Gay massage sf area
was billed as the largest bath house in the country. The Bulldog Baths which operated from 1978-1984 at 132 Turk St. In fact, the founders of Eros had helped to remove the historic murals inside Bulldog Baths for preservation.
Then it became the legendary Bulldog Baths, which was billed as the largest bathhouse in the country, until then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein shut down all such facilities in the city as HIV/AIDS was spreading through the gay community. It was originally known as the Club Turkish Bath House, San Francisco’s first-ever gay bathhouse. What’s more, the location had been a bathhouse and venue for sex for most of the 20th century. “I just wanted to revive the historic use of the building and bring back a little more gay to this neighborhood,” said David Nale, the building’s owner. The Compton’s Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 and pre-dated the Stonewall riots in New York by three years. The location itself is smack dab in the middle of San Francisco’s Transgender Cultural District, and down the block from the site of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot, a 1966 act of LGBTQ+ civil resistance that preceded the Stonewall riots by three years. in the Tenderloin owned by a gay man who was seeking to fill the space with queer-owned businesses that could serve the community. Most inquiries with potential landlords were met with silence or harried excuses, but eventually the Eros team centered on what seemed like the perfect location: a 4,000-square-foot space at 132 Turk St. “So it’s hard not to kind of expect that, even in the back of your mind.” “If you look at the model of what happened to the city and the country after the Spanish flu…all of a sudden there was a bounceback in the Roaring Twenties,” Rowe said.
Covid-era restrictions on indoor gatherings spurred him to begin searching for a new space in earnest. Outside of providing clean and sex-positive spaces, the organization also operated a number of community-serving spaces like an art gallery, community classroom and a massage room.īut after the business’ longtime landlord died and his family sold the property to a new owner, Eros CEO and co-owner Ken Rowe said the writing was on the wall. If you look up San Francisco’s directory of legacy businesses-a city certification meant to celebrate and support longstanding neighborhood institutions-the very first entry on the list is Eros.Ī venue for sexual exploration and safe-sex education tailored to the city’s gay community, it originally opened in the Castro in 1992.