ΛΟΥΤΡΑ ΑΝΔΡΩΝ 5

Charles Demuth Bathhouse and Self-Portrait (1918)

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Early gay bathhouses
In New York City, the Everard (nicknamed the Everhard was converted from a church to a bathhouse in 1888 and was patronized by gay men before the 1920s and by the 1930s had a reputation as "classiest, safest, and best known of the baths." It was damaged by fire on May 25, 1977 when nine men died and several others were seriously injured. The Everard closed in 1986. Also popular in the 1910s were the Produce Exchange Baths and the Lafayette Baths (403-405 Lafayette Street, which from 1916 was managed by Ira & George Gershwin). American precisionist painter Charles Demuth used the Lafayette Baths as his favourite haunt. His 1918 homoerotic self portrait set in a Turkish Bathhouse is likely to be set there. The Penn Post Baths in a hotel basement (The Penn Post Hotel, 304 West 31st Street) was a popular gay location in the 1920s despite a lack of private rooms and seedy condition.

The American composer Charles Griffes (1884–1920) wrote in his diaries about visits to the New York bathhouses and the YMCA. His biography states: So great was his need to be with boys, that though his home contained two pianos, he chose to practice at an instrument at the Y, and his favorite time was when the players were coming and going from their games.

When a friend with “little experience but great desire” confided his homosexual longings to

Charles Griffes in 1916, Griffes took him to the Lafayette so that he could meet other gay men

and explore his sexual interests in a supportive environment: the friend was “astounded

and fascinated” by what he saw there. The baths also encouraged more advanced forms

of sexual experimentation. Griffes himself had had his first encounter with a man interested

in sadomasochism at the Lafayette two years earlier (he found the man “interesting” but

the experience unappealing), and several men interviewed in the mid-1930s referred to

experimenting in the baths and learning of new pleasures.
– George Chauncey, Gay New York 1995

In London, the Savoy Turkish Baths at 92 Jermyn Street became a favorite spot (opening in 1910 and remaining open until September 1975). The journalist A.J. Langguth wrote: ...The baths at Jermyn Street] represented a twilight arena for elderly men who came to sweat poisons from their systems and youths who came to strike beguiling poses in Turkish towels... although they were closely overseen by attendants, they provided a discreet place to inspect a young man before offering a cup of tea at Lyons. Regulars included Rock Hudson.
In the 1950s the Bermondsey Turkish Baths were rated by Kenneth Williams as "quite fabulous" in his diaries.

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Steambaths in the 1930s: The steambaths that had been well known to me were those of East

Ham, Greenwich and Bermondsey. In the first two it was frequently possible to indulge in

what the Spartacus Guide coyly describes as 'action', but behaviour at all times had to be

reasonably cautious. In the Grange Road baths in Bermondsey, however, all restraint

could immediately be discarded with the small towels provided to cover your nakedness.
– Anthony Aspinall, Gay Times

Charles Demuth