Great news for New Yorkers who like to sweat: Gotham is getting three new bathhouses.
Two of the fresh contenders for city shvitzers are opening this fall: Lore Bathing Club is coming to NoHo, and Toronto export Othership, which opened its first New York City location in the Flatiron District last year, is opening a new space in Williamsburg.
The third is a freshly announced location, also from Othership, in a 13,500-square-foot former yoga studio on the Upper East Side, but it isn’t slated to be finished until sometime in 2027.
None of the new bathhouses has released an exact opening date this fall, but both say they’re hoping to begin welcoming patrons later this month or next.
They come at an exciting time for those invested in the city’s long stagnant saunascape, which in recent years has been growing and diversifying. There are the high design-minded new institutions like Bathhouse, which also has locations in Williamsburg and Flatiron and Governors Island’s QC Spa (more resort than sweat sanctuary, but still) opening alongside an extremely long-standing array of old-school Russian banyas, Korean jjimjilbangs, gym locker rooms and less-communal, more treatment-focused spa spaces.
Lore is looking to serve Manhattanites seeking a regular place to sweat and will employ an unlimited monthly membership model. In contrast, most city saunas are currently pay-per-visit.
“When James and I started to talk about doing a bathhouse, one of the big observations that we saw was that New York City as a whole is underserved,” said Adam Elzer, speaking of his fellow Lore cofounder, entrepreneur James O’Reilly. “There [isn’t currently] a facility designed for somebody who really wants to be an everyday user.”
Both said they stripped away some of the “excess” of other sauna spaces to better focus on the core components of a bathhouse and keep the monthly cost for members down.
“Newer entrants tend to overdress what is a pretty fundamental, primal thing,” O’Reilly said.
Lore will be a 6,200-square-foot, two-story space at 676 Broadway with a dry heat sauna, cold water pool, infrared sauna open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Early access rates start at $89 per week or $210 per month.
Othership Williamsburg will be a continuation of the same vibe it cultivates at its two Toronto locations and in the Flatiron space — drawing in young people with an aesthetically appealing environment that offers a wellness-focused, sober social experience.
“We’re in this age now where people don’t want to drink anymore, and it’s happening at the same time people want to wake up feeling good,” Othership cofounder Amanda Laine said of the bathhouse’s appeal.
New Yorkers especially have proven particularly primed for the concept, and eased into emotional in-sauna guided experiences more naturally than Canadians, said Laine, who hails from Toronto.
When it comes to the ice baths though, New Yorkers have been “like, ‘holy s—,’ these are the coldest ice baths they’ve ever experienced,” Laine said.
Back home, she said, Torontonians generally have an easier time immersing themselves in the cold.