Give ’Em Somewhere to Go

When you approach someone in this city while holding a notepad and tell them that you’re writing a column about public bathrooms, they usually laugh and then answer any question you throw at them.

This is because New Yorkers understand how precious and rare a good public restroom is—worthy of discussion and scrutiny, praise and damnation. As the author of the Porcelain New York column for the website Hell Gate, I have toured pristine facilities overseen by saints and neglected Porta Potties filled with unspeakable horrors, all in the hope that more public discourse will lead to more public privies and thus more public dignity. Some locations are tougher to sample than others. Few exiting an MTA bathroom have time to chat about the smell or the soap dispensers. (“Nice having you look at me,” one elderly man quips as I try to ask him about the new lavatories in the Jay Street–MetroTech station.)

On a sunny Sunday in June at Rockaway Beach, the people are in a generous mood and want to rave about the modular restrooms installed high above the dunes.

“It looks like so…