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Anna Erickson likes to trek around her Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen. A social studies instructor and history enthusiast, she says she can’t help but see this odd brick building she often passes; it sits right in the middle of a residential block, and it has large Roman-style stone columns. Above the door, an inscription reads “Chicago Public Bath,” yet there’s no bathhouse running in there these days. (In fact, it’s zoned to become residential someday.)

Anna’s passed that building so many times that she eventually asked Curious City to figure out something that regularly gnaws at her: “There’s a widespread bathhouse in my neighborhood. What happened to the other bathhouses?”

You may have had a similiar question if you’ve ever passed one of these aged facades or even the occasional operating bathhouse in the capital. But defining Chicago’s experience with “bathhouses” is complicated. The word’s applied to different kinds of places, ranging from a place for the poor to scrub down; a place to own sex but then catch a show; and a place to pamper yourself with extreme heat and cold you would never tolerate anywhere else, let alone pay for the privilege