Talk:Sutro Baths

The article says the baths opened in 1896, but the accompanying drawing is captioned as being "circa 1894". Which is correct? &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 02:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Gwalla, I changed the date to 1894 since the sources listed all cite 1894 as the dedication date. Breadyornot (talk) 16:05, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone knows the name of the person that burned it down or if it would be possible to find out searching police records? Curious if they still live in SF. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.48.146 (talk) 07:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Photographs, Blueprints, Drawings
I would like to see more photos that show the original Sutro Baths in this article rather than the ruins. Really, only one good picture of the ruins is necessary, whereas there are many photos in the public domain that show the fully functioning baths. I will try to find some to add (time allowing), but I wanted to put this here to encourage others to do the same. vernajast&#124;angstwhore 17:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The Strange Door
Just north of the (former) building is a small round pool so close to sea level that the waves wash over it during very high tides. This round pool has a cliff just north of it that faces due west. The cliff has a 6x3 foot hole carved in it about 4-6 feet north and several feet down from the edge of the pool.It can be reached, or could when the outdoor pool was accessible to the public(access to this pool itself was blocked off in the late 20th century with masonary and steel bars), by swinging over on a rope. This opening has been bricked over and braced with iron bars. The condition of this iron and brickwork in the early 80's indicates that it was some decades old even then(most likely pre-WWII). I'm mentioning this here because I've always been curious as to just what it was. It doesn't seem to relate to drainage or the workings of the baths, and considerable effort seems to have been expended blocking it up. A very old San Franciscan I once discussed this with thought it might be part of a series of tunnels for artillery sighting related to the presidio coastal defenses. If anyone knows anything about this particular tunnel, please post it. This may or may not be a notable feature of the Baths. Kinda depends on what the hell it is. Ezra c v mildew desire Jr (talk) 17:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It would be interesting to see where it is on a picture, with so many pictures here. --128.72.49.188 (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It might be related to the water intake system for the Sutro Baths. There once was a large water pump located deep within the tunnels just north of the baths. Rabit (talk) 05:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Template placement
An editor has been edit-warring to move the refimprove template from where I placed it, under "References", to the top of the page, with reference to MOS:LAYOUT. I believe that it is unnecessary to bother the general reader with the template at the top of the page, and that it does much more good under "References", where editors who are interested in that sort of thing, and might do something to fix it, will see it, without bothering the general reader.

The editor mentioned should be made aware that


 * (1) MOS is not mandatory, it is a  guideline  only.
 * (2) The Arbitration Committee has expressed in strong terms that edit warring to enforce a non-mandatory guideline is disruptive behavior
 * (3) Edit-warring to enforce a guideline is not immune from 3RR.
 * (4) The documentation for the refimprove template says "There is currently no consensus on where in the article to place this template".

Per WP:BRD, since the editor's Bold edit was Reverted by me, the editor's response should have been to Discuss on the talk page, and not to edit war over it. I invite the editor's comments, with the hope that they will not respond by simply citing MOS:LAYOUT again, given the points that I've made above. BMK (talk) 20:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maintenance templates in general, and this template in particular, are pretty much always placed at the top of the article when the apply to the entire article, rather than to just a section. In that position they serve to inform the reader at first glance that there is (or at least an editor asserts that there is) a problem with the article. That very consistent practice, along with the guideline Manual of Style/Layout which lists Maintenance / dispute tags as item 3 in the list of header items, seem to me to create a strong case for placing this at the top of the article. While it is true that a guideline may have "occasional exceptions." I don't see any justification for making this an exception. Nor have you offered any very compelling reason, in my view. Moreover, such a placement may be positively misleading. Too many new editors think that the references of an article can be edited in the References (or Notes) section, which of course they cannot in an article using the most common footnote formatting. (Shortened footnotes and list-defined references are another matter, but are far less commonly used.) Placing this template in the references section can only encourage that incorrect belief. For all these reasons, I am about to move the template back to the top, where in my view it belongs. DES (talk) 07:07, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with DES. BMK has provided no reason why this article should be a exception to the the guidelines and to the practice followed in other articles. Maproom (talk) 07:14, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. Well, ArbCom has ruled that edit-warring to enforce non-mandatory guidelines is disruptive, so I guess you have to ask yourself if ot;s worth the hassle or not, considering that it can lead to being blocked for edit warring. BMK (talk) 07:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * When a new user entres a BRD discussion, gives reasons for a revert, adn then makes a single revert, that usre is not edit warring, as I would think you should know, . However, your repeated edits to enforce your preferred version, against common practice if not a clear consensus, are at least arguably edit warring. But leaving aside the question of what is or is not edit warring, would you care to provide any actual reasons why you prefer the template to be located in the references section near the end of the article, rather than at the top, as other maintenance tags normally are placed? You haven't made a case for that so far, at least in my view, and I gave specific reasons above, to which you have not yet responded.
 * Please note that the D part of WP:BRD (which is after all merely an essay, not a guideline or a policy, albeit a widely cited essay) does not allow the revertor to simply have his or her own way, the discussion is supposed to lead to an eventual consensus, preferably by reasoned discussion. Or perhaps you would like to join in a wider discussion of the issue, in the RfC I just started at Template talk:Refimprove?
 * , do you have any further views on this matter? DES (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Bullshit, edit warring is edit warring. Enjoy your RfC. BMK (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If BMK has a reason for the tag to be in an unusual place, he should state it. He has not done so, despite starting and contributing to this RFC. I do not understand his motivation. Maproom (talk) 11:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * support standard placement -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  12:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the tag clearly belongs at the top of the page and, frankly, I was surprised to find that an editor disagreed with this. I am the one who moved the tag from the references section to the top of the page a couple days ago. I did that because I don't think I have ever seen that tag anywhere except the top of the article. And, to me, when a tag begins with the words "This article needs...", it means that the tag goes at the top because it's a problem with the entire article, not just one section. Article tags should go at the top, and section tags should go in a section. Shortly after I moved the tag to the top, BMK moved it back to the bottom. Because of that, I looked at the edit history of the article to see when the tag was first added to the article and searched to see if there were any rules about where this tag should be placed. I discovered the tag was added in March 2014, when it was put at the top of the page by TRPoD. In March 2015, it was moved back down to the references section by BMK. I found the Template:Refrimprove page, which says, "There is currently no consensus on where in the article to place this template, but according to MOS:LAYOUT, maintenance templates ought be placed after hatnotes, at the start of the article." So, while that page claims there's no consensus one way or the other, the manual of style is quite clear on where the tag "ought" to be placed (which BMK did not mention above in his (1)(2)(3)(4) list), and, most importantly, there seems to be an extremely clear standard about where that tag should be placed, which is at the top. To me, BMK saying "MOS is not mandatory, it is a guideline only" is essentially saying screw MOS and screw the guidelines, and just do it my way because that's the way I like it. It comes down to this... I agreed with the editor who originally put the tag at the top in March 2014 and just moved it back to where he had put it in the first place. To me, BMK's reasonsing in his edit summary for putting it at the bottom misses the point. He said, "There is no need to annoy the general reader with a placement on the top, it can do just as well by the refs, where people who might do something about it will se." I think that logic is backwards. The entire point of that tag, in my opinion, is precisely to let readers know as soon as they arrive that the article doesn't have enough sources. It shouldn't be hidden at the bottom of the page unless one doesn't want readers to easily know there's a problem. So it's not about "annoying" readers; it's about letting readers know right away that the article needs help and encouraging them to provide it. Czoal (talk) 14:54, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to note a very interesting page that someone linked to in another discussion. It's the page that lists every article that currently uses this refimprove template. I randomly looked at about 100 articles and every one of them had the template at the top of the page. I couldn't find even one article that had it at the bottom. I understand that just because something is done a certain way in some articles doesn't necessarily mean it's correct. But, in this case, it appears that close to 100% of articles that use that template have it placed at the top. To me, this is evidence of clear consensus by practice without it being "official" consensus. Czoal (talk) 15:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Someone started an RfC about this issue, titled "RfC: Location of Tag", on the Template:Refimprove talk page. Czoal (talk) 16:01, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I did that, because I wanted to form a consensus that was broader than this single article. DES (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * DES, I understand. I think it was a great idea so I'm very glad you started it. This issue needs to be resolved not just for this article, but for all articles. And thank you also for the od thing you just did. I didn't know how to do that. :) Czoal (talk) 16:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

The RfC has been snow-closed with the decision: "There is a clear (and overwhelming) consensus that this tag should be placed at the top of articles. Snow close." Czoal (talk) 07:03, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Updating: It was called Sutro Bathhouse and it was the only co-ed bathhouse in San Francisco during the 80's. It was indeed a sex club and I worked there when I was 18 and I believe it was open until about 1985. True, the aids crisis pretty much killed it, but the stories I could tell! — Preceding unsigned comment added by StaciVaughan (talk • contribs) 02:28, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Sex club called Sutro Baths
If I put this in probably someone will immediately take it out, but sometime in the 1970s until about 1982 (the AIDS crisis) there was an on-premises, heterosexual, well-known (in those circles) sex club in San Francisco that used the name Sutro Baths. It was a heterosexual version of a gay bathhouse. deisenbe (talk) 06:04, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow, I had to look this up myself and indeed, here's an ad for it. San Francisco has a fascinating history indeed. Rabit (talk) 05:44, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Fascinating, but not relevant to our article. Where was it, BTW? (Neighborhood, I mean, I don't need an address - can't read the fine print in the ad). Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:09, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it is. Shows the impact on popular culture, the memory remains. 2A00:23C7:E287:1901:E5C3:F56D:8023:3123 (talk) 17:07, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

The Baths "as seen from the Cliff House" -- NOT
To get to the Cliff House from the Baths, you would start at the road which is in front of the lefthand side of the square tower at the left of the photo, then head a little bit more to the ocean, then follow the curving road around to the left and also downhill. The Cliff House was (and still is) farther out into the ocean than the Baths, because the Baths were in a small bay. The Cliff House would be out of the frame to the left, and lower down.

On the Google map, the square tower was between "Louis'" (restaurant) and the curve in the road just before the Cliff House.

The photo is taken either from what is now the parking lot of Lands End Lookout, or from the green path which heads north from Louis', along a cliff. I don't know what was there when the photo was taken.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cliff+House/@37.778507,-122.5161695,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808587b59d73dbed:0x5ef0b938c3c457f3!8m2!3d37.778507!4d-122.5139808

Source: Personal knowledge. But there are many photos which verify this, including some which show the Cliff House, on this site:

http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/environs/sutrobaths/sutro_baths.htm

Dudley Brooks (talk) 01:56, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

"[T]he baths were converted into an ice skating rink" - clarification
Actually, only the southernmost part of the pools was converted to an ice skating rink. There was a wall between the north side of the rink and the remaining, increasingly dilapidated, pools.

Source: "Click above for a photographic tour of Sutro Baths", near the bottom of this page:

http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/environs/sutrobaths/sutro_baths.htm

Dudley Brooks (talk) 02:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:21, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Circa template
MOS:CIRCA - To indicate "around", "approximately", or "about", the use of the template is preferred over circa, c, c., ca, ca., around, approximately, or approx. -MJ (talk) 07:36, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Suspicious Fire
“ Shortly afterwards, the developers left San Francisco and claimed insurance money”. Ok, did they get it? What did the insurance company think, and why did the developers leave town? More info needed. 2A00:23C7:E287:1901:E5C3:F56D:8023:3123 (talk) 17:04, 4 October 2023 (UTC)