Back before HIV, the gay baths were very much part of gay party time. In the late 70s and early 80s, a Friday night for my friends and me would start at the gay disco. We would drink and dance until it closed at 2am, and then often go to the baths. We would stay all night. When the subway resumed in the morning, we would stagger home, dazed and happy.
The baths in Boston were in an old building in the Combat zone, the zone of the city for strip clubs and craziness. Streetwalkers, pimps, thugs, drunks. An occasional cop.
Those times are gone, but the building remains. It turns out that the Heyden building is by H H Richardson, America's foremost Victorian era architect. It was almost lost because it was not listed as a Richardson building. He built it for his father in law, so there were no business records.
Even after it was listed, there was no money to restore it. A small stone building in poor condition in a very rough part of town. But the Combat Zone is now midtown, and is coming back to life.
They have just announced that the Heyden will be rehabbed into rental housing. And they found a box of vintage porn in the building. The plan is to make an art piece out of the porn as a salute to it's ribald past.
So that's what put a smile on my face today.