Today’s soundtrack: you can wait a thousand years in line for that stillness in time
Today at 6:02pm: spilling (secrets)
Nature has a good long-distance plan, in that Nature calls all the time, even when you’re in the city. That coffee you just drank, the half-priced breakfast burrito, the hot dog on the way to the subway, all of the things we take into our body have to come back out again--sometimes before we make it back to our bathrooms at home or at the office.
You could just suck it up and pay for a coffee at a cafe in order to use their bathroom, but add this up at once a week for five bucks a coffee, and you’re looking at additional annual expenses north of $250. Spread over ten years that’s $2,500 you’ve literally flushed down the toilet, the price of a decent used Toyota, all because you couldn’t hold it.
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If you live in Manhattan long enough, you start building up an incidental database of locations with bathrooms where you don’t have to buy anything. Among my friends and I, these NYC Bathroom Databases have always been jealously guarded secrets.
Why the secrecy? Because if one person has a good experience, they’ll tell ten friends, and before you know it your go-to shitter has been overrun by passersby, some of whom will pee all over the seat. It sounds crazy, but it happens. I had the perfect secret bathroom spot on the corner of Lafayette and Houston, in the Puck Building, that was sealed off from public access due to increased traffic. If I and some other people had kept our mouths shut, that bathroom might be alive today.
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The act of finding free bathrooms is an art. For guys it is simpler, but to piss on the sidewalk behind a UPS truck is artless and savage. No, the thoughtful city dweller will seek out and discover well-stocked lavatories off the beaten path, for example, a hotel you can sneak into without alerting staff of your true mission and non-guest status.
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As an experiment, I will break my vow of bathroom omerta and list one of my (admittedly less secret) spots here, in the hopes of starting a list that fellow NYC readers will contribute to. If you have the good graces to post, please list your gender, as male and female bathrooms at the same location often offer vastly different experiences.
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Bathrooms should be judged by the following criteria:
Fit & finish. Do the toilets have seats? Do the stalls have doors that close and lock securely? Do the stall doors, when closed, prevent the possibility of making eye contact through the gap?
Cool-down time. Cool-down time refers to the amount of time a toilet has gone unused. For example the bathroom of a Starbucks, with its long queues, has a cool-down time of zero, meaning someone has used the toilet right before you. Obviously this is undesirable because there are still certain...traces left behind by the previous occupant, not to mention the seat is often warm, announcing its status as a prime conveyor of Ass Cooties.
In contrast, infrequently used bathrooms have a high cool-down time, meaning no one has used it for at least twenty minutes, ensuring fresh air has circulated and you are getting a “fresh” toilet, so to speak.
Availability of toilet paper. Because the cleanest, freshest bathroom in the world is no good if you have to wipe your ass with the Styles section of the New York Times. The only colon that should have ink in it is this one :
Availability of ablutionary materials. The reason all those people died during the Dark Ages was so that we could live in a world filled with ample soap and paper towels, and could wash our hands each and every time we use a toilet. Excretion without ablution is an abomination.
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My own contribution:
NYC Bathroom #Downtown-7B
Access: Convenient for Broadway, sub-Houston
Venue: Bloomingdales Department Store
Location: Broadway between Spring & Broome, east side of the street
Method of Entry: Entry points on both Broadway and Crosby. Proceed downstairs. Bathroom corridor is in center of north wall, near fitting rooms.
Review: The basement location of this sparklingly clean lavatory virtually eliminates sidewalk traffic and walk-ins. The semi-hidden geography, combined with two stalls, ensures high cool-down times. Fit & finish of stalls is premium quality. Toilet paper is ample and often re-stocked, though it is unfortunately of the unperforated, occasionally difficult-to-unroll “car tire” variety, as opposed to individual rolls. Well-stocked with hand soap, paper towels and electric hand dryers.
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Enjoy.
10 Responses to “NYC Bathrooms”
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"...the hot dog on the way to the subway,..." Do hot dogs in NYC carry little briefcases when they ride the subway?
We travel to NYC and usually walk or use the subway to "tour" around the city and bathrooms werer always a key issue for my wife.
On our most recent trip in April this year, we took my parents. As they do not enjoy long walks, we tried one of the Grey Line double decker bus tours. Our tour guide pointed our a fairly new law in NYC.
Evidently to make it better for tourists, NYC hotels must allow non-guests access to the public restrooms. You may want to check that out.
The irony of coming accross this post right now --- hours from what I witnessed Hi5 hunting for a bathroom in Brooklyn.
Spot on, spot on. Except I'm in Moscow this month studying, and it's even worse here. There are no public bathrooms--only portajohns that you have to pay ten rubls (40 cents or so right now) to use. And after about 5 PM, they're closed, so good luck!
They even have a word for stopping on the highway to use the bathroom here. The translation is "green stop." But if the police see you, good luck, because it's probably illegal to piss in public and they probably just want you to bribe them.
(Prefer if you also reply on the LJ syndication if you do reply, because I can't check back here easily from Moscow. =( )
NYC Bathroom #Lincoln Center - AFH
Access: Convenient for Broadway, UWS
Venue: Avery Fisher Hall
Location: Broadway between 65th and 63rd Streets, off of Columbus Avenue (9th Ave)
Method of Entry: Entry point from Josie Robertson Plaza; the center of Avery Fisher Hall, Metropolitan Opera House and the New York State Theater. Proceed north past the cafe. Men's bathroom is on the left.
Review: A very acceptably clean and quiet location, this Lincoln Center WC is a preferred alternative to the often rank options in the nearby Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and Tower Records. The off-street location cuts down on walk-ins. There are multiple stalls and urinals which equals high cool-down times. Fit & finish of stalls is above average quality (considered a little outdated but still acceptable by far). Well stocked T.P. and soap make this a stress free pit stop. There is also a (presumably even more private) alternative rest room on a higher level, although I have yet to sample it.
Admittedly not in NYC but for those attending the University of Toronto, St. George Campus...
3rd Floor Washroom @ Northrop Frye Hall
Access: Short 5 minute walk south of Museum Station
Venue: Northrop Frye Hall
Location: 73 Queen's Park Circle East, in the immediate vicinity of Victoria College, Emanuel College and E.J. Pratt Library
Method of Entry: 3 doors on N, E, W side of building, take the elevator up to the 3rd floor or walk up the stairs. Men's bathroom near emergency exit stairs with Women's on the other side of the hallway.
Review: I've only been in the Men's room for obvious biological reasons but I imagine the ladies room is the same quality. Nothing fancy, normal white toilets with those black, thick seat coverings. Best qualities are found in the extremely high cool down times given that the only people using the toilets are the professors working in their offices and the clean environment also attributed to the lack of traffic. Toilet paper is in abundant supply although a bit sandpaperish but any students attending UofT will not be unfamiliar with it. Soap never a problem, paper towels always available. 2 stalls, 2 urinals. Occasional walk-ins but mostly by professors cleaning out their coffee cups. Very ideal for those explosive and noisy bowel movements.
One feature of a public bathroom that scores big in my books is the door-less room entry. There is nothing worse than stepping into the bathroom, tearing off 2 strips of toilet paper and gently aligning them on the seat to provide a barrier between the ass cooties and your buttocks, kicking the flush handle with your shoe, scrubbing your hands to the core with soap and hot water...and then realizing that to exit you have to pull a bacteria-ridden door handle, swarming with the grime of countless others who refuse to wash their hands after wiping their ass. This can kill even the most glorious public bathroom experience.
haha. clean NYC bathrooms are truly goldmines.
as you've lost the Puck Building, you may want to try the Crate and Barrel on Houston and Broadway should you ever need to go in that area. On the second floor, head straight off the escalators to the windows, then hang a right. the cleanest bathrooms on Houston will be through a door that faces said windows.
I drop ass & blow mud wherever my colon dictates. HOWEVER, after ablution I hang on to the papertowel. Grabbing the door handle and disposing of it in the hallway keeps the clean till you're safely out of the hotzone.
I always found the washrooms at Trump Tower (downstairs) to be nice and clean, probably due to their being slightly difficult to find.