Bathhouse Studios
538 East 11th Street | East Village | built 1905
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1905
The city opens Arnold Brunner's public bathhouse on East 11th Street
In 1896 the Lower East Side had just one bathtub for every 79 families, and in 1903 the city bought two lots here for a public bath. Architect Arnold Brunner designed a limestone building in an Italian Renaissance style with Beaux-Arts touches, finished in 1905 at a cost of $102,989. Men and women entered separately, and the bath held 94 rain-bath showers and seven tubs, each shower stall with its own dressing area.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1906
Heat-wave crowds line up four deep at the Eleventh Street baths
On a sweltering day in the first summer after the bathhouse opened, the lines of people trying to get in stood four deep, according to the New York Times. The crush grew so great that police reserves were called to keep order. No arrests were needed.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1958
The city closes the baths and the building becomes a garage
The city closed the Eleventh Street baths in 1958 to save money, by which time private bathrooms had reached tenements and many bathers came mainly to cool off. The building sat neglected for three years before it was sold in 1961 and turned into a parking garage. Ramps were installed where the entrance steps had been.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1995
Photojournalist Eddie Adams converts the bathhouse into a studio
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams and his wife Alyssa bought the former bathhouse in 1995. By then it had served as a parking garage and later a warehouse. They converted it into a photography studio, cleaned the grimy facade, and installed replacement gates at the arched entrances.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2008
The former bathhouse becomes an individual city landmark
The former Eleventh Street public bath, designed by Arnold Brunner, was designated an individual city landmark in 2008. Its Indiana limestone facade is in the Beaux-Arts style, with a frieze reading "Free Public Baths of the City of New York." Scroll-framed cabochons carry a trident and a garland of vegetation and fish, motifs that recall the building's original purpose.
Further reading
- Arnold Brunner's 1905 11th Street Public Baths -- 538 East 11th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- 538 East 11th Street; 538-540 East 11th StreetVillage Preservation: East Village Building Blocks
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