platzas

Workers applying a platza treatment — an aggressive scrubbing with oak leaves and olive oil soap — at the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village. Willie Davis for The New York Times

about to jump neck deep into work and be MIA-ish for the next three weeks, so ONE more catch-up post. this article about the history of the russian baths in NYC (whose previous owner died while giving a platza), where i went on my birthday in 2005, and sauna’ed, steamed, cold-plunged, had a platza, drank beers on the sunroof. the platza was literally, like, straight out of a porn movie, with steam rising around the masseuse and me; buckets of water being poured on both myself and the masseuse (who was shirtless, wearing only cutoffs); and lots of gasping (from the shock of the cold water; the beating of the broom; all the sex we were having????). more pix of the baths here.