Empire Building

Serge Becker’s Bathhouse Plans Are Heating Up

Is this the building Becker's bathhouse is going into?
Is this the building Becker’s bathhouse is going into? Photo: Daniel Maurer

Remember when Simon Hammerstein of the Box and Serge Becker of La Esquina were plotting to open a boozy bathhouse? That was a few years ago, so we assumed they never succeeded in finding a location, but now we’re hearing that Becker, at least, plans to install a pool and hamam in a former printing building somewhere on Varick Street. It’s uncertain whether Hammerstein is attached.

If you Google “printing press” and “Varick Street,” you’ll find 160 Varick, a building where (as you can see here) construction is underway on a large first-floor space (the doorman told us he had no idea what was going into it). Nevertheless, Becker hasn’t responded to e-mails requesting comment, so we can’t report the bathhouse’s exact location — when we first heard whispers of this some months ago, the project was said to be in the Battery Park area. Should this come to fruition (and we’re hearing it could be a few years), you know exactly where Jay-Z will be schvitzing.

Serge Becker’s Bathhouse Plans Are Heating Up