For my first post, I am going to write about my recent experience at the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village of Manhattan (268 East 10th St, http://www.russianturkishbaths.com/). Tl;dr it was one of the hottest times I've had, both literally and figuratively. You should definitely check it out if you have the chance.
I was in NYC for a vacation recently and really wanted to check out the spa/sauna scene there. LA has several Korean spas, which range from bathhouse-level cruisiness (Lions, Wilshire) to no play at all (Wii, Natura). The atmosphere at some spas varies depending on the time of day (Century). Gay Guy's Guide to Korean Spas in Los Angeles (http://guysspaguide.blogspot.com/) and The Spa Junkie (http://thespajunkie.blogspot.com/) are excellent resources for LA-area spas so I won't go on much further about that topic. NYC doesn't really have a comparable scene as far as I could tell. I wanted to go somewhere which wasn't a straight-up bathhouse but still had a charged atmosphere and the possibility of some showing off and looking. After much Googling, the only spa/sauna option in Manhattan seemed to be the Russian & Turkish Baths (also referred to as the 10th Street Baths in some of the online resources I found). Manhattan is supposed to be getting a K-Spa in Midtown in the next few weeks though.
I made it to the baths during the male-only hours on a Sunday. Most of the time, the baths are co-ed, which means not full nudity. The attendants make you put on shorts. At the time of writing, the male-only hours are from 12 pm to 5 pm on Thursdays and 9 am to 2 pm on Sundays. To make matters even more complicated, there are two separate owners/managers who alternate weeks. In practice, this only affects you when it comes to coupons. For example, if you buy a Groupon, make sure to read the fine print and the baths's website (http://www.russianturkishbaths.com/#!hours/c15kq) so you know if you can use it that weekend since coupons are manager-specific.
The baths are tiny compared to most of the K-Spas in LA. For someone who is used to a lot of (personal) space, this can be rather overwhelming at first. I quickly got used to it though. The locker room was on the entrance level. The saunas, steam room, and cold pool were in the basement. There is one upper floor which is mostly taken up by massage rooms but has an outdoor patio. Although the patio was mostly quiet during my visit, I would not think of it as a play area because there is a security cam (strictly speaking, you can't be naked there because people in the surrounding buildings could see you). I am going to talk mainly about the basement from here on out.
The basement is long and narrow and not all that well-lit but the atmosphere never felt sleazy or dicey. The basement is probably about 80 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a main hallway. On one end was the Russian Heat Room which actually felt like being in an oven. It was so hot in there that I couldn't stay for more than a minute at a time. There were buckets of cold water so you could douse yourself but it was too much for me. Right outside, were some standing showers (almost always a short line for them). A large Turkish sauna, dry sauna and steam room were off the hallway. A cold pool rounded out the amenities. I didn't try the pool but was a big fan of the steam room and the dry sauna.
The crowd was so dense that day that the dry sauna and steam room were frequently standing room-only. If you have personal space issues, this is not the place to be. There was no place to get away from the crowd other than the rooftop patio I mentioned earlier. It seemed like the crowd was very heavily gay although I saw a couple of older Russian gents who were obviously straight. The variety of guys present made for very fun people watching. As in most places like this, the crowd skewed older (average age was probably late 40s) but there were a significant number of guys who were under 35 present. The attractiveness of the men ran the whole gamut. Most of the guys were white (I think I was one of three or four Asians). People were generally quite friendly and open to chatting, which is not always the case at the LA K-Spas.
Now for the good part: the cruise level. It was pretty high when I was there. Someone told me it isn't always that high but that there's always a little bit going on. I got there around 10 am and things were a bit slow but picked up exponentially around 11 am. I had thought the place was crowded when I got there so imagine my surprise when the number of guys seemed to double at 11. The play was mostly limited to some showing off and group jacking. I saw some oral in the steam room but it was brief. There was play in all the rooms (yes, even the
A final note about my time there was that I really enjoyed how comfortable the guys there were with each other. I saw a lot of guys exchanging massages openly, without it turning into a sexual thing. There was also a fair amount of conversation and small talk. It was a very welcoming environment and I would gladly go back even if the sexual elements were stripped away from the experience.
