Aire Ancient Baths brings Roman luxury to River West

  
 
     When I wrote about "111 Places in Chicago That You Must Not Miss"—the column where I go to Englewood to get a cup of coffee—I spoke with its author, Amy Bizzarri. We talked a bit about Red Square Spa, and she mentioned this new Greco-Roman bath that had just opened, too new to be included in her book. I asked her if she planned to write about it, and she said no, so I snapped it up. That's TWO columns I've gotten from her. Thanks Amy.

     What do Chicagoans have in common with ancient Romans?
     Beside living in a crumbling empire ruled by an unstable tyrant, that is.
     Well, we've got our own Roman bath now.
     Aire Ancient Baths Chicago, 800 W. Superior, opened late last month.
     Doing my due diligence, I noticed something surprising: The Tribune, Crain's, Chicago Magazine, TV stations, all noted that a Spanish company was opening a 20,000-square-foot bath complex in the basement of a rehabbed 1902 paint factory in River West. Then all overlooked one vital step in the journalistic process: The actually going there part.
     As a former card-carrying member of the Division Street Russian Baths, I sensed an opportunity, and visited Aire last week.
     But not before getting in the spirit by reading Seneca's Epistle 86, where he discusses Roman baths. Seneca habitually praises the simple life, as only a fabulously wealthy man can, and so lauds the rustic baths of yore, with their chinks admitting light, so superior to the marble splendor of the baths of imperial Rome, with their big mirrors and fancy windows.
     Seneca's scolding, combined with Aire offering a $450 bath in Spanish wine, inclined me to expect over-opulence. A place for Trump-era plutocrats to percolate away their excess cash.
      So I was pleasantly surprised, walking in, to discover Aire has found the sweet spot between spartan and excessive. The tone is not gilt but exposed brick and rough-hewn beams. You are assigned a white glass locker, change into a bathing suit — it's co-ed — and little black water shoes, then plunge into the bath complex.

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Costly candle.

     Luxury is a scam, right? A trick to see how much more rich people will pay for something that's only a little better than the usual. I've driven a Bentley: nice car. Double-glass windows. Breitling clock. But a price tag of about $180,000. If money means nothing, and you want those windows, and that clock, I suppose you might as well pop for it. What's the difference? But the truth is, a person who can get by with regular windows, and an ordinary digital clock, can drive a perfectly good car and pocket the extra $150,000.
     When I first visited Ancient Aire, the faux Roman baths opened late 2017 in an old factory on West Superior, I was impressed. Big, dim, quiet and, since I was in the media, free. Free is a sauce, a spice, that enhances any experience. I was also by myself, and as I soaked and cogitated, I thought, "I should really take my wife back to this." So I did, last Valentine's Day. Our friends were jetting off here and there, I had this big trip to South America coming up, and rather than fly somewhere nice, we thought we'd explore our home town—a "staycation" Edie calls it.
    Ninety minutes of burbling hot pools and aromatic steam rooms. Plus a half hour massage. Not hideously expensive—$276 for the two of us, plus tips. We couldn't both fly to Cleveland for that. Overall, a positive experience. Indulgent fun. I paid the tab. We were almost out the door.
    But stapled to our receipt, was this little card.  Selling an Ancient Aire candle in a box. For $54.
    That card irked me. It's as if they were saying, "Before you go, we're curious: just how gullible ARE you? After all, you came here, paid a lot of money for, in essence, the hot bath you can take at home. Maybe you'll shell out half a C-note for a votive candle in a black box."
     There's no way to tell scale. Maybe the box is a yard square, but I doubt it. I would expect it to be, oh, three inches on a side . And maybe it smells nice. But really, it would have to release the perfume of paradise to justify that cost. (Checking online: bingo for the size, about 3 inches. And it smells of orange blossoms). 
    It is limited, if that helps. That's what the fine print says, "Limited to 250 pcs. of bathrobes and 250 pcs. of candles."  That wasn't written by a native English speaker, was it? "250 pcs. of candles." You'd think, for $54, they'd perfect the translation in their ballyhoo.)
      I shudder to imagine what the robes cost. ($65, not bad really, though that also underlines the scam aspect of luxury, as if the prices were assigned randomly and not dependent upon market forces). 
      So the candles are limited, but it doesn't say limited by what. The dreams of avarice, I assume.
   

The Saturday Snapshot #29

     My wife being a lawyer ruined the Shedd Aquarium for me, for many years.
     I probably should let you puzzle over what the connection could be for a little while, one of those links utterly mystifying until revealed, when it becomes obvious.
     The answer: her white shoe law firm would have its Christmas party at the Shedd. A band, a bar, a dinner—I always ordered the fish, it seemed an amusing perversity.
      Because of this, when there wasn't a lux party going on, the aquarium seemed plain. Just fish. I'd go back to do a story—my look at the enormous backroom operation feeding the fish is one of my favorites—but unlike the Art Institute or the Field Museum or the MCA, it just wasn't someplace I was going to swing by on my own volition.
     Years went by. 
     That changed over Valentine's Day. My wife and I didn't have any plans to go out-of-town this winter, so decided on a "staycation"—a morning at the indulgent Ancient Aire Baths, lunch at RL, and then a visit to the aquarium.
     Somehow, I knew I would like it more than previously, and I also knew exactly why: my iPhone. Somehow, taking photographs of the colorful fish made it more real than just looking at them. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, it just is.
    We spent two hours there, took in the whale show, bonded with an octopus to such a degree that I don't believe my wife will ever eat them again, not even perfectly broiled at Pstaria, though knowing myself I will find a way. I learned more about fish in those two hours than I've learned in the previous two decades, with plenty of intriguing species I want to explore more fully at a latter time, such as the swirling vortex of "false herring," a spinning sphere of fish which, given the name, must be something else masquerading as herring though, alas, the Shedd guide narrating to a group about fish in the tank could not illuminate the situation. I'll get on that.

Sea nettle

     

Are you willing to take the heat?

 

     Be careful, readers. You never know where these newspaper columns might lead you. For instance, David Roeder’s Chicago Enterprise column last Monday led me directly into a hellishly hot room, where I found relief by pouring a bucket of cold water over my head.
     The column featured the plans of one Alex Najem, a developer who says he is going to build a 40,000-square-foot bathhouse on West Madison Street.
     “A reminder about how everything old can be new again,” Roeder wrote. “Professional massages and scrubs, pools and saunas.”
     “Hmm ...” I thought. “Interesting if true.” I’m sure Dave is correct: Najem plans a new bathhouse — construction is to start early next year. But plans go awry.
     At first blush, building a bathhouse struck me as woefully out-of-date, as if somebody announced the construction of a corner newsstand.
     But what if I’m the one who’s out-of-date? Pre-COVID, there was a vibrant Chicago bathhouse scene. The enormous King Spa & Sauna, a sprawling Xanadu in Niles, open 24 hours a day. The luxurious Aire Ancient Baths in River West, a magical space carved out of a 1902 paint factory, with waterfalls and glowing blue pools in a dim cave of old brick and wood timbers, where guests can bathe in Spanish wine for $650.
     Research seemed in order. There’s a perfectly serviceable bathhouse on Division Street. I began going there in 1990, when it was still the Division Street Russian Baths and promptly fell in love with the place, its boxing club decor, the Hav-a-Hanks and black Ace unbreakable pocket combs for sale at the entrance. Its sleeping room, with a high-pressed tin ceiling and iron single beds made with grey wool blankets, a room salvaged from the past, plucked out of the river of time.

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