Gay chicago bathhouse

Anna Erickson likes to walk around her Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen. A social studies lecturer and history enthusiast, she says she can’t help but notice this odd brick building she often passes; it sits right in the middle of a residential block, and it has large Roman-style stone columns. Above the door, an inscription reads “Chicago General Bath,” yet there’s no bathhouse running in there these days. (In proof, it’s zoned to become residential someday.)

Anna’s passed that building so many times that she eventually asked Curious City to figure out something that regularly gnaws at her: “There’s a public bathhouse in my neighborhood. What happened to the other bathhouses?”

You may have had a similiar interrogate if you’ve ever passed one of these old facades or even the occasional operating bathhouse in the capital. But defining Chicago’s experience with “bathhouses” is complicated. The word’s applied to different kinds of places, ranging from a place for the poor to scrub down; a place to contain sex but then catch a show; and a place to pamper yourself with extreme heat and cold y