“Tepidarium”?! I want to go to there!!

There’s been a lot of press lately about the closing of the last of Albany’s public baths (which by now is truly just a swimming pool). Once, the baths were so much more. In 1870, you could have walked just one block (or “square”) north up Broadway from Delevan House, one of Albany’s biggest hotels, and treated yourself to Turkish, electro-chemical and sulphurous vapor baths. Easily reachable by horse cars from all parts of the city, the bath house was open until 9 every night and until midnight on the Sabbath. Calculated against unskilled wages, that $1.25 for a single ticket would be about $148 today, so it’s likely this place wasn’t for the hoi polloi.

 

The Modus Operandi of the Turkish Bath: “The Bather enters the Reception Room, registers his name, and is there shown into a Dressing Room, where he disrobes, each bather having a separate apartment. A sheet is then provided for him, and he is now ready for the ‘Tepidarium,’ or warm room. There his head is wet with cold water, also drinks freely of water, and reclines or sits on a resting chair for ten or fifteen minutes, until the skin becomes soft and moist. He is then ready for the “Calidarium,” or hot room, until profuse perspiration takes place, the head meanwhile being kept with wet with cold water. He is then taken out and shampooed from head to foot with perfumed Glycerine Soap, which leaves the skin ‘soft as velvet.’ Then comes the Spray Bath, warm at first, then cool, then cold; and so gradual is the change of temperature that no shock is given to the system. When the bather is sufficiently cooled, a hot dry sheet is thrown over him, he is ushered into the ‘Frigidarium,’ or cooling room. Here, reclining or sitting, he remains until thoroughly cool and dry, when he is ready to dress, a wiser, cleaner and happier man.”

THE LADIES GO THROUGH THE SAME ROUTINE.

Funny how the Modus Operandi of the Sulphurous Vapor Bath isn’t given.