The Saint Marks Baths opened in the location in 1913. Through the 1950s, it operated as a Victorian-style 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
^Leap, William (1999). Public sex gay space. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN0-231-10691-2.
^Moore, Patrick (2004). Beyond shame: reclaiming the abandoned history of radical gay sexuality. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN0-8070-7956-1.