Gay bathhouse (陣屋)" were built in the 1970s. Singer Bette Midler is well known for getting her start at the famous Continental Baths in New York City in the early 1970s, where she earned the nickname Bathhouse Betty. It was there, accompanied by pianist Barry Manilow (who, like the bathhouse patrons, sometimes wore only a white towel), that she created her stage persona "the Divine Miss M." On getting her start in bathhouses, Midler has remarked: Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I'm still proud of those days [when I got my start singing at the gay bathhouses].
Bette Midler section read "Litter Removal Next 2 Miles, Bette Midler." The location was so prominent that it became fodder for her 1993 guest appearance on the "Simpsons" episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled", where she is seen picking up trash along a stretch of highway she has adopted, and causes car crashes for drivers who deliberately litter. In 1995, she carried the same idea to the east coast, adopting a section of the Long Island Expressway and Bronx River Parkway. Midler founded the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) in 1995, a non-profit organization with the goal of revitalizing neglected neighborhood parks in economically