Gay Timeline
Get it · $49

← All collections

Cover of Steam and Gaslight, Gay Timeline members-only collection No. 3
Coming soonMembers-only · No. 3

Steam and Gaslight

25 true stories of the gay bathhouses and meeting places of Gilded Age New York and beyond: the Everard, the Mount Morris, the Slide, the Continental, and the baths of Paris, Berlin and Budapest. Never on YouTube.

25 stories · about 25 hours · read by Julian · MP3s to keep

$49for all 25 stories · about $1.96 each · paid once
Get the collection · $49 See the 25 stories
“These stories are priceless.”
gene978, a listener

Secure checkout by PayhipPayPal or cardNo subscription

Why this collection

Where the city let men be themselves

This collection grows out of the channel’s story on the gay bathhouses of Gilded Age New York. It goes inside the places where men could drop their guard: the steam rooms of the Everard and the Mount Morris, the river baths on the Hudson, the dance halls and resorts of the Bowery, the beer cellar where Walt Whitman’s circle met, and the bathhouses of Paris, Berlin, Budapest and St. Petersburg, all the way to the Continental Baths and the last nights of the old bathhouses. Every one of these stories is members-only. You won’t hear them on YouTube or anywhere else.

The 25 stories

Story 1

“Everhard”

A former church on West 28th Street became the bathhouse gay New York gave its own nickname.

Story 2

The Mount Morris

In Harlem, one bathhouse became a place where gay Black men could find each other for decades.

Story 17

The Cercle Hermaphroditos

In 1895 a small group of men formed what is remembered as gay New York’s first club.

Story 23

The Continental

Under the Ansonia Hotel, a bathhouse where singers performed for an audience in towels.

  1. 01Inside the Everard Baths, the Bathhouse Gay New York Called “Everhard”, 1888–1919
  2. 02The Harlem Bathhouse Where Gay Black Men Found Each Other - Mount Morris Baths, 1893–1950s
  3. 03Inside the Lafayette Baths of Downtown New York, 1910s–1930s
  4. 04The East Village Bathhouse Gay Men Kept for Decades - St. Marks Baths, 1910s–1960s
  5. 05The Free City Bathhouses Where Working Men Met - New York, 1890s–1910s
  6. 06The River Baths Where Gay Men Swam in the Hudson - New York, 1870–1910
  7. 07How Did Gay Men Spend the Whole Night at New York’s Bathhouses, 1890s–1920s
  8. 08The Medical Craze That Sent Gilded Age Men to the Steam Room, 1870s–1900s
  9. 09The Brooklyn Steam Room That Brought Turkish Baths to America, 1863–1890
  10. 10Inside The Slide, Gilded Age New York’s Most Notorious Gay Resort, 1890s
  11. 11The Lower East Side Hall Where Gay Men Held Masquerade Balls - Walhalla Hall, 1890s
  12. 12The Street Where Gay Men Strolled in Gilded Age New York - Fourteenth Street, 1880s–1900s
  13. 13The Harbor Walk Where Sailors and Gay Men Met - The Battery, New York, 1880s–1910s
  14. 14Inside Pfaff’s, the Broadway Beer Cellar Where Devoted Young Men Gathered, 1858–1865
  15. 15The Untold Gay History of New York’s Omnibus Drivers, 1850s–1870s
  16. 16Gay Clerks in the Department Store Palaces of Ladies’ Mile, 1880s–1900s
  17. 17Inside the Cercle Hermaphroditos, Gay New York’s First Club, 1895
  18. 18The Glass Palace Where San Francisco Men Swam by the Pacific - Sutro Baths, 1896–1966
  19. 19The Men-Only Turkish Bath Where Gay Budapest Gathered - Rudas Baths, 1890s–1930s
  20. 20Inside the Gay Bathhouses of St. Petersburg, 1880s–1910s
  21. 21Inside the Gay Bathhouses of Belle Époque Paris, 1880s–1914
  22. 22The Berlin Bathhouse Where Gay Men Gathered Before the War - Admiralsgartenbad, 1890s–1914
  23. 23The Bathhouse Where Gay New York Came for the Cabaret - Continental Baths, 1968–1976
  24. 24The Far Beach Where Gay New York Spent Its Summers - Jacob Riis Park, 1940s–1970s
  25. 25Inside the Last Nights of New York’s Old Gay Bathhouses, 1960s–1985

Inside every story

Questions

What do I get for $49?

All 25 stories, about an hour each: one ad-free MP3 per story with its cover art, and a one-page PDF of the real men, historians and books behind it. The files are yours to keep.

How do I listen?

After you pay, a download link arrives by email. Save the MP3s to your phone or computer and play them in any music or podcast app, even with no connection.

Are these stories on YouTube?

No. Every story in this collection is members-only and is never posted on YouTube or any other platform.

Are these stories true?

Yes. Each one is built from real historical records, and the sources are listed in the PDF that comes with it. Where a character is a composite of several real men, the story says so.

Is this a subscription?

No. You pay once and nothing renews.

Gay Timeline · Members’ collection No. 3

Give them your full attention.

They spent their lives being interrupted, hidden and erased. Hear their stories from beginning to end.

Get Steam and Gaslight · $49 See all collections
Steam and Gaslight
25 members-only stories · $49 Get it