public baths
Before interior plumbing became available to the majority of St. Louis citizens, bath houses were an important public service provided by the city. One of the last surviving examples of this building type is also the last to have been constructed. The St. Louis Avenue Bathhouse, designed by Building Commissioner Albert Osburg in 1937, is located at 1120 St. Louis Avenue. An Art-Deco design, this one-story brick building displays two entrances at each end of the front facade, flanked by terra cotta pilasters and surmounted by triangular hoods. Pilasters with stylized capitals also mark the corners of the building. A wide cornice of abstract ornament is supported by corbelled brick. (St. Louis, 1995)