Continental Baths (site, Ansonia Hotel)

The Continental Baths was a gay bathhouse that Steve Ostrow opened in 1968 in the basement of the Ansonia, the Beaux-Arts apartment building at 2109 Broadway on the Upper West Side. Besides its pool, steam rooms and dance floor, it ran a cabaret stage. Bette Midler performed there in the early 1970s with Barry Manilow as her pianist, and it gave both of them their start. The baths closed in the mid-1970s. The space later housed Plato's Retreat, a swingers' club. There is no plaque or public access to the basement. You can only see the Ansonia's exterior from Broadway, between 73rd and 74th Streets.