New St. Marks Baths

The New St. Marks Baths
Site of the bathhouse in 2009, then occupied by Kim's Video and Music
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 / 40.729218°N 73.98949°W / 40.729218; -73.98949
Opened	1913 (1913)
Renovated	1979
Closed	December 9, 1985 (1985-12-09)
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.^{[citation needed]}

The Saint Marks Baths opened in the location in 1913. Through the 1950s, it operated as a Turkish bath catering to Russian-Jewish 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.^{[citation needed]}. 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 patrons, the New St. Mark's Baths was closed permanently on December 7, 1985.^[4]

References

This page was last edited on 22 November 2023, at 23:55