouse]] at 28 West 28th Street in New York City that operated from 1888 to 1985. The venue occupied an adaptively reused church building and was the site of a deadly fire.


[[Image:EverardBathsCover.jpeg]]
Cover of a brochure advertising the Everard Baths.


=History: 1888=
'''Everard Baths''' was a Turkish bath founded by financier James Everard in 1888 in a former church building, designed in a typical late-nineteenth-century Victorian architectural style, Romanesque Revival.


James Everard who operated the Everard brewery on 135th Street converted it to a bathhouse in 1888. Everard's bathhouse was intended for general health and fitness.<ref>J. Russiello, ''A Sympathetic Planning Hierarchy for Redundant Churches: A Comparison of Continued Use and Reuse in Denmark, England and the United States of America]'' (MSc Conservation of Historic Buildings, University of Bath, 2008), p. 383.</ref>


=1898, November 28=
On November 28, 1898 a soldier was found dead in his room at the baths and gas was suspected.<ref>Colter, Ephen Glenn. Policing public sex: queer politics and the future of AIDS activism. Dangerous Bedfellows, eds. Boston: South End Press, 1996. ISBN=9780896085497 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FqMoLytiNlUC}}</ref><ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9502E5DF113CE433A2575AC2A9679D94699ED7CF "Ex-Soldier Killed by Gas". New York Times, November 29, 1898.]</ref>


=1919, January 5=
On January 5, 1919 the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice encouraged a police raid in which the manager and nine customers were arrested for lewd behavior. It was raided again in 1920 with 15 arrests.<ref name=Chauncey1995 >{{citation | last=Chauncey | first=George | year=1995 | title=Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 | edition=reprint | publisher=Basic Books | isbn=9780465026210 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=M27vzxO0kd0C&cd=1}}</ref>


=1920s=
By the 1920s, it was patronized largely by homosexuals and became the community's preeminent social venue from the 1930s onward.<ref name=Stein2004>{{harv|Stein|2004|p=90}}</ref> It was patronized by gay men before the 1920s and by the 1930s had a reputation as ''"classiest, safest, and best known of the baths,"'' eventually picking up the nickname, ''Everhard''.<ref name=neilmiller>{{harv|Miller|1995|p=143}}</ref>


The entrance was lit by two green lamps giving according to patrons the appearance of being a police precinct and giving rise to speculation that it was owned for a period by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the City of New York (a claim that would be vehemently denied after patrons died in a 1979 fire).


=1927=
The actor Emlyn Williams described a visit in 1927:


:Up some stairs at a desk an ashen bored man in shirtsleeves produced a ledger crammed with illegible scrawls. I added mine, paid my dollar, was handed a 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 the glimmer from above through wire-netting shredded with dust and containing a narrow workhouse bed...[he later heard] a casual whisper, a sigh lighter than thistle-down, a smothered moan. Then appeasement: the snap of a lighter as two strangers sat back for a smoke and polite murmured small talk, such as they might exchange in a gym.<ref name=Colter1996 >{{citation | last1=Colter | first1=Ephen Glenn | year=1996 | title=Policing public sex: queer politics and the future of AIDS activism | last2=Bedfellows | first2=Dangerous | editor1=Ephen Glenn Colter | editor2=Dangerous Bedfellows | publisher=South End Press | isbn=9780896085497 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FqMoLytiNlUC}}</ref>


=Patrons=
Among the documented patrons were [[Alfred Lunt]], [[Lorenz Hart]], [[Charles James]], [[Gore Vidal]] and [[Nureyev]].<ref name=McCourt2004 >{{citation | last=McCourt | first=James | year=2004 | title=Queer street: rise and fall of an American culture, 1947-1985 : excursions in the mind of the life | publisher=W.W. Norton | isbn=9780393050516 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=w095qAb2BsgC&cd=1}}</ref> [[Truman Capote]] and [[Ned Rorem]] wrote about their visits.<ref name=Plimpton1997 >{{citation | last=Plimpton | first=George | year=1997 | title=Truman Capote: in which various friends, enemies, acquaintances, and detractors recall his turbulent career | publisher=Nan A. Talese/Doubleday | isbn=9780385232494 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=XGBoAAAAMAAJ&cd=1}}</ref>


=1977, May 25=
On May 25, 1977 nine patrons (ages 17 to 40) were killed in a fire: seven from smoke inhalation, one from respiratory burns, and one who had jumped from an upper floor. Contributing factors were the deteriorating conditions and the lack of sprinklers.<ref name=Bronstein>Scott Bronstein, “4 New York Bathhouses Still Operate Under City’s Program of Inspections,” ''[[New York Times]]'' (3 May 1987).</ref>Firefighters said they were thwarted in rescue efforts by paneling covering the windows. Between 80 and 100 patrons left the building; the indefinite number was because the club did not have registration at the time. Most of the victims were identified by friends rather than family.<ref>[http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10816F83E5F15768FDDAE0A94DD405B878BF1D3 9 Killed in Bath Fire Identified by Friends - New York Times - May 27, 1977]</ref> Accounts said costs were $5 for a locker or $7 for a cubicle ($6 and $9.25 on weekends).<ref>http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/history_of_gay_bars_in_ne/2007/12/the-everard-bat.html</ref>


Despite the damage the baths would reopen.<ref>http://www.colors-of-leather.com/Lthr%20bars/Bars%202nd%20page/EFG/Everard%20Baths.htm</ref> However, it was closed in April 1986 by [[New York City mayor]] [[Ed Koch]] during the city’s campaign to close such venues during the [[AIDS epidemic]].<ref name=Bronstein/>


==Popular culture==
[[Michael Rumaker]] wrote a book A Day and a Night at the Baths devoted totally about the baths.<ref>A Day and a Night at the Baths by Michael Rumaker Grey Fox Press (1979) ISBN 0912516445</ref>


The bath is also described in the book [[Dancer from the Dance]] by [[Andrew Holleran]]<ref name=Holleran2001 >{{citation | last=Holleran | first=Andrew | year=2001 | title=Dancer from the dance: a novel | edition=reprint | publisher=Perennial | isbn=9780060937065 | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=QCDrJZyrW-oC&cd=1}}</ref>


==References==
<references/>
{{Reflist|2}}

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=Internal links=
[[Gay Bathhouses]]


=External links=
The Everard Baths is also extensively covered here: http://gaytubs.com/lengendary.htm

[[Category:Buildings and structures in Manhattan]]
[[Category:LGBT history in New York City]]
[[Category:Gay bathhouses in the United States]]
[[Category:Building fires in New York City]] <comments />