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by JBReefer 3251 days ago
These responses are peak HN, it's hilarious and disappointing. The actual answer to your question is that tons of cities had beautiful public baths (I live next to a locked one), and shut them down when they became ground zero for AIDS transmission. Men were having risky sex in the locker rooms, and the closing of the public baths is seen as the turning point for the US taking the AIDS crisis seriously. The below address mostly private baths, but the rules ended both.

http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Sex_Panic_Closes_Bath...

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/26/nyregion/state-permits-clo...