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THE NEW ST. MARKS BATHS
(The New St Marks, An ad from 1979)
“(At
the baths) a nuclear physicist could meet a plumber. Bathhouses were the great
leveler, a common denominator, a place where people did not have to be of
similar backgrounds." -- Bruce Mailman, owner of The Saint and the New St
Marks Baths, NYC. The legendary St. Marks Baths, in Manhattan, was a good example of a bathhouse which made the transition from being a straight bath to an exclusively gay venue. Opened as a Jewish bathhouse by 1915, the St. Marks Russian and Turkish Baths catered mostly to businessmen in the area. Over the years, St. Marks became increasingly popular with residents of the surrounding neighborhood, and by the 1950's it served older Jewish men during the day and gay men at night. Sometime during the 1960's, it evolved into an exclusively gay bathhouse, although it was generally considered "unclean and uninviting" to some of the patrons, who eventually went elsewhere. But to those patrons with a proclivity to genuine sleaze, the St. Marks Baths was an aphrodisiac and a godsend. By the time the 1970's had rolled around, the aging bathhouse was already well-known for its hard-core S&M crowd, where "whippings and pot smoking" was the order of the day. Famed gay writer Edmund White put it this way: "After a horrifying fire destroyed the original Everard baths and killed several of its patrons, the heavy-sex crowd was without a home. The St. Marks filled that need. In place of the Everard's rotting marble, gummy tiles and terminal pool, the St. Marks substituted an unobtrusive, quietly masculine decor." White went on to say that the St. Marks had "no television, and disco music is confined to the front office and a back lounge, on the theory that nothing should compete with or mask the sounds of sex."
By 1978, after more than sixty years in service, the St. Marks Baths had become more of a liability than a profitable establishment. Business had been dwindling for a number of years, and the old bathhouse was in desperate need of a major renovation. So, in 1979 the enterprising Bruce Mailman came into the picture by purchasing the facility and refurbishing it as an efficient and stylish bathhouse that featured industrial deco black tile in the wet areas, giving it a "high-tech feel" that many remember fondly. "Our approach," said Mailman, "was to make people comfortable enough that they would not need to sign in under a false name or feel embarrassed if they ran into someone there they knew." When the costly refurbishing job was finally completed, the "New St. Marks Baths" was opened to the public. Billed as "the largest bathhouse in the country," it boasted three floors, a pool, roof deck, a steamroom with "shipboard portholes," 162 private rooms, and 250 lockers. The clientel of the New St. Marks Baths was a potpourri of "hot, toned men," a handful of geriatrics on the prowl (ghosts of the old St. Marks), and the many faithful disciples of S&M, who always seemed to have a generous supply of dildos and tit clamps on hand. Jason from Long Island remembered lots of handsome French and Canadian stewards, who used the place as an inexpensive "hotel," while a former employee, Jay Blotcher, recalled the attention-getting regulars who went there, such as the man "who would lie nude in his room with an array of phallic-shaped vegetables on his cot. His butt was turned up, and there was a small place card at his crotch that said, 'Do what you want.' He was known as the Vegetable Man."
In December 1985, the New St. Marks Baths was shut down by the City of New York, which declared it a "public health hazard" because of the AIDS epidemic. The New York Times even got into the picture by running an editorial against the closing, saying that the baths should be kept open in order to disseminate AIDS prevention information. Nevertheless, the bathhouse reluctantly closed its doors, and shortly thereafter graffiti covered the walls, screaming "Finally!" and "Fuck Fags!" Refusing to give up, Bruce Mailman had tried for a number of years to reopen his bathhouse by arguing that the closure constituted an invasion of the patrons' right to privacy and freedom of association. The court, on the other hand, questioned whether the patrons' constitutional rights were truly infringed by the closure, observing that sexual activity in commercial establishments was not "protected." In addition, the City of New York presented evidence of high risk sexual activity at the New St. Marks, and the court upheld the City's decision. The fifty-five year old Bruce Mailman died in June of 1994. In his obituary, The New York Times described his St. Marks as a "gay bathhouse and meeting place that was closed in 1985 by the New York City Health Department as a public health hazard." Not long after Mailman's death, the building was sold to a video chain.
A regular of the old St. Marks Baths remembered it this way: "The steamroom was an institution in itself. Guys would pack in so tightly that you could hardly raise your arms. And there was a pool in the basement where I saw quite a few guys getting blow jobs under the water. Never could figure out how they didn't get a lung full of water." (Robert, NYC) Another regular of the old St. Marks Baths remembered this incident: "I'll never forget this one...happened at the old St. Marks Baths one Saturday night in the late 1970's. There was a line out the door (probably about 1 in the morning). I was waiting patiently when, all of a sudden, the music stops playing from inside, and an ambulance pulls up. About 15 minutes later two men come out with a stretcher. On it was a guy in a rubber body bag! The reaction of the line was just 'business as usual.' A queen in front of me said, 'I hope I don't get HER room.' That was it for me---I was out of there!" (D.H., NYC) Although "D.H." did not remember why the man on the stretcher had died, there was said to have been an incident in which a man suffered an epileptic attack and drowned in the hot tub about the same time of this incident. A patron of the New St. Marks Baths remembered this about the place: "The New St. Marks had a great hot tub and olympic pool. Showers were way hot, too. The rooms were tiny, attendants were all nice & would give you sheets, pillows, and towels if you needed extras. I had some hot times as a teenager there. They never proofed!" (J.T., Long Island) Another regular of the New St. Marks remembered this: "I always tried to get the "corner room." There was a corner room which was oddly shaped because of the corner. It was right at the head of the stairs, so you could see everything and everybody as they passed by. It was great for cruising. It was also larger than the rest of the rooms because of the angles of the corner. So it was perfect for a small orgy. And I hosted many there!" (C.H., NYC) Even before AIDS had crept onto the scene, patrons were receiving condoms (in a package that read "WHAT'S IN THIS COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE") and safe sex pamphlets from the management of the New St. Marks. During the onset of AIDS, however, anyone entering the facility was required to sign a contract agreeing to practice safe sex. A regular visitor during the 1980's had this to say about the the safe sex paraphernalia in the bathhouses: "We didn't much like AIDS literature being in the baths. It killed the party atmosphere. Nor did we like politics or any reality penetrating the baths. We dealt with that stuff all day long. The baths were our places, where we could be ourselves. We didn't want anything like politics or business or whatever laying its heavy hand on our space." (C.H., NYC)
Fortunately, a there were a number of men who took the time and effort to record certain bathhouse experiences for future generations to read. The following journal entry was written by a patron of the St. Marks Baths in 1978. The diarist, a New Yorker who wishes to remain anonymous, obviously had a great time at the "tubs" that night so long ago: "To St. Marks baths last night. Good time. Met a beautiful Puerto Rican, lean, hard body. A messenger. Nice guy. Got his number and gave him mine. Big dick, tight, hard ass. Came twice. Plan to see him again."
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