Is Going To The Spa A Cry For Help?

Living in New York, there are days when you feel like you’ve mastered the city, and then there are those days when it feels like the city has mastered you.

What I like so much about saunas and spas, in general, is that they are a communal space for social activity. When I studied abroad in Moscow, I would go to the baths every week with a group of other young women, and we would eat pickles and hit ourselves with birch branches. (I have yet to be convinced of the medicinal properties of either, but they are a tradition.) More importantly, we would chat and gossip as the steam from the sauna opened our pores and our minds.

Those experiences contrast with the performative relaxation that permeated BATHHOUSE in Flatiron one Sunday afternoon a few months ago. The letters themselves practically screamed at me.

When the guy with the long beard and scraggly hair first started yelling in the main pool room to follow him into the sauna for an “aufguss,” I thought everyone would politely ignore him, as one does when someone is screaming on the subway. I should have known that New Yorkers would be up for any vaguely Scandinavian-sounding ritual that promised to heal whatever vaguely defined maladies plagued them that day.

I knew my reason for coming. The day prior, I had just completed the annual Great Saunter, a 34-mile walk around the perimeter of Manhattan, and I ached everywhere. But why was half of Manhattan there on a Sunday afternoon? Was everyone just hungover? Couples, big groups of friends, small groups of women reassuring each other it “was better to just focus on being a hot girl than worry about that guy.” The vibe felt more like a nightclub than a traditional bathhouse. The lights were dimmed way down low, thumping music seemed to emanate from the walls, the entire staff was comprised of attractive 20- and 30-somethings, there were well-lit mirrors for bikini mirror selfies (I did not partake), and a vague undercurrent threatened to transform the whole place into a rave at any moment.

I followed the conga line of people to the sauna. Oh, this is even worse than I imagined, I thought to myself. Why do people pay money for this? Why am_ I _paying money for this? Why were we all so willing to follow the half-naked man into the overheated, dark room with promises of health and self-care? It seemed we would take any cheap trick to feel even a little better.

Cue the Carrie Bradshaw—I couldn’t help but wonder….is going to the sauna always a cry for help?

“It’s going to get a little hot in here,” the half-naked man said.

One woman immediately stood up and ran toward the door. “I can’t do it,” she said, apologizing to the room.

“That’s fine. She didn’t have the courage to stay. And that’s okay. If you need to leave, leave. Just make sure the door clicks on your way out. But for the rest of you. I have prepared some sick beats from Sri Lanka. We will breathe along for two songs. Hear the music. Feel the music,” he intoned, the presence of his thick French accent making me wonder where his knowledge of sick Sri Lankan beats came from.

“I am Jacques, your sauna master.” He was wearing a pair of swim trunks and a towel wrapped around his head. His tattoos spoke of at least several years spent “finding himself” in far flung countries. “Breathe in.”

“HMMMMMMM.” The sound of forty sweaty New Yorkers inhaling.

“Breathe out.”

“Now, it’s time for a little show.” The sauna master whipped the towel off his head and started swinging it around like a rally towel. With each swing, a wave of heavy heat emanated toward those of us in the stands–that is, the cedar plank rows of the sauna.

The crowd was giving him nothing, too focused on not passing out as the “sick Sri Lankan beats” went on interminably and the heat increased.

“How about….THIS!” he declared, like a magician in Vegas. Jacques the Sauna Master swirled the towel around his body as he slowly sank into a full split.

“Whooo,” the crowd cheered wearily.

“Now, everyone reach out and hold the hand of your neighbor.” The thirty-six remaining New Yorkers sized each other up and, seemingly as a collective unit, decided we were not holding each other’s hands.

Finally, the second song ended and we exited the Gates of Hell.

In a daze, I made my way back to the locker room. When I finally left BATHHOUSE, I blinked my eyes a few times as they readjusted to the light and I remembered it was, in fact, only 6pm, and not 4am, as it had felt inside. I looked back at the unassuming entrance.

I seriously worry about the state of this city’s population if that’s how we all just spent a Sunday afternoon, I thought to myself.

If BATHHOUSE is filled with ridiculously fit 20- and 30-somethings, the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village draws a different crowd. When I was there, the audience skewed older, more male, and more accustomed to vodka and cured meats than the latest probiotic.

I love the harsh authenticity of the Russian & Turkish Baths (not to mention the delicious pelmeni, beef and veal dumplings served with sour cream). But the downside is that it is cramped, with dozens of people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder fighting for space and making the anonymity I craved impossible. I overheard one woman saying that in the first hour your body acclimates, in the second hour you sweat out all the toxins, and in the third hour you return to your body (there was a 30-minute recommended limit, so I do wish her well).

Unlike at BATHHOUSE, phones were strictly prohibited. As people sweated out last night’s party or last week’s work stress, they did so away from the glare of social media. In many ways, it felt like a place untouched by time.

I wondered, is it always a specific reason that brings us to the sauna or, in New York, can it ever just be relaxation for relaxation’s sake?

“Why is everything so hard?” I said out loud before promptly bursting into tears.

I had taken the subway to Brooklyn for a meeting and on the block-and-a-half walk from the station, a man - a total stranger - came charging at me, screaming that I was a terrible person and using some of the most profane language I have ever heard. I ran into a coffee shop, cowering and hoping he wouldn’t follow me. Everyone’s eyes were on me as I slammed the door closed. Well, I guess I’m never coming back here, I thought to myself.

After my meeting, I lumbered back to the L train to go home to Manhattan.

“They found a dead body between Lorimer and Grand. No L trains running,” a fellow New Yorker said, unfazed.

Oh. I was both emotionally distraught and logistically challenged. This was not the first time this had happened to me at this station—well, the dead body was, but the train not running wasn’t. Three canceled Ubers, one hour, and a $60 taxi later, I was back in Manhattan and late for my train out to the suburbs to take my driving test. At 25, I was out of excuses for why I didn’t know how to drive (see: growing up in San Francisco, cheaper to walk, have friends who drive). And—I failed the test.

On any day, I could handle one or two of these things. But the added weight of each successive blow toppled me over. Cue: “Why is everything so hard?” as I burst into tears at the New Rochelle train station. I put on my big black sunglasses and hoped the suburbanites around me would have the decency not to check on me. As I sat on the cold, hard bench, I realized there was only one answer: time for another trip to a spa.

Like every in-the-know New Yorker, I’ve had my eyes on QC Spa on Governors Island since it opened in 2022. Known for its breathtaking views of downtown Manhattan, it is relaxation citified.

So, a few days later, I made my way to Governors Island. I disembarked from the ferry and trooped with the other spa-goers to QC Spa. Immediately, there was something markedly different about this experience. It was the pursuit of relaxation for relaxation itself, not as a challenge to push the limits of one’s body in the pursuit of beauty.

The staff was clearly used to the influx of guests arriving every thirty minutes from the ferry and took quick care of the crowd that had swelled. I was ushered to a locker room where a fluffy hooded robe, two towels (which I appreciated; they know one is never enough), and sandals awaited. Everything was houndstooth print—the lockers, the chairs, even the terribly chic uniforms of the staff. I was struck by how much space there was—how often do you get to go to a spa outdoors in New York?

I collapsed into a pool chair and felt my shoulders drop below my ears for the first time in months. Everything was so frictionless. Phone chargers were set up in several stations for those New Yorkers who couldn’t truly unplug. The multilingual staff assisted in an impressive array of languages from German to Italian. There were saunas overlooking the water, in contrast to the dark and claustrophobic feel of the Russian & Turkish Baths, a lymphatic facial station, where I spent ten minutes zoning out watching a video of a woman telling me how to massage my face (if you catch a glimpse of my suddenly model-esque cheekbones, don’t be surprised), and cold facilities (if there’s one thing I’ve learned about New Yorkers, it’s that they love a cold plunge).

Ironically, I was so anxious about taking advantage of everything that I felt a little tense. But then I heard the sound of helicopters overhead, smelled the freshly cut grass, and felt the breeze coming off the Hudson. This is a city connected by water and we so often forget that. I opened my eyes and saw the bright orange of the Staten Island Ferry. The city felt very close and very far away at the same time.

Unlike the would-be Instagram models sizing each other up at BATHHOUSE, or the crowd jammed into the Russian & Turkish Baths ogling each other’s bodies whether they wanted to or not, the people at QC were less focused on vanity. Yes, the Instagrammable view meant a panoply of bikini selfies was always on rotation. But I felt more free to focus on relaxation and not the state of my body.

I stepped off the Governors Island Ferry, back into the melee of the city. Gone were the scents of lavender and peppermint, replaced by the pungent smells of hot dogs and city pollution. Young men hawked tours of the Statue of Liberty to unknowing tourists. The serenity of QC and its island oasis were already a memory. I was struck by how we create these reserves that we can escape to for a day without addressing the underlying qualities that make New York so stressful. If our infrastructure worked a little better, if the streets were cleaner, if we weren’t all moving so fast, we wouldn’t need this kind of respite. But who would want to live anywhere else?