Where to Soak, Steam and Sauna in New York

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This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York

It’s four-thirty in the afternoon and I’m in the basement of a building in the Flatiron district, resisting the urge to flee. Sweat pours from my body as Kieran O’Leary, a sauna master, leads about 25 sauna-goers in an ancient ritual called aufguss. “Set an intention,” he says as he tosses an essential oil-scented ice ball against the hot stones. “Mine is self-love.” The thermostat is close to 90°C. O’Leary artfully twirls his towel, fanning the hot air around the room. “I am loved,” I repeat to myself. “I am enough.” Then I murmur under my breath: “I’m very hot. Jesus Christ.”

Bath houses are a 5,000-year-old tradition. They’ve been around since humanity discovered that soaking in hot water is enjoyable (and as the hot spring-loving snow monkeys of Nagano indicate, the desire isn’t reserved just for homo sapiens). In New York City, however, bathhouses were for many years the exclusive property of the poor and newcomers. On the Lower East Side, where the first municipal bathrooms were built, demographics overlapped. According to The New York Sun in 1891, the issue was not just hygiene but baptizing “some of these filthy anarchists and some of these Poles, Russians and Italians into good Americans.”

Over the years, bathhouses have flourished in largely Russian and Eastern European neighborhoods such as Coney Island and the East Village, importing the banya experience to Old World émigrés. On Wall Street, the sauna became (like the smoking room, the locker room, and the boardroom) just another andron, where deals were made through the thick fog of a steam room. Titans in towels and slippers.

These days, bathhouses are having their moment again. Bathhouse, a stylish new company, recently opened a 35,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Manhattan and is exponentially expanding its original Williamsburg location. Spain’s Aire Ancient Baths is opening a second Manhattan location in a former MoMA storage facility on the Upper East Side. And the demographic they attract is democratic and varied. As the world spins increasingly unstable on its axis and chaos reigns, more and more people are seeking refuge in pools and hot rooms, according to Bathhouse co-owner Jason Goodman. “The heat is real, the cold immersion is real – it’s a basic, simple human experience,” he says. “You don’t need to be taught how to get it. It is not necessary to understand the theories. “It’s just a mind-body connection.”

Bathhouse

14 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010

As one descends into this sprawling new Flatiron bathhouse, the light becomes dimmer and the air becomes warmer. When you reach the lowest level, beyond the café carved into Manhattan’s bedrock, the bodies appear as glowing silhouettes against illuminated pools. The crowd here is as stylish as it is sweaty. In a large pool at body temperature, clients relax. There are two hot tubs, a steam room, a dry sauna and an infrared sauna, but the real acolytes head to the banya, powered by a large brick oven. They then flow, steaming, into cold waters, which are around 7°C and 10°C. abathhouse.com; Instructions

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world spa

1571 McDonald Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11230

There is no more diverse spa in all of New York than the Grand Banya, the largest in the United States, at the World Spa, an almost comically luxurious facility hidden under an elevated train track deep in Brooklyn. Orthodox Jews, tattooed hipsters, LGBTQ+ and straight, old and young gather on three floors of extravagant rooms. An intricately tiled hammam channels Morocco; a sauna filled with dried herbs looks ancient; while an infrared sauna with wavy walls looks like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In one room, mounds of snow flutter from an opening in the ceiling. It’s not exactly Moscow on the Hudson, but rather a dacha in Brooklyn. mundospa.com; Instructions

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Russian and Turkish baths

268 East 10th Street, New York, NY 10009

Regulars of this bathhouse know the story of business partners Boris Tuberman and David Shapiro, who for years ran the 130-year-old business every other week. Although David died in 2020, his son Dmitry preserved the bifurcated business. Guests must still purchase a pass for David or Boris weeks. This place is a holdover from when the East Village was a largely Eastern European neighborhood, and the Russian and Turkish baths used to serve Jewish mobsters and then stars (Sinatra and John Belushi in their Saturday night live days were common) and today to a mix of veterans and newcomers. Now run by Dmitry, David’s weeks are noticeably younger, while Boris (who eschews all technology) caters to a more traditional clientele. They both enjoy extremely hot banyas, where men armed with oak branches whip you for a price, a treatment called square. russianturkbathrooms.com; Instructions

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Ancient Air Baths

88 Franklin Street, New York NY 10013

Part of the bathhouse experience is the blending, standing shoulder to shoulder, towel to towel with humanity. But if you prefer more privacy, Aire Ancient Baths, a candlelit grotto in a former textile factory in Tribeca, only allows 20 patrons in at a time. They soak in four pools and shake around in robes for spa treatments that include body scrubs, hair masks and massages. beaire.com; Instructions

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mermaid spa

3703 Sirena Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11224

If the heat of a sauna increases in direct proportion to the percentage of Slavic languages ​​spoken, the Mermaid Spa has the hottest rooms in the city. Located near the traditionally Russian enclave of Coney Island in Seagate, it is one of the oldest bathhouses in New York. Customers are drawn to the large backyard, a traditional Russian restaurant, one of the largest hot tubs in New York, and a dry heat banya that reaches 93°C, extreme temperature even by Russian standards. sirenspa.us; Instructions

Do you have a favorite New York spa or bathhouse to recommend? Tell us in the comments below. AND follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter