Death by Bathhouse

Death and bathhouses are no stranger to each other. Causes of reported bathouse deaths are typically mundane, like drowning—for example, the despondent, 59-year-old unemployed carpenter who drank too much then used the jacuzzi at Sheffield, England’s Bronx Sauna in early 2011—and cardiac arrest—like the 68-year-old priest, a regular guest at Dublin’s Incognito sauna club, found dead in his room. But sometimes bathhouse casualties are bizarre, like the demise of a 54-year-old club regular at Milwaukee’s Midtowne Spa who, one January afternoon in 2011, checked into his room and wasn’t discovered until the next day, dead, with a chain wrapped around his neck. It was ruled an accidental death. “He got himself into a position he couldn’t get out of,” said the spa manager. “He just thought he would try something and it ended very badly for him.”

Whatever the ultimate cause of death, a preponderance of reported bathhouse fatalities appear to involve drug use. Most clubs have no-drug policy; nonetheless, alcohol, poppers, Viagra, cocaine, ecstasy and crystal meth are commonly used by bathhouse visitors.

In January 2009, the body of a 31-year-old from Ohio was found in a private room in Club Pittsburgh, a Pennsylvania “health and fitness center” operating as what most would consider a sex club. The young man apparently died after using cocaine and inhaling video head cleaning solvent (essentially poppers in a spray can). And this past October, at London’s Pleasuredrome, a gay spa/bathhouse, two men died and a third was hospitalized after collapsing in the sauna after using what police believe was tainted drugs.

In August 2012, paramedics pulled an unconscious 47-year-old man from the steamroom at Seattle’s Club Z. Despite 35 minutes of CPR, he was pronounced dead. It was the third such accidental drug-related death in about a year at Club Z. The incidents prompted Seattle Gay Scene, the city’s LGBT community website, to post the following public service announcement:

“Hey! Guys who go to sex clubs, especially dudes over 40 and party down with recreational drugs! You need to wise up and lay off doing so much meth or blow or whatever the fuck you’re doing and also make sure you don’t hang out in a steam room if you do… [These are] a shitty combo, especially if you’re not young and not in great shape to start with. Wise up and stop dying and embarrassing the fuck out of your survivors that have to not only mourn your loss, but deal with the fact you dropped dead in a gay bath house at 2 o’clock in the morning.”

Another significant source of bathhouse deaths is fire. Bathhouse fires are surprisingly common, though not always fatal. Most are accidental like the early-morning blaze two years ago at Chariots in East London, one of the U.K.’s most popular gay saunas. (It was apparently caused by faulty wiring.) Other times it’s anti-gay crimes, like the 1975 firebombing of Montreal’s Aquarius Sauna, which killed three clubgoers.

What is arguably the worst bathhouse fire in history occurred right here in New York at the Everard Baths at 28 West 28th Street on May 25, 1977. Established as a luxurious three-story Turkish bath in 1888, by 1977 the Everard (dubbed the “Everhard”) had become the nation’s oldest gay steam baths and one of the city’s most popular gay sex spots. What reportedly began as a mattress fire, that guests tried unsuccessfully to extinguish, ended in the deaths of nine men, ages 17 to 40. The tragedy was exacerbated by roaring flames, thick smoke, windows that had been sealed shut with sheetrock and a sprinkler system that had not been activated. Between 80 and 100 men escaped wearing just towels; 20 were rescued by aerial ladder; six jumped from upper floors, with one dying from the fall; eight perished from smoke inhalation and burns; and seven were hospitalized. The Everard reopened after the fire and survived until the city shut it down in 1986.