It’s no secret that Harlem in the 20th century was quite the queer destination. In the 1920s, Black intellectuals and artists could find themselves mingling any night of the week with titans like Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Langston Hughes at a Harlem Renaissance salon.

They could also find a place to relax, unwind, and engage in some sultry after-hours fun at the Mount Morris Baths, an all-male bathhouse on 28 East 125th Street and the only one catering specifically to Black gay New Yorkers.

There were many aspects that made Mount Morris an important place for Black queer communion. Until the Civil Rights movement, the Mount Morris baths was the only place in the city where Black men were admitted due to the vicious segregation of public and private spaces. And until 2003, it kept its doors open, even at the height of the AIDS crisis, becoming one of New York’s oldest and longest-running bathhouses.

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“The first rule is printed in boldfaced capital letters: ‘No sex permitted,'” wrote one New York Times reporter in 2003, after the closure. “Farther down the list, however, is another rule: ‘Dispose of used condoms carefully.'”

As the city’s only bathhouse catering to a Black queer clientele, Mount Morris saw a lot of icons pass through its doors. “Harlem royalty,” the Times article explains, “like Joe Louis and Sam Cooke used to sweat here years ago.” So did Countee Cullen, who met his partner, the professor and art curator Harold Jackman at the baths. For some, the baths were simply a place to hook up with rough trade—for others, it was to gossip, relax, and cruise. Later on, when the AIDS crisis hit, the baths became an important hub for safe sex information and supplies. At one point, the baths even hired an education director who set up a series of lectures and a G.E.D. program.

Mt. Morris Turkish Baths. New York, NY

So whether queer Black men were coming to hang out, play around, or learn something new, the baths remained a safe space for Harlem denizens throughout the 20th century.

While the baths are a historical site today, many feel the site’s closure due to structural issues might have been avoided had the city put more care into the building’s maintenance while it was still in operation. By 2003, the golden age of the bathhouse had passed, but the history of Mount Morris as a queer Black hub deserves to be remembered and respected.

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