The Fitness SF location in the Castro — undeniably the city’s unofficial ‘gay gym’ — is shuttering its communal showers.
Every city has one: an unofficial gay gym. It’s, for the most part, situated inside a city’s self-designateg gayborhood; it’s usually not too bougie (think a monthly memberhships somewhere in the low-$100s), but require ample mirror latitude; the locker rooms must have middle benches, though exist with enough space to avoid accidental grazes; it must be a reasonably clean space and have that one bathroom with above-average lighting, even if it’s overhead. Of course, there must be a communal showering option … for reasons obvious and not-so-obvious reasons … (the latter harkening back to the where “cruising” was the foremost means to find potential sexual partners amid a political climate rife with homophobia).
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In San Francisco, Fitness SF’s Castro location has filled and fit that niche since opening in 2012. While the space — a two-story perch overlooking Market Street, with north-facing windows that allow ample natural light to reflect off floor-to-ceiling mirrors — isn’t closing, its queer-defining communal showers are, alas, being turned off.
And potentially for good; Fitness SF’s Castro location is undergoing an extensive renovation that’ll see the showering space evolve, unclear yet as to what that means for the open office bathing concept. Regardless, someone erected a literal, albeit temporary altar outside one showering stall earlier this week, complete with battery-powered candles, and real flowers set inside a water-filled vase.
But before it goes out altogether, a candlelight vigil is being held to honor the space and the memories shared there.
Flyers sharing the vigil, which is set to happen Saturday, March 8th — the typo later fixed employing a ballpoint pen – at 9 p.m. that evening. The corner of 18th and Castro streets, an intersection of the Castro dubbed “Hibernia Beach” that’s become a common place for local queers to gather for in times of gried and mourning, will glow with a warm sheen. There’s not exacly an itinerary, nor set of speakers or performers or orators fixed, but we imagine some manner of queer frivolity and giddiness will envelop the street corner. Afterward, the tongue-in-cheek ceremony will spill into the monthly party DAD SF set to the venue, F8, at 1192 Folsom Street.
Tailing the flyer, a quote from the late Heklina reads “we shared more than soap just dispensers — we shared a moment in time.”
Those junctures of time and space will live far beyond when the last tile is cracked, even if those fleeting moments only spanned the song length of “Governemnet Hooker.”
Feature image: Courtesy of Instagram via [at]dad_sf
