By the 1930s, the Everard had become a sanctuary for gay New Yorkers-one that earned the venue the moniker “ Ever-hard.” In the ensuing decades, prominent visitors included Truman Capote, Rudolf Nureyev and Gore Vidal, who in 1950 wrote a paperback novel under the pen name Katherine Everard. Above the front doors, a transom of stained glass bore an “E.B.” monogram in intertwined script.Īn 1892 advertisement for the Everard BathsĪs public bathing fell out of fashion in the early 20th century, the Everard started attracting a new audience: gay men, who frequented the bathhouse as early as World War I. Spigots shaped like dolphin heads spewed water into the pool. An 1892 advertisement depicted mosaic floors and wainscoting of Italian marble. Some, like the Everard, were surprisingly opulent. At the time, no laws required bathtubs in New York City housing, so public bathhouses were a common destination for washing and socializing. The building opened as a church in 1860 and was used as a music and exhibition hall before beer baron James Everard converted the premises into a Turkish bath in 1888. The Everard didn’t start out as a gay establishment. “It is routinely through death that we reckon with violations of our basic liberties.” Fieseler in Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation, his 2018 book about the 1973 fire at a New Orleans gay bar that killed 32. “Every social movement in American history has a body count,” wrote Robert W. But Stonewall can also overshadow other events that bear remembering this month. There can be no minimizing Stonewall: The protests gave rise to the LGTBQ civil rights movement. June’s designation as Pride Month honors the June 1969 Stonewall Uprising, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City’s West Village, fought back against a police raid. The three-story Romanesque edifice was home to the city’s oldest continuously operating gay bathhouse, a haven for gay men at a time of rampant prejudice. But it wasn’t the inferno that kept this story in the papers for days so much as the building itself. It left 9 dead, as well as 12 injured, including 2 firemen. In 1977, the New York City Fire Department recorded 129,619 fires. They weren’t moving.”Īn article about the fire in the Daily Item newspaper “When we went in, we found more on the stairs,” Captain Barry Goldblatt later said to the New York Post. By the time the fire engines rolled up, around 25 men were perched on ledges or dangling from windowsills. Once inside, he told the New York Times, “I grabbed a bar outside the bathroom window and swung to the other roof.” For the 80 to 100 men trapped at 28 West 28th Street on May 25, 1977, panic quickly took hold.Īgosto remembered where a restroom was and made a run for it. A moment later, a deluge of smoke engulfed the corridor. He heard people screaming, “Fire!” Elsewhere in the building, voices shouted, “This way down! This way down!” But 18-year-old Agosto had no time to find the stairs. Miguel Agosto looked out the door of his tiny rented room at the Everard Baths in New York City and saw men across the hallway wrestling with a burning mattress.
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