Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf has chosen her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
This article is part of the FT Globetrotter’s New York Guide.
It’s 4:30 p.m. and I’m in the basement of a building in the Flatiron District, fighting the urge to run away. Sweat drips off my body as sauna master Kieran O’Leary leads a group of about 25 sauna guests through an ancient ritual called aufgus. “Set your intentions,” he said, slamming an essential oil-scented ice ball against a hot stone. “For me, it’s self-love.” The thermostat is above 90 degrees. O’Leary deftly twirls the towel, sending hot air around the room. “I am loved,” I tell myself. “I am enough.” Then I whisper quietly, “I am enough.” Jesus Christ. ”
Baths are a 5,000 year tradition. Hot springs have been around ever since humans discovered that soaking in hot water felt good (and that desire isn’t exclusive to Homo sapiens, as the hot spring-loving snow monkeys of Nagano demonstrate). But in New York City, bathhouses have long been the exclusive domain of the poor and recent arrivals. On the Lower East Side, where the first municipal bathhouses were built, demographics overlapped. According to the New York Sun in 1891, the purpose was not only for hygiene reasons, but also to baptize “some of the filthy anarchists and some of the Poles, Russians, and Italians” into good Americans. It is said that there was.
For many years, bathhouses flourished primarily in areas of Russia and Eastern Europe, such as Coney Island and the East Village, importing the banya experience to immigrants from the Old World. On Wall Street, the sauna became yet another andron (along with cigar lounges, locker rooms, and boardrooms), where trading took place in the thick fog of steam rooms. Giants wearing towels and slippers.
Lately, public baths have been making a comeback. Bathhouse, a swanky new company, recently opened a 35,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Manhattan, dramatically expanding its original location in Williamsburg. Spain’s Aire Ancient Baths is opening its second Manhattan store in a former MoMA warehouse on the Upper East Side. And the demographics they attract are democratic and diverse. Jason Goodman, co-owner of Bath House, said as the world spins increasingly unsteadily and chaos reigns, more people are seeking refuge in heated pools and hot rooms. “The heat is real, the cold dip is real, and it’s a simple core human experience,” he says. “You don’t need to be taught how to get it. You don’t need to understand the theory. It’s just the mind-body connection.”
Bathhouse
14 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010
The light dwindles and the air warms as you descend into this vast new Flatiron bathhouse. By the time you reach the bottom level, past a cafe carved out of Manhattan’s rock, the human body appears as a glowing silhouette against the illuminated pool. The crowd here is sweaty and stylish. A large thermal pool allows patrons to relax. There are two hot tubs, a steam room, a dry sauna, and an infrared sauna, but true believers head to the banya, which has a large brick oven. They then steam in and enter a cold plunge of 7°C and 10°C. abathhouse.com;Directions
world spa
1571 McDonald Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11230
No room in all of New York is as diverse as the Grand Banya, America’s largest world spa. It’s a comically luxurious facility tucked away under an overpass in the deepest part of Brooklyn. Orthodox Jews, tattooed hipsters, LGBTQ+, straight people, old and young, gather in three stories of quirky rooms. The elaborately tiled hammam conveys Morocco. The sauna, filled with dried herbs, feels ancient. Meanwhile, an infrared sauna with wavy walls is straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In one room, piles of snow are falling from an opening in the ceiling. It looks more like a dacha in Brooklyn than Moscow on the Hudson River. worldspa.com; Directions
Russian and Turkish baths
268 East 10th Street, New York, NY 10009
Regulars at the bathhouse are familiar with the story of long-feuding business partners Boris Tuberman and David Shapiro. They ran the 130-year-old business on a weekly basis for years. David passed away in 2020, but his son Dmitry took over the split business. Guests will still need to purchase a David or Boris week pass. The place is a relic from when the East Village was a primarily Eastern European neighborhood, with Russian Baths and Turkish Baths home to Jewish gangsters, then stars (Sinatra and John Belushi from their Saturday Night Live days were regulars), and now It was used. A mix of old-timers and newcomers. Now run by Dmitry, David Week’s clientele is particularly young, while Boris (who shuns all technology) caters to a more traditional clientele. Both enjoy very hot banyas, which are violently wielded by men armed with oak branches for a price. This is a treatment called Prazza. russianturkishbaths.com;Directions
Aire Ancient Baths
88 Franklin Street, New York NY 10013
Part of the bathhouse experience is the interaction of humanity and cheek to chin, towel to towel. But if you’re looking for more privacy, head to Aire Ancient Baths, a candlelit cavern housed in a former textile mill in Tribeca. Only 20 people are allowed in at one time. They soak in four pools, shuffle in robes and receive spa treatments such as body scrubs, hair masks and massages. beaire.com;Directions
mermaid spa
3703 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11224
Given that the temperature of the sauna increases in direct proportion to the percentage of Slavic words spoken, Mermaid Spa has the hottest room in the city. One of New York’s most traditional bathhouses, located inside the Seagate near the traditionally Russian enclave of Coney Island. Patrons are drawn to the large backyard patio, traditional Russian restaurant, one of New York’s largest Jacuzzis, and a dry heat banya that reaches temperatures of 93 degrees, the highest even by Russian standards. mermaidspa.us;directions
Do you have any New York spas or public baths that you would recommend? Let me know in the comments below. Follow FT Globetrotter (@FTGlobetrotter) on Instagram.
Cities with FT
FT Globetrotter is an insider’s guide to the world’s greatest cities, offering expert advice on food, drink, exercise, art, culture and more.
Find us in New York, Paris, Rome, London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Miami, Toronto, Madrid, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Zurich, Milan, Vancouver, Edinburgh and Venice.
