They treated you like shit.” But at the Baths, “from the first night, there were lines around the corner”. The cleanliness of the Baths was – and still is – a source of great pride.
Now 87 and living in Sydney, Ostrow looks back fondly on the Continental era. Working with the novelist KM Soehnlein, the director Aron Kantor is developing a fictionalised version of the Continental’s rich history, adapted from Ostrow’s memoir, Live at the Continental Baths.
This story will soon be told on the big screen. Over the next eight years, it became a cultural hub for music, clubbing and queer culture, providing gay men with a safe space unlike anything that had been seen before. Located in the basement of the Ansonia hotel on New York’s 74th Street and Broadway, the Continental had around 400 private rooms, a sauna, a swimming pool and – eventually – a dancefloor. Shortly after his stakeout of the Everard, Ostrow, an opera singer by profession, opened the Continental Bathhouse. “Hey, Joanne,” says Ostrow, turning to his wife. Homosexuality is illegal in the state of New York. It is typical of the city’s clubs: sleazy, secretive, unkempt, not to mention unfriendly to its gay clients. Despite its popularity, he is not impressed with the Everard – or “Ever-hard” as some call it. Hundreds of people are queueing to get in. Steve Ostrow and his wife, Joanne, sit in their car opposite the Everard Baths, New York City’s most popular public bathhouse.