Witnesses to Tell the Story of NYC's Legendary Continental Baths: VIDEO
Director Malcolm Ingram (Small Town Gay Bar, Bear Nation) is at work on his next project, a documentary on NYC's most iconic late 1960's, early 70's bathhouse, which was housed in the former site of the Ansonia Hotel.
Writes Ingram on his Kickstarter page:
The Continental Baths was a seminal gay New York City hotspot that existed from the late sixties to 1974. The baths themselves were a lavish Roman style affair, which were opened in the late 60’s in a newly post-stonewall NYC. Owner Steve Ostrow wanted to create a decadent and luxurious clubhouse where newly liberated men could explore with wanton abandon.
Along with the baths, The Continental was home to glamorous shows that attracted first class performers such as Cab Calloway, Peter Allen, Wayland Flowers, Patti Labelle and a then unknown Bette Midler, who (with her piano player Barry Manilow) became ringmaster to the revelry.
Ingram's looking for some funds to wrap it up, and he's almost there, so if you're interested in hearing the stories, help him out.
Watch him talk about the film, and see a few brief clips from his interviews,
AFTER THE JUMP...
Baths are tolerated because they keep pickup/trick crimes down. The tradeoff is for the local governments or activists to be able to educate people about sexual health. Sex addicts will find it wherever they are. So the idea that commercial places to have sex exist merely to encourage the having of sex is wrong.
Posted by: kravitz | Aug 9, 2012 9:32:21 AM
Wow, so much vitriol about the idea of gay men having promiscuous sex. You'd think this wasn't a gay blog but rather a quilting bee in the fellowship hall at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Kids, people have sex. Sometimes it's about love. Sometimes it's not. That's true of straight people, and it's true of gay people. It has ever been thus, and it will not ever change. Some folks prefer loving sex over recreational sex, and vice versa... but that's really just an individual preference.
It's little busybodies like you guys who make me think that if we lived in a bizarro world in which gay/lesbian was the norm, things wouldn't really be all that different.
Posted by: The Milkman | Aug 9, 2012 10:00:41 AM
One can be "promiscuous" (your judgmental and sex negative choice of words, not mine) without being an irresponsible retard that collects STD's as a badge of honor.
And who said don't have recreational sex ?
It's funny how the people who always manage to appoint themselves the grand defenders of sexual freedom seem to consistently fail when it comes to making any kind of real distinctions that would actually save some lives.
Try reading as opposed to reacting like you feel so guilty for a change.
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 10:12:28 AM
I've been to bathhouses. I'm HIV+. Apparently that makes me an "irresponsible retard that collects STDs as a badge of honor." Charming.
So much for the whole "take responsiblity for your actions and evolve" diatribe, eh?
Without the Continental Baths, without a bunch of messy drag queens getting arrested at Stonewall, without a bunch of screaming activist homos getting arrested for protesting inaction on the AIDS front, would we have the luxury of having this conversation today? Exactly.
Posted by: NyerinMpmls | Aug 9, 2012 10:22:44 AM
NYERINMPMLS: Yes, because tens of thousands of dead homos can't be wrong about anything.
Give me a break. If the "collecting STD's as a bade of honor" quote from 70's gay activists is such an affront to your sensibilities, maybe you should take it up with them.
Oh, wait, they're all dead...
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 10:32:56 AM
I love modern gay history and hope the film is produced. When I was quite young, I visited the Continental Baths on weekends, from time to time. I remember that I felt wonderfully liberated from the restraints of the hetero world. In the pre-internet days, about the only way one could meet a sex companion was to go to a gay bar/club. The CB opened up a wonderful new vista for gay guys.
Posted by: David Jarrett | Aug 9, 2012 10:43:01 AM
It might be interesting from an historical POV, but I see nothing to celebrate or fondly reminisce about. It was a place for folks to screw as many others as they could without any thought of responsibility or consequences. Big whoop. Hardly something to be proud of.
Posted by: JohnAGJ | Aug 9, 2012 10:46:56 AM
NVTodd, stop being angry at other gay men for the fact that you're so ugly you couldn't get f***ed if you fell @ss-first onto a cock factory.
I get it. You're one of the miserable trolls who lives vicariously though his anonymous internet handle.
But just because you've never had the opportunity to lose your virginity to anyone other than the neighbourhood goat doesn't mean that you've taken some moral "high-road."
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Aug 9, 2012 10:48:48 AM
@NVTODD. Again, so much for the whole "take responsiblity for your actions and evolve" diatribe, eh?
Have a great day, and keep spreading the love.
Posted by: NyerinMpmls | Aug 9, 2012 10:51:06 AM
I turned 18 in 1961. I knew I was gay. I was fortunate enough to live the gay life in pre-Stonewall New York. I remember the bars being raided, the bath houses (Everard, St. James) hook-ups in Times Square, etc. I have wonderful, fantastic memories of those days and wouldn't change them for the world. Gay history is very important to us all, especially the younger gay community, to learn how we lived, the good and bad times we went through. Still happy, and gay at the young age of "69".
Posted by: Ted | Aug 9, 2012 10:57:30 AM
Go on with your bad self, Ted. Rock on. :)
Posted by: The Milkman | Aug 9, 2012 11:07:50 AM
I understand why people feel compelled to have their little hissy fits whenever a gay man dares to point out that STD's were never the benign fact of life revisionists now, who claim to be aware of our history, pretend they were and are.
If you want to interpret resistance to this kind of dishonesty and malinformation as hostile or coming from anywhere other than a place of love for the community, that's on you.
But you ARE projecting it.
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 11:18:04 AM
If you'd like to put a face to your comments and prove that you're not just a miserable cowardly troll with capers for testes who projects misery onto everyone having a real authentic life, you can feel free to do do. but ya won't. cuz ya CAN'T, blanche :)
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Aug 9, 2012 11:26:43 AM
Sorry to beat the dead horse here, but still not quite grasping how calling a wide swath of humanity "irresponsible retard(s) that collect(s) STDs as a badge of honor" is coming from "a place of love for the community."
Sorry, maybe I'm dense. It must be my HIV meds.
Posted by: NyerinMpmls | Aug 9, 2012 11:39:49 AM
NYER: It must be, because you could try to read the comments in sequence, and in context, if you really wanted to.
KIWI: I don't owe you my privacy. I don't owe you any apologies for telling you that you have HIV because YOU made bad choices. And I certainly don't owe anybody an apology for refusing to march the current generation into an early over-medicated grave.
People, learn our history. There's no excuse for not knowing that people in the 70's identified as "gay", there's no excuse for perpetrating the lie that STD's were/are no big deal.
You've only got one life, don't let people who are obsessed with the idea of having sex with animals and with being media whores tell you how to live it.
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 11:51:18 AM
STDs just like other illnesses have always been part of the human condition. I am not being a revisionist in pointing out that the presence of illness in our collective lives is something that we share with straight people. And while systematic social oppression can have an impact on behavior trends in a community like ours, there will always be those outliers on either side of the bell curve whose experiences differ from those clustered in the middle. Cluck-clucking about such things will have no impact on other people's behavior at all. Those of you who think you want to reach people and help them live differently should take a lesson from those who have worked in this field for years... finger pointing and judgemental BS will only close minds.
Posted by: The Milkman | Aug 9, 2012 11:52:02 AM
"don't let people who are obsessed with the idea of having sex with animals and with being media whores tell you how to live it."
And now we see his true colors.
This is clearly some homophobe troll. Scare quotes around the word gay? Suggesting that gay men are pathologically sex-obsessed and into sex with animals? Sounds like something Tony Perkins or Maggie Gallagher would say.
Nothing NVTodd says is at all valid at this point. Please ignore the troll.
Posted by: The Milkman | Aug 9, 2012 11:55:46 AM
HAHAHAHAA!
Yeah, let the anonymous trolls with capers for testes tell you how to live, instead. Because it's worked wonders for them.
:D
I always love how the angry insecure trolls come on to talk about "privacy"...on a blog where every contributor has their name attached to their articles. yeah.
#S**TClosetedCowardsSay
Posted by: LittleKiwi | Aug 9, 2012 12:03:32 PM
Kiwi, your alts are so transparent. Get a life.
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 12:19:02 PM
The Milkman: Why? Because he is saying something that you disagree with or perhaps offends your own set of values? It matters not if he is a social con troll or not, he isn't the only gay person who does not share your views about rutting with pratically everything that moves. I find nothing to celebrate or be proud of in that, you obviously feel different. Good for you. Enjoy life as you please, as will I, but don't expect everyone to cheer you on for it.
Posted by: JohnAGJ | Aug 9, 2012 12:20:29 PM
I apologize for my posts. It's just that I've never had any cock in me and I'm jealous.
Posted by: NVTodd | Aug 9, 2012 12:26:28 PM
Yeah, but let's not just stop with the US. I think we need to close down all of the bathhouses in Africa as well - I mean, it stands to reason.
Posted by: jhr459 | Aug 9, 2012 1:41:48 PM
I think the documentary would be amazing. As a gay man I have heard about this place over the years, an old friend of mine told me about it and the story of Bette Midler, Patti LaBelle, etc. He was telling me on the way to my first bathhouse experience in Hollywood in the late 1980's. I am 47 now. I know alot of unsafe behavior goes on in these places because I witnessed it and I am no saint. There was also alot of drugs mainly crystal meth which became a huge problem for me but with recovery do not indulge AND I ENCOURAGE OUR NEW GAY GENERATION TO STOP USING IT. I do not go to bathhouses anymore, first of all I have "grown up", I also contracted hiv BUT NOT @ the baths. See, I am on the fence about closing them down, yes I know that there are still people going, doing drugs, and there is no cabaret baths like the Continental was they are just sex clubs, and I know it is someones personal option to go, it is just with my experience especially with our younger gay men as long as they are safe I don't have a problem but I know from experience that all it takes is bumping into someone with a substance, get offered or even go in with your own, and it clouds your judgement. I cannot change my past, I am not going to lie, the first year of going to this place, which is still around, 3 floors of pulsing music, private rooms, hot videos streaming and more and just getting out of a bad relationship I had at the time I thought "fun times" however as time went by I found them to be a very lonely place, with alot of very lonely, drug using, pleasure seekers. It is a very tough call and I am glad I don't have to make the decision. BUT MAKE THE MOVIE because this place is HISTORY, and it is a beautiful building. Wish I could have seen Bette there but I was too young and on another coast of the u.s.
Posted by: Dennis | Aug 9, 2012 2:10:58 PM
And I heard "gay" perverts are meeting each other online too and spreading their pestilence that way. Somebody better shut down the internet.
Posted by: NYerinMpls | Aug 9, 2012 2:11:10 PM
Stop it everyone. All I wanted was attention because I'm a sad-sack shut-in. C'mon, be nice to me.
Posted by: NVTODD | Aug 9, 2012 2:12:40 PM