Hello, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd here. Adlan Jackson is currently on vacation, so I will be your host for today's edition of Cultural Capital, Hell Gate's newish, biweekly arts and culture newsletter, in which we deliver a critical eye on the city scene. Subscribe to it here. A little further down, we’ll give you nightlife recommendations, capsule reviews, and a recap of what’s come across New York City’s last real local culture desk. Before that, Katie Way tells us one cool way to sweat in public that isn't dancing.
Gabe Bender wants New Yorkers to bathe in public. It's why he founded CUL DE SAC, the nonprofit billed as the city's first outdoor community sauna, and it's why he and his team work hard to get first-timers on a wooden bench and sweating for little to no cost.
"One in four New Yorkers has had a mental illness in the past year. That's basically the size of the population of Manhattan. Saunas can go a long way in providing preventative or complementary care for people who need that," Bender told Hell Gate. "We should also have public community saunas as infrastructure, as municipal structures, for people to go to and use in the way that you can go to a park or a community garden or a basketball court in New York City."
In fact, New York City needs community saunas urgently, according to Bender—a need that he and his team have been filling with free sessions for homeless LGBTQ+ youth via New Alternatives and the Ali Forney Center, for New York City Public School employees, and for longtime East Village residents via the Loisaida Center.