It's big and it's long, but hopefully worth the anticipation . . .

Warning, kids:  This is where it gets X-rated, and not by my choice.

After an abbreviated workday, I found it necessary to attempt to locate and close with a clandestine clubhouse once used as an inner city refuge by the notorious Purple Gang. 

Anyone familiar with my particular brand of vacation pleasure will know that I simply can't pass up the opportunity to investigate scandalous sites from the past.  It's a sickness, I suppose, but it keeps me from picking up twenty dollar hookers anymore.

The Purple Gang was to Prohibition era Detroit what Al Capone was to the second city of Chicago, supplying most of Detroit and much of Michigan with illegal hooch brought in from nearby Canada.  "Blind Pig" establishments, a low-rent version of the famed speakeasy, were plentiful in Detroit and numbered as many as 15,000.  The Purple Gang kept the Blind Pigs in business.

During the five years from 1927 to 1932, Abe Bernstein and his gang of primarily Jewish gangsters inflicted incredible violence on the citizens of Detroit.  The gang was rumored to have killed an estimated 500 people just to ensure their stranglehold on the livers of those unable to adhere to the rule of Prohibition.  Following the end of a fourteen-year dry spell, the Purple Gang branched out to even more traditional Mafia-like shenanigans; primarily illegal gambling and protection racketeering.

During my extensive research of all things Detroit, I learned that there was a decrepit old building located in an impoverished area of town that had once been a hangout for the crazy little gang.  The building still stands and is currently known as The Schvitz.

The Schvitz was built during the 1930's and served as a Russian-style bathhouse and supperclub to the immigrants of this largely Polish neighborhood.  It was originally known as the Oakland Health Club, but at some point evolved into its modern incarnation of The Schvitz sometime before the demographics of the area began to change and the Poles found themselves once again emigrated to another town. 

As it stands now, very little remains of the old Polish neighborhood.  Well . . . little except for The Schvitz, which squats like a huge grey fortress amidst the burned out tenements and vacant lots strewn with inner-city refuse. 

The windows of the old building have since been filled over with concrete and cinderblock, likely a security measure but also just as likely an attempt to block out the desolation of a landscape that once teemed with prosperity.  The portico and loading dock, as well as the entire north end of the old structure, is surrounded by a chainlink security fence topped by military-style concertina wire.  There is very little about the building that presents itself as inviting.  Nothing but its history . . .

Incredibly, it still serves as a bathhouse to old school Poles who continue to brave the area, but it most certainly looks quite different than it did during its heyday.

Here it was more than a few years ago, circa 1952 and 1968.

Here it is as it looked earlier today at my first glimpse.

Having done my research, I knew that the only way into the club was to knock at the barren door under the tiny awning at street side, stand before the security camera, and hope that I would somehow be looked upon favorably.  I'll be the first to admit that I was a bit nervous to knock at that door, but was even more fearful of being forced to remain standing alongside a particularly bad section of Oakland Avenue in modern day Detroit. 

I eventually heard a soft buzzing sound which was followed by the door popping open a few inches.  Having left humility in my hotel room back in Canton, I literally scampered into the building, glad to have found refuge and jazzed to find that I was able to pass the test by looking either non-threatening or at least somewhat Polish in origin.

What I found inside was not a total surprise; a warm and steamy oasis having a somewhat claustrophobic feel and decorated in a 1970's motif.  Dark walnut paneling hid any and all of the cinderblock foundation. Vinyl-covered couches and recliners littered the landscape, and oil paintings of certifiably nude women in repose hung from most every wall.

Old newspaper clippings and photographs of the infamous Purple Gang, cheaply framed after an apparent visit to the local Walmart, lined the hallway that lead away from the front door to the low-ceilinged open area at the center of the building.  And as nervous as I might have been before knocking at that door, I soon found myself closely inspecting the photographs and news accounts, firmly in my element as a . . . well, as a historian?  Yeah?  Yeah, a historian . . .

The skeletal staff, consisting of heavy-set Polish men, were warm and welcoming and utterly insistent that I take a "schvitz" in their establishment. 

I think I may have failed to mention that the word schvitz is Yiddish for "sweat" or "sweating."  Obviously, schvitzing is a time-honored tradition for all those crazy cats coming from Russia, Poland, and wherever else it is that the Yiddish might call home.

Being that it was late afternoon and I really had nothing else to do back at the hotel, I buckled to the friendly pressure of my new European friends and forked out the required $3.50.  In return, I received a terrycloth robe, some rubber flip-flops, and the promise of a good old-fashioned Russian steambath and flogging.

For the next hour or perhaps even two, I sat sweating amongst men; large hairy men, complete with that whole Slavic balding thing I've come to associate with the Russians/Poles/Yids. 

They were all very gracious and patient, often repeating themselves when I was unable to decipher the current dirty joke that they might be telling.  I'll admit that the whole thing with being whipped by a branch of oak leaves was kinda weird,  but it too became downright acceptable when the guys broke out a bottle or three of Stolichnaya. 

It's funny how vodka makes everything alright, even those utterly awkward situations in life when you find yourself naked amongst strangers.  You can consider me a new fan . . .  of vodka, not naked hairy men.

Flash forward four hours: 

There became a point when I could no longer feel my upper lip or pronounce the letter L, and the seven Poles I had befriended took on the look of twenty-one in my Vodka-inspired triple vision.  It was only at this point that I felt it necessary to say goodbye to my friends and attempt to make my way back to the homey confines of my budget hotel in the suburbs of west Detroit. 

Tipping a hand to the guys in farewell, I stumbled out of the steamy basement and clumsily felt my way along the darkened hallways in search of my clothing.

It was also at this point that my journey took me from the somewhat weird into the downright surreal, particularly when I started to pass naked men and women in the hallway. 

To the best of my recollection, I didn't remember there being naked women when I'd first made my way into the club.  I stopped for a moment, grabbed a piece of the wall and gave some serious thought to it, but still came up with no recollection of women being present when I first made my way inside. 

Incredibly, these women occupied most common areas of the building, ranging from the hallways to adjoining rooms and even to the central meeting room where I'd first made my entry.

Many of the women, as well as the men, were large.  Many were small and skinny.  Many were white, many were black, and many were missing that whole balding thing of the Slavs.

Did I mention that several of the men and women were engaged in . . . well . . . in copulation?  Well, they were.

The copulators . . . that's what I'll call them at this point . . . occupied the swimming pool, the darkened rooms off the hallways, the kitchen area, the vinyl couches in the great room that was cloaked in 1970's paneling, even the pool table in the great room. 

I'll spare you any more description of what I would witness, but suffice it to say that I'd somehow happened upon a modern day orgy of proportions known only to Caligula or maybe the modern day Vince Neil.

Further conversation with party goers, albeit with averted eyes, revealed that  The Schvitz bathhouse was in fact a weekend swinger's pad catering to the prurient proclivities of greater southeast Michigan.  Had I been a little more thorough in my research on the Internet instead of checking out the history of lutefisk, I might have discovered this . . .

And in the end, I'll have to admit that it was certainly not the worst situation I've found myself in here on the big blue ball.  In fact, given my propensity to take embarrassing shortcuts in life, it really wasn't all that bad at all.

A $93 cab ride took me home.

You believe me, right?  Right???