This is a story of love and also disgust and revulsion. It could be a parable about New York City and the way, no matter how carefully its residents try to insulate themselves from its inherent grime, the grime always tries to win.
Let’s start with the love part. There were two characters, and certainly many more. Matt and Julia, who met when they were nearly naked in a spa called Othership in Toronto. Toronto is not New York, but stick with us.
Matt and Julia were strangers sitting side by side in a sexy sauna, the heat curling around them, sweat coating their skin. “I wouldn’t have thought that it would be a good place to date,” Matt says. “It felt a little weird.”
Washed in the warm red glow of Othership’s L.E.D. lights, their bodies relaxed into the dry heat. Matt and Julia continued their conversation in the shower room and kept going as they dunked in the cold plunge. Six months later, they were engaged.
Thus began the latest chapter of social bathing, where new, singles-centric spas started blooming like mold in New York City.
Bathhouse opened its first location in New York in 2019. In 2023, Elahni popped up in the Flatiron District, and Akari Sauna joined the scene in Williamsburg. Last year, Othership—the most unconventional of the bunch—followed in Flatiron. Some of these retreats are intimate, and one sauna can accommodate up to 90 people. A day pass ranges from $35 to $99, offering access to saunas, communal pools, fire pits, moody lighting, and electronic dance music. Most are alcohol-free, but Bathhouse serves wine at its café. This is not Austria; spa-goers must wear swimsuits.
“You may come for the sweat or the wellness or the longevity, but you stay for the community and culture. When I say ‘culture’ I mean social and spiritual,” says Robert Hammond, the president of Therme Group U.S., which builds urban spas and saunas. “It’s sexy, the lighting. You look sexy there.” If 1 Oak, the New York nightclub of the late aughts, went to rehab and discovered longevity, it would be reborn as one of these retreats.
It sounds like the perfect sanctuary to unwind after work. That’s what Jeanne Malle, the Assistant Editor at Air Mail Look, thought when she and a friend headed to Othership for a quiet evening last winter. As they sat in the sauna, whispering to each other, about 40 millennials blasted in, ready to party. Before the first bead of sweat formed, a hairy Canadian fellow in his 30s and an energetic New Yorker in a banya hat started chatting them up enthusiastically. The two women took that as a sign to move to the cold plunge, and, as they picked their way over the bodies and toward the door, they were stopped by other men urging them to stay. Nothing disturbing, nothing rude. Just eager mingling.
People fall in love in these places, and, in a romance-challenged city, that’s not nothing. It’s one of the reasons why Robbie Bent, C.E.O. and co-founder of Othership, opened a location in New York. Years earlier, he and his wife got engaged in a sauna (he hid the ring in a ball of ice).
He believes in the seductive power of skin and heat tempered with ice-cold water. He talks about the rise of dopamine, a hormone that makes “you feel alive, alert, present,” he says. “And what they also do is give you courage and make you feel happy.” It sounds more enticing than a shot of tequila.
Bent and his co-founders built romance into the Othership experience by offering singles’ nights, where guests hop into ice baths with strangers before answering prompted questions, and couples’ nights where pairs are instructed to gaze into each other’s eyes and hug at intervals.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, if you’ve been looking at social media and reading Curbed lately, a lot. Not long after these spas became popular, scattered complaints started appearing on Reddit. A former Bathhouse employee posted a long video on TikTok alleging and describing mold on the walls, bugs in the drains, and an unpleasant odor permeating the rooms. There were calls to 311. Several guests claimed they got urinary-tract infections after visiting the saunas and pools. Another issue: the affectionate couples sometimes became, perhaps, a bit too amorous. The words “Get a room” may have echoed through the dark. At the bathhouses that serve alcohol, drunkenness sometimes followed. You’d expect as much at 1 Oak, but the setting—lots of skin, lots of heat, dim lighting, and an air of wellness—may have made all this a bit jarring.
The owners of these spas explain in detail, and with evidence, that they are dedicated to cleanliness. Bathhouse produced reports from the New York Department of Health (D.O.H.) from December 2024 and April of this year for Air Mail Look showing no violations. They even sent out an e-mail to customers with a link to a D.O.H. report. Both Bathhouse and Othership explain how they check and, if necessary, adjust the chemicals in their pools a minimum of three times a day. When the D.O.H. arrives, unannounced, for regular inspections, their representative goes over the records and scans the rooms for mold with an ultraviolet light. Bathhouse claims there was no mold. “We take these things extremely seriously,” says Jason Goodman, a co-founder of Bathhouse.
Not long after these accusations arose, Curbed reported that cockroaches were discovered at an Erewhon in Santa Monica. “We deeply regret that a roach was found in our tonic bar,” the company explained to Curbed, “and we sincerely apologize for this lapse in our standards.” The message: Nothing is immune, not even the centers of wellness.
The accusations about U.T.I.’s and their connection to these particular pools and saunas are unclear. It can happen, sure. But Laura Shamin, a registered nurse who works in a women’s-health practice, says U.T.I.’s are caused by the presence of bacteria in the urethra, usually from hygiene practices and intercourse. For people prone to this infection, sitting in a wet bathing suit or gym clothes could increase its likelihood. “I’m not convinced it could be from the water, unless the water isn’t chlorinated properly,” she says. “I suppose it’s possible.”
Bathhouse lists a Code of Conduct on its Web site with a section called “PDA/Disruptive Behavior.” It instructs, “If you wouldn’t do it in front of your grandma, don’t do it here.” Othership’s Web site has an etiquette guide that states, “This is a flirt-free facility. While we encourage community and interaction, this is no place for a hook-up.” Bathhouse adds that it’s also “not a place for speed dating. Just be cool.”
It seems, for now, as if guests have gotten the message and are being cool—and also hot. Othership says it just had some of its busiest weekends.
Goodman, for his part, is trying to put visitors’ minds at ease. He has bigger dreams for Bathhouse. These social spas are aiming to encourage people to connect in a deeper way, removed from their phones and the apps. “It’s a peak experience, so when you’re sharing that with somebody, it tends to be bonding,” says Goodman.
Hammond is hopeful about the promise of the new spas, especially at a time when social media is contributing to so much dissatisfaction and isolation. “These generations are navigating new ways of dating,” he says. “And we have to find ways of having connections.”
The last time Malle visited Bathhouse, it was filled to the dripping rafters with couples, many of them unself-consciously wrapping their legs around each other the way they may or may not do at Grandma’s house, desire throbbing to the beat of Fred Again. It was Friday night, and anything seemed possible.
Linda Wells is the Editor at AIR MAIL LOOK
Jeanne Malle is the Assistant Editor at AIR MAIL LOOK