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Division Street Russian and Turkish Baths / Red Square is a traditional Russian-style bathhouse at 1914 W. Division Street in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, which closed in 2010 and reopened in 2011 under the name Red Square, offering separate facilities for both men and women, with some mixed gender areas as well. It has operated since 1906.
The most popular feature at Division Bath is the traditional Russian Banya or hot room. These rooms (one on either side) were built of concrete and tile with glass doors. In a corner of each is a brick oven in which granite boulders, approximately the size of watermelons, are heated to extreme temperatures by gas jets; hot water is then thrown on the rocks by the customers as desired. When this happens, the water instantly evaporates, creating steam inside the oven and heating the brick enclosure, thereby raising the air temperature in the room. This method provides a much dryer heat than common steam rooms. The bathers would sit or lie on three-level tiered wooden benches, which allow for dramatically different temperatures at the various heights. Cold water is provided by taps located under the benches - when overwhelmed by the heat, a bather will dump a bucket of frigid water over their head while still in the hot room, or may step outside to use the cold pools.
Division Bath is the only traditional bathhouse remaining in Chicago, and one of only a handful in the United States. Authors who have written about it include Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow. One of its most prominent regular customers was Reverend Jesse Jackson - a fact that brought the bathhouse some publicity when it was first reported in the mainstream press. Mobster Sam Giancana was also said to have gone, and various out-of-town celebrities such as James Gandolfini and Russell Crowe had occasionally visited; their autographed portraits lined a corridor on the first floor.

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  1. R

    Low hot water flow

    I am just wondering if anyone can help me with a problem I am having with hot water flow. I moved into my house on saturday and sunday night whilst making the kids a bath I noticed that when the hot tap is on you and a fairly poor flow from the tap, when you turn the cold tap on the flow from...
  2. U

    change bath taps

    been to look at a job today to change the bath taps for mixer taps the old taps are 190mm apart the mixer taps are 160mm between each fixing, the bath is an old cast one, i told him i could not fit them and i told him why, he then asked me to drill new holes in the corner and fit the mixer, i...
  3. A

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  4. J

    heated towel rails

    Hi everyone, I"m changing my bathroom radiator for a towel rail and it would be easier to couple it up using flexible braided couplings,the type you use for basin and bath taps,is it ok to use these on central heating systems?
  5. C

    Problem finding the leak

    Hi guys, Im wondering if any of you out there can solve this mystery for me. My sister has had a leak now underneath her bath for a couple of weeks but its intermmitent. I have been under the bath and there is a wet patch surrounding the cold pipe to the bath directly underneath the taps and...
  6. U

    Isolating Valves

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  7. M

    pipe size question

    On a gravity fed system would it make a lot of difference to the flow pressure to the bath taps if the pipes where reduced from 22 to 15 for the last meter or so? Also is there any way of increasing the pressure to both hot a cold feeds with out the use of a pump as i have a customer who...
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