Los angeles gay sex club
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Clubs like New York City’s Continental bathhouse and Los Angeles’ 8709 Club saw a steady stream of patrons.Įach venue was operated like a speakeasy: a nondescript building often located in the urban fringe. Privately run, gay-owned bathhouses proliferated in the 1970s, offering a haven for gay and bisexual men to meet. Chicago and Manhattan each had about 20 public bathhouses.īut the need for public places to wash up declined and by the 1950s and ‘60s, bathhouses largely had become rendezvous spots for gays, prompting occasional raids because sodomy was still criminalized. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, American bathhouses were built in many cities to maintain public hygiene among poor and immigrant communities. “Today, you can go to the supermarket.”īathhouses date to the Roman Empire.
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“Bathhouses were like dirty bookstores and parks: a venue to meet people,” said Sykes, who still owns the smaller North Hollywood Spa. Sykes said fewer customers and rising rent put an end to four decades in business. Hollywood Spa - one of the largest bathhouses in Los Angeles, a city regarded as the country’s bathhouse capital - closed in April.
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In the last decade, bathhouses, including ones in San Diego, Syracuse, Seattle and San Antonio, have shut down and the total nationwide is less than 70. In the heyday of bathhouses in the late 1970s, there were nearly 200 gay bathhouses in cities across the U.S., but by 1990, the total had dropped to approximately 90, according to Damron, the publisher of an annual gay travel guide.