UNTAPPED NEW YORK

Recently untappednewyork discovered this at Bedford Avenue and N.7^th in Williamsburg. Looks like something is in the works for 2010!

I first became intrigued with public bathrooms upon seeing the reppropriation of the Astor Place women’s room into a newsstand. Then I began to notice larger stand-alone beaux-arts buildings, and began to dig further. Today, the internet is littered with information about how to find bathrooms in New York City—nyrestroom.com, nyctoiletmap.com, restroomratings.com, and the global iPhone app SitorSquat by Charmin. But in real life, restrooms are harder to come by. In NYC as of April 2009, there were 666 park bathrooms, 78 subway bathrooms and the pay-per-use self-cleaning bathrooms in Herald Square. These figures have fallen sharply over the last half-century. In contrast, Singapore, which has a land area nearly 200 sq km less than New York City, has 29,500 public toilets.

Astor Place Newsstand (Photo ©untappednewyork.com by Christoffer Delsinger)

Should the provision of bathrooms be considered a public good? In Italy, cafes and similar establishments are required by law to permit anybody to use the bathroom, regardless of being a customer. Cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and Gent, Belgium all have street-side options. New York City has swung the pendulum on this issue, and the history behind the present situation is typical of New York: long, complicated and wrought with political drama.

Top: Public Men's Bathrooms in Gent, Belgium, Bottom: Public Toilets in Paris, France. (Photos ©untappednewyork.com by Michelle Young)

As early as 1898, citizen groups were lamenting New York’s lack of public toilets. Sigmund Freud told his biographer that to find a bathroom in New York City, “They escort you along miles of corridors and ultimately you are taken to the very basement where a marble palace awaits you, only just in time.” Henry Miller wrote, “I know that I am in distress when I walk the streets of New York. Wondering constantly where the next stop will be and if I can hold out that long.” Parks were the first to be retrofitted with toilets, with the subway system following. Robert Moses opened 145 toilets in New York City parks in 1934 alone. By 1940, the subway offered 1,676 public toilets. Some of these bathrooms are little architectural gems (Forgotten NY has compiled additional photos)

Bryant Park Bathrooms: Voted Best Bathrooms in the Nation by Citysearch (Photo ©untappednewyork.com by Christoffer Delsinger)

As the economy struggled in the 1970s, crime and vandalism increased in the subway system, and the majority of the bathrooms were closed to the public. In 1975, pay toilets were outlawed in response to the charge that they discriminated against women. Women always needed a stall, while men could relieve themselves anywhere, opponents argued. Other opposition included claims of discrimination against the disabled or that public restrooms would attract child molesters, vagrants and drug-dealers.

Retired Bathroom on Allen and Delancey Streets (Photo ©untappednewyork.com by Christoffer Delsinger)

Mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have all attempted to address the dearth of toilets, which the New York Times has termed “among life’s eternal mysteries.” Plans during Mayor Guiliani’s term were scrapped for fear of contract monopolies, and then later, although money was budgeted by the city council for toilets, the administration never acted upon it. Mayor Bloomberg finally signed a deal with Cemusa to install public pay-per-use toilets and new street “furniture”—you’ve probably noticed the new fancy bus shelters and newspaper stands.

Unfortunately, the pay-per-use self-cleaning toilets at Herald Square were not popular or cost-efficient, with focus groups reporting that users had a “profound mistrust of automation in the toilet sphere.” They have been replaced with manually cleaned toilets that nonetheless still look “space-age.” My hunch is that New Yorkers just like to be scrappy or in-the-know, like this Yelp user’s rating of best bathrooms in NYC ranging from Pottery Barn to the W Hotel. Or think about Seinfeld’s George Constanza who bragged “Anywhere in the city—I’ll tell you the best public toilet.”

Herald Square Public Toilets (©untappednewyork.com by Christoffer Delsinger)