GAY BATHs OF CONEY ISLAND
One hundred years ago today … Bathhouses scattered throughout New York City served as meeting places for gay men, and especially, as George Chauncey writes, “Homosexuals frequented and occasionally made sexual contacts at most of the baths at Coney Island” (210). This had been going on since at least 1910 (Chauncey) and peaked in the 1930s. Hugh Ryan notes that “gay men in general—already had a place at Coney Island . . . by at least 1910” (120).
Chauncey divides the bathhouses in question into “gay-tolerant” establishments where management turned a blind eye to gay activity as long as it was done in private rooms, and “gay baths, whose management excluded non-gay customers and safeguarded—rather than merely tolerated,” its gay clientele. He mentions two places that would become particularly important to this culture: the Stauch’s and Claridge’s bathhouses.
Stauch’s, as Ryan points out, is visible in the upper left of this postcard.
Keystone View Co. “Bathers at Coney Island, New York's Most Popular Beach Resort.”
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Weston J. and Mary M. Naef.
Note: The Getty Museum dates the above image “about 1900.” However, the presence of Deno’s Wonder Wheel indicates that the photograph was taken no earlier than 1920.
It so happened that in 1920 Stauch’s was heavily advertising its more general attractions. The ad below appeared frequently in Brooklyn papers.
Brooklyn Eagle, 17 August 1920, p. 22. Brooklyn Newsstand.
Ryan mentions another central locale, the Washington Baths, which had a “dedicated gay clientele” by at least 1929. Neither author mentions the Castle Bathhouses, pictured below in 1919 in a photo that indicates what one of the larger establishments looked like.
Castle Baths, 1919. William David Hassler. Museum of the City of New York.
According to Ryan, such bathhouses “were privately run” and “catered mostly to the working class . . . They served both social and hygienic roles. One of their primary functions was to rent bathing suits to city residents” (121).
Sources/further reading:
Chauncey, George. Gay New York. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Ryan, Hugh. When Brooklyn Was Queer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, AUGUST 16, 2020.
TAGS: LGBTQ, queer, gay, history, sex, Brooklyn, baths, bathhouses, beach