While these first attempts at providing public bathing facilities proved successful, with over 140,000 people per year reportedly using them, Baruch and other public health advocates recognized that their work “had for its object the bathing of the masses—not the luxurious bathing of the elite, as in ancient Rome—upon such a scale as had never hitherto been attempted”⁷ and therefore campaigned for municipal support. In 1891, the same year as the opening of the bath house at 9 Centre Market Place, the Medical Record noted that “there should be a number of baths distributed throughout the city and convenient to the tenement population” and called upon New York City to “undertake this work, since it would redound so much to the health of the people.” Though Baruch’s campaign in New York City proved initially futile, the bath advocates were more successful at the state level. In 1892 the Governor approved a bill which made it “lawful for any city, village, or town to establish free Public Baths” and “any city, village, or town [was enabled] to loan its credit or make appropriations of its funds for the purpose of establishing free Public Baths.” This law, though not mandatory, provided the nucleus for a second bill passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor in 1895, requiring that all cities of the first and second class “establish and maintain such public baths as the local Board of Health may determine to be necessary” and stipulating that “each bath shall be kept open not less than fourteen hours for each day, and both hot and cold water be provided.” Furthermore, it added that the “erection and maintenance of river or ocean baths shall not be deemed a compliance with the requirements of this section.”⁸

In Yonkers, the requirements of the new state law requiring the establishment of municipal bathing facilities were met quickly by the city authorities. In 1896, Yonkers’ first public bath house was opened at 55 Jefferson Street. Located in the center of one of the city’s most densely populated districts, this now demolished structure was the first bath house constructed by a municipal government in New York State. Bilaterally symmetrical and modest in execution, it heeded the reformers’ admonition that:

…the exterior of the building should be easily recognizable in order to be readily found, but all outward displays of lavishness in the architecture of the building must be avoided, as it would only have a tendency to keep poor people away.⁹

Bath House #1’s plain brick facade was firmly rooted in the aesthetic of the late nineteenth century Romanesque Revival commercial architecture. Incorporating many of the features that would become standard in later bath house construction, i.e. clearly delineated entrances for men and women, a two–story main facade with a projecting one–story elI, and the division of the interior into three major sectors: reception area, custodian’s apartment, and the baths proper, it became a model for the erection of similar facilities throughout the country. In New York State, other cities that were to follow Yonkers’ pioneering lead in building public bath houses were Buffalo in 1897, Rochester in 1899, Syracuse in 1900, and New York City, Albany and Troy in 1901. Undoubtedly, Bath House #1’s configuration was derived from the Centre Market Place Bath House in New York City. It is known that Yonkers’ officials were present at the latter’s opening in 1891¹⁰ and were in communication with the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.¹¹

City Bath No. 1. From Yonkers Illustrated, 1902.