Man's Country, Chigo's olst gay bathhoe, closed forever on New Year's Day 2018. Here's a last look si s hallowed halls.
Contents:
- DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?
- A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?
* gay bathhouses 80s *
An extraordary, glimpse to the pre-AIDS gay sexual culture, "The Fairoaks Baths" is an exhib of Polaroids taken by Frank Melleno durg the sprg and summer of 1978 at the Fairoaks Hotel, a San Francis bathhoe. There is no other llectn of photographs that so clearly visualiz this perd bathhoe imag and more will be on display at the Llie-Lohman Prce Street Project Space (tails below) and also clud are imag om the Fairoaks Pri Para float om that same Fairoaks Baths:Photographs by Frank MellenoPolaroids om a San Francis bathhoe 1978Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art (Prce Street Project Space)127-B Prce StreetNew York, NY 10012July 12-13, Openg receptn July 11, 6-8 p.
The gay revolutn was full flower -- sexy, charged wh self, admtg no shadows. He'd been a member of the '70s gay mune that went on to purchase and nvert a fad but wonrfully tact Victorian apartment buildg on the edge of a black ghetto to a gay bathhoe.
It lerally stood alone, at the tersectn of Oak and Steer streets, perched on a hill overlookg the lower Hay Valley district; an urban patch not yet gentrified by the cy's swellg ti of gay Boomers and some distance om the neighborhoods they typilly Fairoaks' existence was short-lived -- 1977 to 1979 -- but fondly relled by s patrons for a number of thgs. For one, was a racially clive place for gay men to have sex, unlike some of the cy's hot spots that were ls welg of people of lor.
A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
Members of the groups were enuraged by the offer of a ee locker to spend the eveng and this helped foster a more faiar and timate atmosphere than was mon other gay bathho of the era. Many of those men, like a great number of Fairoaks patrons, are no longer alive -- taken by the plague of AIDS that would cimate the cy's gay populatn jt another few a strg of black pearls, San Francis's bathho adorned the cy wh a touch of louche glamour before they were officially closed October 1984.