Ritch Street Health Club

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by Jeff Auer

Ritch Street Health Club was a popluar 1960s and 1970s bathhouse located at 330 Ritch Street in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco. It opened in the fall of 1965 by gay community leader Rick Stokes and his business partner David Clayton. It was mentioned in Tales of the City. By the late 1970s it had become a part of the national Club Baths chain. The club was hit with an arson fire in 1977 as part of a rash of bathhouse fires that swept San Francisco in 1977 - 1978. It closed down during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

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