Health, Sex, and Danger at New York City’s Public Pools in the 20th Century

Anxieties surrounding gender and sexual expression infuse public spaces as places of stranger sociality, particularly public bathing spaces such as the bathhouse and the swimming pool. Indeed, the municipal pool compels us to participate in public life in a state of undress that is revealing and, perhaps in this way, equalizing. Still, even in this state, not all bodies are treated equally – by other pool-goers, by lifeguards, by law enforcement. Ideals of costume, self-presentation, and play in public bathing spaces over time inscribe gender and sexual propriety into what I call the municipal bathing project: the long project of state construction and management of urban aquatic spaces to promote health and well-being for urban denizens.

This paper will analyze three conflicts in the governance of public baths and pools in New York City from the early 20^th century to the present – mixed-gender bathing in the 1920s and 30s, a string of sexual assaults in the 1990s, and children in opposite-gender locker rooms today – to understand how norms of safety are worked out through the public spaces of the city. Through archival and journalistic sources, I consider how categories of sexuality and gender have shaped, and been shaped by, the built environment as it is governed by the municipal (welfare) state.