14/03/2024
Tributes have been paid to liberated sexual rights activist and businessperson Steve Ostrow who has passed on to the realm of our LGBTQIA+ ancestors at the age of ninety one. Mr Ostrow was married to a woman, but told reporters as recently as 2018, "I am not gay, I am not straight, I am not bisexual, I am not asexual. I am a sexual person … Why give up 50% of the population? I have slept with some of the most beautiful people in the world and I’ve never hid it from anybody, not my wife, not my family.” A native of the Jewish community in Brooklyn, Mr Ostrow visited gay bathhouses in the sixties but found them exploitative and unhygienic. So, in 1968, he opened the Continental Baths in the basement of a hotel. The Continental boasted four hundred rooms, swimming pool and on site entertainment, including dancefloor. As the sixties gave way to the seventies, DJs plied their trade on the sound system, with pioneers of dance music culture such as Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan being regulars. The stage hosted live performances too, with musicians ranging from Bette Midler to Barry Manilow, Labelle and the New York Dolls. Mr Ostrow claimed that the Continental was “the first gay establishment to treat gay people as equals and not exploit them”. But the success of the Continental was also its undoing. More heterosexual disco fans began to visit the venue and the loving gay atmosphere was diluted, as hard drugs came in. Therefore, Mr Ostrow closed the establishment in 1976. Ostrow moved to Sydney in his later years. There, he also founded MAG, a peer support group for older gay men. MAG president Steve Warren was among those paying tribute to Ostrow, writing: “We are very grateful for the legacy of MAG that Steve left us. Steve’s loss will leave a big hole in our heart but he will never be forgotten.” MAG also remarked "Steve’s autobiography Saturday Night at the Baths is riveting reading. A film documentary is now being prepared for final edit & release."
