But by the time the fire engines came wailing down 28th Street around 7 a.m., nine men - trapped inside a building with blocked-up windows and no fire escapes - would not make it out alive. They would have been hanging out in the steam room or the sauna, grabbing something to eat from the snack shop in the lobby, swimming laps in the heavily chlorinated pool in the basement, getting a massage, smoking a joint, buying drugs from the attendant on the third floor, or having sex on a bed in one of the private cubicles or the big, communal L-shaped dormitory, also known as the orgy room. Tuesday night was a big night at the baths, and many of the men would have rented one of the 135 tiny cubicles for $7 for 12 hours, or just a locker for $5. Maybe there were 80 to 100, as the building owner estimated later. ‘No one knows exactly how many men were inside the Everard Baths in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 25, 1977.
