Abandoned for 49 Years, Baruch Bathhouse to Remain Deserted as Developer Nixes Ice Rink Plan

It’s back to the drawing board for the Baruch Bathhouse. After six years of proposals and planning, the Lower East Side property will remain abandoned, as it has been for the past 49 years.

Parks Department officials announced at a Manhattan Community Board 3 meeting Thursday that they would not be moving forward with a $50 million proposal from the Ekstein Development Group to demolish the 123 year-old bathhouse and construct an ice rink and multisports facility in its place.

According to Parks, the Ekstein Group pulled out of the project because they could not raise the necessary funds.

A self-described “ultra luxury” real estate company, the Ekstein Group, owned by Erik Ekstein, also developed the City Ice Pavilion in Long Island City in 2018 and Van Cortlandt Park Ice Skating Rink in 2013. The company did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment about the change in plans.

The about-face is a major disappointment to locals who have hoped in recent years that the historic building, once used by tenement residents who didn’t have baths at home, would once again be activated. At Thursday’s meeting, frustrated members asked what the setback means for the years-long effort to revitalize the space for local residents.

David Cerron, assistant commissioner for business development with the Parks Department, said the agency would restart the proposal process from scratch, while affirming that whatever comes to occupy the space would serve local residents.

“Any next steps will be taken in partnership with the community,” Cerron told THE CITY.

“We recognize the challenges in finding a developer to build a recreation center with concessions in a city park, especially when it requires them to secure their own funding,” said Trever Holland, chair of CB3’s Parks Committee, which passed a resolution supporting restarting the process.

Troy Velez, a local resident who formerly served on a task force to collect community feedback on plans for the Baruch Bathhouse site, was pleased that the Ekstein Group proposal wasn’t going through. But he also expressed frustration that the process essentially begins anew again.

“It’s an uphill struggle right now,” said Velez. “This community needs help, whether it’s from a private organization that wants to come in and donate, or the city itself.”

Velez, who has lived in Baruch Houses all his life, spent his youth at the nearby Boys’ Club of New York. With its closure and those of other community centers, he worries that neighborhood youth will get into more trouble.

A large section of nearby East River Park is also currently inaccessible due to ongoing coastal resiliency efforts.

“It kept me out of trouble, kept me on the straight and narrow, and that’s what we need for this community,” Velez said.

Dueling Proposals

The Parks Department began the process of reclaiming the bathhouse in 2018 by soliciting redevelopment proposals, prioritizing those that used the space year-round, accommodated youth and senior programs and were accessible to public housing residents in the nearby Baruch complex. All costs were to be borne by the developer.

Parks received just two submissions. The first was from the CUALA Foundation and Amerinda, two nonprofit organizations focused on community self-care through cultural preservation and traditional and contemporary Native American art, respectively.

Their joint proposal sought to restore the neoclassical structure, registering it as a landmark, and repurpose it as a community sports and cultural center, with an archive and garden.

The other proposal was from Ekstein, which pitched a massive, National Hockey League-sized ice rink and other sports and recreation spaces. The Ekstein proposal included a full demotion of the bathhouse, as recommended by the Parks Department.

CUALA and Amerinda submitted their proposal to the Parks department in September 2020, and then engaged with Parks for years on revisions to their proposal. They learned in the fall of 2023 that the department would be moving forward with the Ekstein proposal instead.

Cerron says that Parks chose to reject CUALA and Amerinda’s bid because the organization did not have enough experience working on construction projects of this scale and did not have any money fundraised at the time. Despite this, Susan McKeown, CUALA’s executive director, says the group will submit a proposal again.

Parks and Ekstein presented a joint proposal to CB3 in December 2023 for feedback, and CUALA and Amerinda presented their proposal this February, even though Parks had already decided they would move forward with the Ekstein proposal.

Though Parks has the final say on which projects move forward, they have indicated that they would receive feedback from the community board and have provided it with updates and opportunities to weigh in multiple times over the years.

Oldest Bathhouse

The Baruch Bathhouse, the city’s first, opened in 1901 as the Rivington Street Municipal Bath. Frequently called “the White House” by locals, the facility was renamed the Baruch Bathhouse in 1917 after Dr. Simon Baruch, who had long advocated for public bathhouses to curb the spread of diseases.

Before the bathhouse opened its doors, most of the neighborhood’s recently arrived immigrants did not have access to baths in their homes. The lack of sanitation and tight quarters in tenement housing lead to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid.

Baruch served as a doctor for the Confederate Army during the Civil War, where he first developed his notions around hydrotherapy — which included therapeutic spas, bathing and other methods of healing with clean water. Though many of his practices were eventually disproven, his methodology around hygiene led to better health outcomes for those who used public bathhouses.

Eventually, public bath houses became required by state law , making New York the first state in the country to mandate their operation.

For the next 74 years, the free bathhouse served as a community space before its closing in 1975 — and it has sat empty ever since.

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