Jimmy McCourt on the Everard Baths

The novelist James McCourt spoke with me early in March 2013 on the everal years he spent going to the Everard Baths, the gay bathhouse that ran from 1888 to 1986. Jimmy started as a Catholic high school student in his teens in the late 1950s. He spoke of intelligent men on speed having a lot of sex and talking at top speed.

 

(Jimmy McCourt)

Jimmy McCourt discussing the Everard Baths in the 1950's.

Jimmy also told me about his unpleasant experiences with Gore Vidal, who was a regular at the baths. He also said that the baths were protected from spontaneous police raids because it was owned by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Other sources have said that PBA ownership is a glorious myth that started because the Everard looked vaguely like a New York Police Department precinct.






(The former Everard site now)

There was a fire at the Everard in the late 1970s where nine men died. The baths were eventually shut down in April 1986, during the height of the AIDS crisis.