According to the New York City Department of Transportation, streets make up approximately 25% of the city’s land area, and yet, aside from parks, there are few spaces to gather socially in the public space of the city.  The DOT has begun a program to reclaim under utilized public spaces to become redesigned as public spaces Communities are empowered to nominate spaces to become these plazas, which are then outfitted by the DOT with street furniture, planting, and paving changes.
Specifically, the program is to be a contemporary take on a public bath house, which could be understood alternatively a sort of urban “watering hole,” as a speculative infrastructural/social program that is a structure or structures that will house bathing facilities, bathrooms, a public drinking water supply, and other water features.  Public bath houses have a rich and varied history throughout urban life in many cultures, including Roman, Turkish, Japanese, Scandinavian, and Jewish.   In New York, The Asser Levy Public Baths is a notable example of the important hygienic and social role that baths played in the city in the first half of the 20th century.