The Roman Sauna — Rochester, New York Vintage 1960s–1980s Gay Bathhouse Tee

Located at 109 North Street, later renamed Liberty Pole Way, in downtown Rochester, The Roman Sauna was one of western New York's legendary gay bathhouses, offering gentlemen a place to relax, socialize, and occasionally work up a sweat without ever setting foot in a gym.

And apparently, business was booming.

Operating by the late 1960s, The Roman Sauna became a fixture of Rochester's underground gay scene during an era when homosexuality was still criminalized in New York and finding other gay men wasn't quite as simple as opening an app.

You actually had to leave the house.

And sometimes take your clothes off.

By 1982, The Roman Sauna was advertising an impressive collection of amenities, including 65 private rooms spread across two floors, a dry sauna, fantasy rooms, an outdoor sundeck, a reading lounge, and complimentary X-rated movies.

The establishment was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because apparently sexual liberation didn't believe in business hours.

And the prices!

A locker cost just $5, a private room started at $6, and the particularly adventurous gentleman could upgrade to a VIP suite for the princely sum of $15.

There was even a special lunchtime discount.

Forget grabbing a sandwich at your desk. Rochester's homosexuals had considerably more interesting plans for their lunch breaks.

The Roman Sauna was part of a larger network of gay bars, bookstores, and bathhouses that flourished in Rochester during the 1970s and early 1980s, providing important gathering places for men who often had few opportunities to be openly gay in their everyday lives.

And here's a particularly wonderful little detail: the bathhouse was located right next to a police station.

Talk about hiding in plain sight.

By the late 1980s, The Roman Sauna had been renamed the Rochester Spa and Body Club, with renovated facilities and a somewhat more respectable-sounding identity.

The establishment continued operating at the same address, carrying on a remarkable piece of Rochester's gay nightlife history through changing attitudes, the AIDS crisis, and decades of social transformation.