iteigigigd
Mazel
Toy!
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e Steam
SHARON LUCKERMAN
Staff Writer
p
Gary Sosnick
Recounting
the pleasures
of an old
J ewish
hangout
a Russian
bathhouse.
••:,;4••
•',•-7v,
. / ••..07/Y /
page 44
pleted a Web site about the history,
the place and especially the colorful
people he met at the Oakland Avenue
Bath House (now called the Schvitz
Health Club). His site includes nine
pages of text, photographs and links
to related subjects, including the
•names and descriptions of three other
Mr„ffisgeg,,,A,Vvii,
birthday and a link to the city's forgot-
ten social and architectural past."
His site succeeds in capturing a rare
blend of physical pleasure, a spirit of
camaraderie, and a lively history of a
time and neighborhood now gone.
Threaded throughout his text,
Sosnick weaves the adventures he and
rom the late 1960s till the
mid-1970s, then-teenager
Gary Sosnick of Detroit and
his buddies Neil, Ricky,
Jeffrey and Dick followed their fathers'
and, for some, their
fathers' fathers' foot-
steps for a daily
shvitz (Yiddish for
steam bath) at the
Oakland Avenue
Bath House in
Detroit.
The young men
prepared for dates as
well as life itself
under the influence
of "shvitzing," in this
men-only haven.
The "procedure"
took a couple of
hours and included a
rubdown-like mas-
sage called a plaitza,
several trips in and
out of the steam
room, along with a
dousing of cold
water.
"I have wonderful
memories of those
The Oakland Avenue Bath House, officially the Oakland Health Club,
times," says Sosnick.
was built in central Detroit in 1930.
So as Detroit
his friends had taking breaks from
Russian-style bathhouses in the
approached its 300th birthday,
their studies at Wayne State University
United
States,
that
earn
"our
stamp
of
Sosnick, a Web site designer and pro-
in the early 1970s to spend time each
approval.
ducer, looked for a way to "contribute
day at the shvitz.
"My motivation," says Sosnick, "is a
to the party."
But beware of his descriptions. They
desire to see the Oakland Avenue Bath
He combed his personal archives for
can lead to a strong desire to try one
House become a part of Detroit's
material. Three months later, he corn-
7/27
2001
35