the American city has largely been a no-go zone.
November 19, 2021 7:43 AM Subscribe
Where Did All the Public Bathrooms Go? Writing for Bloomberg CityLab (limited free articles - archive link), Elizabeth Yuko examines the history, social, political, and economic factors that have influenced the waxing and waning of public toilet spaces in the United States and their current rarity today - a lack thrown into sharp relief during a worldwide pandemic.
"The lack of public restrooms in the U.S. hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2011, a United Nations-appointed special rapporteur who was sent to the U.S. to assess the “human right of clean drinking water and sanitation” was shocked by the lack of public toilets in one of the richest economies in the world."
"The lack of public restrooms in the U.S. hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2011, a United Nations-appointed special rapporteur who was sent to the U.S. to assess the “human right of clean drinking water and sanitation” was shocked by the lack of public toilets in one of the richest economies in the world."
SF is HORRIBLE to find a bathroom in. HORRIBLE. The last thing you want to do is pay for a drink you don't want (and will make you have to pee more) by standing in a long line, just so you can get a bathroom key for a one stall toilet they have to keep locked because someone will inevitably trash the bathroom.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:06 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:06 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Like are the homeless supposed to be superhuman and just hold it in indefinitely?
Let's be realistic here: They actually just want the homeless people to die so they don't have to look or think about them anymore.
Around here, some folks have taken to saying the quiet part out loud, so I know this is the case.
They don't care about the bodily functions of the homeless, they want all homeless bodily functions to cease, permanently, and they really don't care as long as they don't have to see it.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:06 AM on November 19, 2021 [45 favorites]
Let's be realistic here: They actually just want the homeless people to die so they don't have to look or think about them anymore.
Around here, some folks have taken to saying the quiet part out loud, so I know this is the case.
They don't care about the bodily functions of the homeless, they want all homeless bodily functions to cease, permanently, and they really don't care as long as they don't have to see it.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:06 AM on November 19, 2021 [45 favorites]
This is one of those thing that flummoxes me - cities are always trying to revitalize downtown areas - you would think providing clean, easily accessible restrooms would be a great way to encourage visiting, and you can employ people to maintain them. And then your private business owners can continue on their merry way being assholes about bathroom usage, just pointing out the public bathroom a couple blocks over when people inquire.
I know, I know, you don't have to list out the reasons this doesn't happen, but I wish it did.
posted by the primroses were over at 8:09 AM on November 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
I know, I know, you don't have to list out the reasons this doesn't happen, but I wish it did.
posted by the primroses were over at 8:09 AM on November 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
Terrible people making everything worse for everyone is a recurring theme of life in our time.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:11 AM on November 19, 2021 [46 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:11 AM on November 19, 2021 [46 favorites]
I love that the successful example of a public toilet they hold up -- the Portland Loo -- is designed to be as uncomfortable and embarrassing as possible so that people won't spend too much time in it.
posted by Galvanic at 8:12 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Galvanic at 8:12 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Blues tend to be NIMBY, as it's easy to be tolerant of things that don't fit into your idea of how the world works when you don't have to look at or interact with them.
Reds are intolerant of that which does not fit their idea of how the world works whether they see it or not.
posted by lon_star at 8:16 AM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Reds are intolerant of that which does not fit their idea of how the world works whether they see it or not.
posted by lon_star at 8:16 AM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I love that the successful example of a public toilet they hold up -- the Portland Loo -- is designed to be as uncomfortable and embarrassing as possible so that people won't spend too much time in it.
We have one of these next to Harvard University. (Our church next door closed the public bathrooms--you can still use it if you ask for the key--because they literally couldn't spend all day dealing with drug overdoses. Many local businesses did the same.) It's designed with no heat, so people won't decide to live there and deprive other people from using it; and you can see feet (like most toilet stalls), so that if a person keels over you'll know it and perhaps get them help; and the faucet is outside, so that people using it for drugs may not have quite as much privacy in doing so.
I know a lot of people wave away the problem of mental illness and drug addiction, but designing a toilet that mitigates a teeny, tiny part of the problem shouldn't be too much to ask.
posted by Melismata at 8:24 AM on November 19, 2021 [30 favorites]
We have one of these next to Harvard University. (Our church next door closed the public bathrooms--you can still use it if you ask for the key--because they literally couldn't spend all day dealing with drug overdoses. Many local businesses did the same.) It's designed with no heat, so people won't decide to live there and deprive other people from using it; and you can see feet (like most toilet stalls), so that if a person keels over you'll know it and perhaps get them help; and the faucet is outside, so that people using it for drugs may not have quite as much privacy in doing so.
I know a lot of people wave away the problem of mental illness and drug addiction, but designing a toilet that mitigates a teeny, tiny part of the problem shouldn't be too much to ask.
posted by Melismata at 8:24 AM on November 19, 2021 [30 favorites]
Happy World Toilet Day, frens.
And naturally the world (U.S. included) cares less when the problem is worse for people who are homeless, poor, living with medical conditions like IBS/Crohn's, menstruating, or the 51% of the population that sits down to pee. But even if you only care about well-off, (temporarily-)able-bodied cisgender men, nobody wants to acknowledge that poor sanitation can have ripple effects.
If all those people you don't care about are forced to relieve themselves in the open, eventually diarrheal disease is going to make its way into the broader community. The person serving your lunch could pass cholera on to you in even the finest establishment, because that's how the fecal-oral transmission route works.
As COVID-19 has shown, of course, the U.S. is too attached to social Darwinism to admit that epidemic hazards are real threats to everyone. At the very least, it should have disabused us of the illusion that "deserving" people with good jobs will have reliable access to emergency care during a plague.
posted by armeowda at 8:27 AM on November 19, 2021 [21 favorites]
And naturally the world (U.S. included) cares less when the problem is worse for people who are homeless, poor, living with medical conditions like IBS/Crohn's, menstruating, or the 51% of the population that sits down to pee. But even if you only care about well-off, (temporarily-)able-bodied cisgender men, nobody wants to acknowledge that poor sanitation can have ripple effects.
If all those people you don't care about are forced to relieve themselves in the open, eventually diarrheal disease is going to make its way into the broader community. The person serving your lunch could pass cholera on to you in even the finest establishment, because that's how the fecal-oral transmission route works.
As COVID-19 has shown, of course, the U.S. is too attached to social Darwinism to admit that epidemic hazards are real threats to everyone. At the very least, it should have disabused us of the illusion that "deserving" people with good jobs will have reliable access to emergency care during a plague.
posted by armeowda at 8:27 AM on November 19, 2021 [21 favorites]
Blues tend to be NIMBY, as it's easy to be tolerant of things that don't fit into your idea of how the world works when you don't have to look at or interact with them.
Reds are intolerant of that which does not fit their idea of how the world works whether they see it or not.
A mere hair's breadth of distinction when you want to take a shit and everyone is too afraid of Schrodinger's heroin user to provide a bathroom.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:32 AM on November 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
Reds are intolerant of that which does not fit their idea of how the world works whether they see it or not.
A mere hair's breadth of distinction when you want to take a shit and everyone is too afraid of Schrodinger's heroin user to provide a bathroom.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:32 AM on November 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
Oh yeah, and added bonus of Covid shutting down even more toilets because of toilet plumes.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:33 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:33 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
The lack of public bathrooms in the US exemplifies two of our biggest failures in municipal government.
The first is that governments are incapable of getting value for money. San Francisco HAS public, staffed toilets! They cost $200,000 to operate annually ($30 per flush!) and so there are about three dozen of them citywide, and funding is a constant concern. In a European city, public toilets are coin-operated and self-cleaning, run at about a tenth the cost, and thus can be funded by user fees and advertising. So the result is that you get many, many more of them.
The second is that governments actively encourage a scarcity mindset. Homeless people sleeping on the benches? They'll build a whole train station with nowhere to sit! But it's obvious that this leads to an equilibrium with nowhere to sit anywhere (and, re bathrooms, nowhere to shit) since the few remaining places get overrun. The alternative would be making sure that there are so many places to sit and poop that the chance that any given one is being misused is quite low. This is clearly better! But it takes concerted public action, since if you have a city with inadequate supply, the first new facility will guaranteed have the same problems as the existing ones. You have to believe that new toilets don't magically create new homeless people, and thus that if you built enough, the homeless person-to-toilet ratio would ultimately decrease. Abundance is better than scarcity!
posted by goingonit at 8:40 AM on November 19, 2021 [50 favorites]
The first is that governments are incapable of getting value for money. San Francisco HAS public, staffed toilets! They cost $200,000 to operate annually ($30 per flush!) and so there are about three dozen of them citywide, and funding is a constant concern. In a European city, public toilets are coin-operated and self-cleaning, run at about a tenth the cost, and thus can be funded by user fees and advertising. So the result is that you get many, many more of them.
The second is that governments actively encourage a scarcity mindset. Homeless people sleeping on the benches? They'll build a whole train station with nowhere to sit! But it's obvious that this leads to an equilibrium with nowhere to sit anywhere (and, re bathrooms, nowhere to shit) since the few remaining places get overrun. The alternative would be making sure that there are so many places to sit and poop that the chance that any given one is being misused is quite low. This is clearly better! But it takes concerted public action, since if you have a city with inadequate supply, the first new facility will guaranteed have the same problems as the existing ones. You have to believe that new toilets don't magically create new homeless people, and thus that if you built enough, the homeless person-to-toilet ratio would ultimately decrease. Abundance is better than scarcity!
posted by goingonit at 8:40 AM on November 19, 2021 [50 favorites]
There was (maybe still is?) a self-cleaning one in Piedmont Park in Atlanta. It is a weird experience because the whole thing seems to go into cleaning mode immediately after one leaves it, and if you're the next person to use it once it's done, all the metal is damp (and of course everything that can be stainless steel is).
posted by Kitteh at 8:41 AM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 8:41 AM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
everyone is too afraid of Schrodinger's heroin user to provide a bathroom
I wish this user were merely theoretical. That church melismata mentioned really did have to close the bathroom to the public after being open forever, due to the frequent ODs. I would never use a bathroom in most of Manhattan's McDonald's, either. It's the Wild West in there.
Basically, it's not just a design problem. If you provide public toilets in areas with substantial general homeless populations, they will get trashed on an hourly basis and people will OD in them frequently (and even just using often means sharps, which are a danger to others). You actually need to supply a high level of services, too, especially if you're hoping to make them usable by the general public.
But of course this is all moot when most localities just want the homeless to go away. Somewhere. The undiscovered country would be fine.
posted by praemunire at 8:42 AM on November 19, 2021 [31 favorites]
I wish this user were merely theoretical. That church melismata mentioned really did have to close the bathroom to the public after being open forever, due to the frequent ODs. I would never use a bathroom in most of Manhattan's McDonald's, either. It's the Wild West in there.
Basically, it's not just a design problem. If you provide public toilets in areas with substantial general homeless populations, they will get trashed on an hourly basis and people will OD in them frequently (and even just using often means sharps, which are a danger to others). You actually need to supply a high level of services, too, especially if you're hoping to make them usable by the general public.
But of course this is all moot when most localities just want the homeless to go away. Somewhere. The undiscovered country would be fine.
posted by praemunire at 8:42 AM on November 19, 2021 [31 favorites]
I went to a beach yesterday (ME, so offseason, but it was nice out) and I realized nature was calling and looked forlornly at what I knew would be locked up beach bathrooms.
Then, to my extreme surprise, around the corner of the building Scarborough had put in a couple sani-cans and I was relieved.
It's amazing what a small but important convenience this is. For.all.of.us.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
Then, to my extreme surprise, around the corner of the building Scarborough had put in a couple sani-cans and I was relieved.
It's amazing what a small but important convenience this is. For.all.of.us.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
I also have this problem bike touring in rural Oregon (the only place I've tried). Homes line the roads, practically touching the asphalt, bristling with "neighborhood watch" signs. Parks with pits might exist every thirty to sixty miles. You can't even get water. Luckily, there are a lot of logging camps with, well, a bit of shade.
posted by Snijglau at 8:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Snijglau at 8:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
The rise and fall of London's public toilets began in the 1850s and gave us the useful phrase "the urinary leash". There's a short but fascinating history of them here.
I think it's the cost of cleaning and maintaining the public toilets that often leads local authorities to abandon them - however short-sighted that policy may be. I have a little anecdote from my own personal experience which helps to illustrate the point.
My Mum died before my Dad, so for many years he and I would go together to the West of England cemetery where she was buried to leave some flowers and tidy up the grave. Often, one or other of us would have to go for a pee in the cemetery's small public toilet block before we left for the longish journey home. That toilet - or the Gents side of it at least - was in a truly disgusting state: filthy, heavily graffitied and with many of the fittings casually smashed. (It stood quite near the cemetery's main entrance, so I guess it was pretty easy for the local yobs to climb inside and break a basin or two just for the fun of it.)
Eventually, my Dad got so annoyed by this that he contacted the cemetery's managers and offered to pay for the toilets to be cleaned up and renovated himself. They happily took his money but then, when the work was finally completed, slapped a massive padlock on each of the block's two entrances so no-one could ever get in there again.
When my Dad pointed out the absurdity of this, it became clear they'd decided a pristine toilet block no-one could use was better than an open one which would (inevitably, in their view) simply get dirtied up and vandalised again. Finding a better solution - such as locking the toilets overnight but leaving them open during the day, for example - was evidently far too much trouble to bother with.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:46 AM on November 19, 2021 [35 favorites]
I think it's the cost of cleaning and maintaining the public toilets that often leads local authorities to abandon them - however short-sighted that policy may be. I have a little anecdote from my own personal experience which helps to illustrate the point.
My Mum died before my Dad, so for many years he and I would go together to the West of England cemetery where she was buried to leave some flowers and tidy up the grave. Often, one or other of us would have to go for a pee in the cemetery's small public toilet block before we left for the longish journey home. That toilet - or the Gents side of it at least - was in a truly disgusting state: filthy, heavily graffitied and with many of the fittings casually smashed. (It stood quite near the cemetery's main entrance, so I guess it was pretty easy for the local yobs to climb inside and break a basin or two just for the fun of it.)
Eventually, my Dad got so annoyed by this that he contacted the cemetery's managers and offered to pay for the toilets to be cleaned up and renovated himself. They happily took his money but then, when the work was finally completed, slapped a massive padlock on each of the block's two entrances so no-one could ever get in there again.
When my Dad pointed out the absurdity of this, it became clear they'd decided a pristine toilet block no-one could use was better than an open one which would (inevitably, in their view) simply get dirtied up and vandalised again. Finding a better solution - such as locking the toilets overnight but leaving them open during the day, for example - was evidently far too much trouble to bother with.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:46 AM on November 19, 2021 [35 favorites]
Putting in public toilets does result in attracting people experiencing homelessness, because people need to poop. And since people don't like confronting that, it will drive away other members of the public. But no one's first choice of toilet is a public one. Now, if only there were cost-effective ways to help reduce homelessness . . .
posted by Garm at 8:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Garm at 8:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
1. It's true, the US is terrible when it comes to this vital issue of public hygiene. I hoped the Covid would prompt a re-evaluation of this indifference, with a massive response creating new public restrooms. But no.
2. McDonald's Golden Arches remain for me the international sign of the free (and in Europe, blissfully unattended) restroom. In US urban cores, this is probably no longer true, where an access code (available to customers only) will now be required to spring the locked door.
3. Japan is a winner. Unlike trash cans, toilets everywhere. If you just want to wash your hands, there's a sink (with soap and towels) at the back of any pachinko parlor.
4. If you're slamming SF on this issue, clearly you haven't been around. The City now has 49 free public toilets staffed 24/7 in addition to those green, self-cleaning pods like the one I know best on the edge of Golden Gate Park on Stanyan, which is free (unlike the others located around the Bay Area - at least 50¢ for the one in Palo Alto.) Yelp review of the one in Union Square. And this just in -- After 20 years, BART will reopen restrooms at Powell and 19th Street stations -- but what about the rest? (They were all closed in a lame reaction to 9-11.)
5. And hey, DC -- why aren't there ANY restrooms in your Metro? That's the true desert city, unless you're on the Mall, where the free-admission Smithsonians all have great restrooms.
posted by Rash at 8:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
2. McDonald's Golden Arches remain for me the international sign of the free (and in Europe, blissfully unattended) restroom. In US urban cores, this is probably no longer true, where an access code (available to customers only) will now be required to spring the locked door.
3. Japan is a winner. Unlike trash cans, toilets everywhere. If you just want to wash your hands, there's a sink (with soap and towels) at the back of any pachinko parlor.
4. If you're slamming SF on this issue, clearly you haven't been around. The City now has 49 free public toilets staffed 24/7 in addition to those green, self-cleaning pods like the one I know best on the edge of Golden Gate Park on Stanyan, which is free (unlike the others located around the Bay Area - at least 50¢ for the one in Palo Alto.) Yelp review of the one in Union Square. And this just in -- After 20 years, BART will reopen restrooms at Powell and 19th Street stations -- but what about the rest? (They were all closed in a lame reaction to 9-11.)
5. And hey, DC -- why aren't there ANY restrooms in your Metro? That's the true desert city, unless you're on the Mall, where the free-admission Smithsonians all have great restrooms.
posted by Rash at 8:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
A mere hair's breadth of distinction when you want to take a shit and everyone is too afraid of Schrodinger's heroin user to provide a bathroom.
I acknowledge this point, but having lost a few friends to overdoses, and having lived a long time in the kind of place where dirty needles turn up a lot, I think it's the tip of an iceberg.
If you'll humor another COVID parallel: remember how, under TFG, we left it up to private businesses (namely, their totally-powerless frontline employees) to enforce masking? Same goes for the idealistic notion that private business could fix this by making its facilities available to all comers. Receptionists, cashiers, greeters, and ticket-takers get blamed (and harassed) for upholding "customers only" policies; should we instead make them responsible for trying to assess whether someone's going to OD, and following up if it happens? Should we put the minimum-wage earners in charge of checking for sharps between visits, and disposing of them safely?
This isn't private business's problem to solve, and if we pretend it is, they'll delegate its hazards to their least-powerful workers, just like always. Safe injection sites and safe public washrooms are two different needs. Both should be the government's responsibility to provide. (Safe housing, too, obviously, but we all still need toilet access when we're out in public.)
posted by armeowda at 8:52 AM on November 19, 2021 [30 favorites]
I acknowledge this point, but having lost a few friends to overdoses, and having lived a long time in the kind of place where dirty needles turn up a lot, I think it's the tip of an iceberg.
If you'll humor another COVID parallel: remember how, under TFG, we left it up to private businesses (namely, their totally-powerless frontline employees) to enforce masking? Same goes for the idealistic notion that private business could fix this by making its facilities available to all comers. Receptionists, cashiers, greeters, and ticket-takers get blamed (and harassed) for upholding "customers only" policies; should we instead make them responsible for trying to assess whether someone's going to OD, and following up if it happens? Should we put the minimum-wage earners in charge of checking for sharps between visits, and disposing of them safely?
This isn't private business's problem to solve, and if we pretend it is, they'll delegate its hazards to their least-powerful workers, just like always. Safe injection sites and safe public washrooms are two different needs. Both should be the government's responsibility to provide. (Safe housing, too, obviously, but we all still need toilet access when we're out in public.)
posted by armeowda at 8:52 AM on November 19, 2021 [30 favorites]
One of the things I found interesting early in the pandemic, is that when things opened again at all, they focused on what they decided was their main purpose. In Seattle, our schools decided to feed children. And our libraries had bathrooms open to the public (trying to work specifically with the needs of homeless people). Other functions simply weren't as important and took much longer to implement and add on to that.
posted by blueberry monster at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by blueberry monster at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Where Did All the Public Bathrooms Go?
Did anyone else imagine the Kingston Trio singing this?
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:57 AM on November 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
Did anyone else imagine the Kingston Trio singing this?
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:57 AM on November 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
I acknowledge this point, but having lost a few friends to overdoses, and having lived a long time in the kind of place where dirty needles turn up a lot, I think it's the tip of an iceberg.
Sadly, voting down safe injection sites is a bipartisan mainstream value deeply ingrained in the social fabric of America.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:14 AM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Sadly, voting down safe injection sites is a bipartisan mainstream value deeply ingrained in the social fabric of America.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:14 AM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Did anyone else imagine the Kingston Trio singing this?
Well half the thread is basically "when will they ever learn?"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:15 AM on November 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
Well half the thread is basically "when will they ever learn?"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:15 AM on November 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
Japan is a winner...toilets everywhere.And what happens to you if you use heroin in one of these toilets?
You can't have Japan-style toilet availability without having Japan-style toilet policies.
posted by Hatashran at 9:22 AM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
>everyone is too afraid of Schrodinger's heroin user to provide a bathroom
Yes, they are afraid, and it's a very justified fear in some cases. As a minimum wage cashier I was lucky in that I only had to deal with cleaning poop and blood off the walls and floor of the bathroom, never the ceiling like my unluckier colleagues. Our particular store was not particularly convenient as a place to shoot up, so I didn't have to deal with that. But in other locations it was a thing. (edit to add: public bathrooms *will* be abused until society offers enough support to drug users and / or homeless folk so that public bathrooms are not the best choice to get out of the cold, shower, or shootup.)
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
Yes, they are afraid, and it's a very justified fear in some cases. As a minimum wage cashier I was lucky in that I only had to deal with cleaning poop and blood off the walls and floor of the bathroom, never the ceiling like my unluckier colleagues. Our particular store was not particularly convenient as a place to shoot up, so I didn't have to deal with that. But in other locations it was a thing. (edit to add: public bathrooms *will* be abused until society offers enough support to drug users and / or homeless folk so that public bathrooms are not the best choice to get out of the cold, shower, or shootup.)
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:23 AM on November 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
I've seen bathrooms in BART that looked like someone had been murdered in them. It's unfortunately quite legitimate to be afraid of people doing horrendous things in the toilets. I can't blame people for locking them up even though I hate it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:45 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Haven't finished the article yet but in the 1970s there was an effective campaign to ban pay toilets in the US called the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. Can't remember where I heard about that effort recently (maybe a podcast?), but I've always wondered if that played a big part in ending public restrooms in the US.
From the wiki, my emphasis added: "According to The Wall Street Journal, there were, in 1974, at least 50,000 pay toilets in America, mostly made by the Nik-O-Lok Company."
When I lived in China in the late 2000s, it was such a luxury to always be within about a block of a public restroom. Those restrooms could be horrific on the inside (and some were quite nice) but at least there was a place to go. Many required a small payment, sometimes more for toilet paper.
posted by msbrauer at 9:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
From the wiki, my emphasis added: "According to The Wall Street Journal, there were, in 1974, at least 50,000 pay toilets in America, mostly made by the Nik-O-Lok Company."
When I lived in China in the late 2000s, it was such a luxury to always be within about a block of a public restroom. Those restrooms could be horrific on the inside (and some were quite nice) but at least there was a place to go. Many required a small payment, sometimes more for toilet paper.
posted by msbrauer at 9:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
And hey, DC -- why aren't there ANY restrooms in your Metro? That's the true desert city, unless you're on the Mall, where the free-admission Smithsonians all have great restrooms.
Metro has restrooms. Pentagon for one. The Reston too.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Metro has restrooms. Pentagon for one. The Reston too.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Almost every Metro station in DC has a restroom, but some of them are annoyingly hard to find.
posted by fancypants at 10:01 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by fancypants at 10:01 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Okay, look, bathrooms are locked everywhere now. They're locked in the suburbs and small towns where there isn't a huge street homelessness problem. They're locked in the posh largely residential parts of town where the cops get called on anyone who looks poor never mind actually homeless.
I live in basically the epicenter of my city's homelessness/heroin problem and I have staffed a place with a bathroom where we did have people shooting up. (My back alley gets covered with needles, TBH, because there are so many homeless people using heroin.) So I mean, I'm familiar with this issue.
Similarly, it's not like you take the train out to the posh suburbs and there are lots of benches or something. "Anti-homeless" architecture is a social problem itself and homeless people are the pretext.
Frankly, living on a street with literally two homeless encampments within a few blocks is not the greatest situation in the world. But the injury is from the state, not from homeless people. The whole point of the state is solving collective action problems, and they have decided that instead of solving the problem of homelessness they are going to let citizen fear justify immense police build-ups and basically genocidal policies. But let me tell you, the city that sics the cops on a bunch of homeless people will sic the cops on you should you ever fall on hard times or fall afoul of the state.
posted by Frowner at 10:05 AM on November 19, 2021 [48 favorites]
I live in basically the epicenter of my city's homelessness/heroin problem and I have staffed a place with a bathroom where we did have people shooting up. (My back alley gets covered with needles, TBH, because there are so many homeless people using heroin.) So I mean, I'm familiar with this issue.
Similarly, it's not like you take the train out to the posh suburbs and there are lots of benches or something. "Anti-homeless" architecture is a social problem itself and homeless people are the pretext.
Frankly, living on a street with literally two homeless encampments within a few blocks is not the greatest situation in the world. But the injury is from the state, not from homeless people. The whole point of the state is solving collective action problems, and they have decided that instead of solving the problem of homelessness they are going to let citizen fear justify immense police build-ups and basically genocidal policies. But let me tell you, the city that sics the cops on a bunch of homeless people will sic the cops on you should you ever fall on hard times or fall afoul of the state.
posted by Frowner at 10:05 AM on November 19, 2021 [48 favorites]
Even in NYC in the mid 70s thru the mid 90s when I lived there...bathrooms were hard to find...The subway ones were horrendous....the 42st bus station...omg...forget that one!...Restaurants had them of course...often for customers only. As a different with Chrone's disease I have horror stories to trll...but I won't. Well just one...On the A train headed to work downtown, I knew I had to get off the train soon. The train stopped at 125th street, which is the middle of Harlem bssically.
I shot out of that train and up the subway steps.This is 7.30 am by the way. There was actually a bar open. I ran in and yelled have me a gun and tonic and three a fiber in the bsr. Found the bathroom...it wasn't too shabby...did my thing and exited the bar and caught the next train downtown...
posted by Czjewel at 10:32 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I shot out of that train and up the subway steps.This is 7.30 am by the way. There was actually a bar open. I ran in and yelled have me a gun and tonic and three a fiber in the bsr. Found the bathroom...it wasn't too shabby...did my thing and exited the bar and caught the next train downtown...
posted by Czjewel at 10:32 AM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
"The lack of public restrooms in the U.S. hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2011, a United Nations-appointed special rapporteur who was sent to the U.S. to assess the “human right of clean drinking water and sanitation” was shocked by the lack of public toilets in one of the richest economies in the world."
This reminds me of my extremely uncomfortable day trip to Boston ages ago.
It is where I finally formalized my urban bathroom strategy which has not failed me since. Waltz into large hotels like you are a guest or meeting someone and use their lobby/restaurant toilets. They are usually very large, clean, nice and best of all empty. The downside is you have to look like you are not homeless which means I have to be careful not to go to far with my hobo aesthetic.
posted by srboisvert at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
This reminds me of my extremely uncomfortable day trip to Boston ages ago.
It is where I finally formalized my urban bathroom strategy which has not failed me since. Waltz into large hotels like you are a guest or meeting someone and use their lobby/restaurant toilets. They are usually very large, clean, nice and best of all empty. The downside is you have to look like you are not homeless which means I have to be careful not to go to far with my hobo aesthetic.
posted by srboisvert at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
My city used to have underground restrooms in all the business districts that you accessed by subway-style stairs from the street. They've all been long since capped off but I'd bet some of them still exist underground.
posted by octothorpe at 10:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 10:53 AM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
On Remembrance Day I picked up my kids from their school bus stop and walked with them to the drug store so that we could all get flu shots (I get the day off so it's become my day to get the flu shot). There was a line-up and one of my kids had to pee. I asked to use the washroom and they said it was closed due to covid. So we ended up walking home and not getting our flu shots. And it wasn't my kid being clever to get out of a needle because they both thought that only I would be getting the shot.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:56 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:56 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
hostile architecture is the fad for my town. every picnic table within 2 miles of city center has been removed from parks. benches are super short with the arm-rest dividers. several benches have been replaced with 'urban art' sculptures that consist of uneven, sharp surfaces. all the band shells have locked garage doors on the front (and that's super aesthetic). there was a fountain put in at a downtown park, and naturally, the homeless would go there to clean up. so they now turn it off at 6pm. city parks cut down a thousand healthy trees to keep homeless from camping there. once you know the term 'hostile architecture', it's impossible not to see it everywhere.
paris-style self cleaning restrooms, I'm all about that. bring it.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:57 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
paris-style self cleaning restrooms, I'm all about that. bring it.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:57 AM on November 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Sadly, voting down safe injection sites is a bipartisan mainstream value deeply ingrained in the social fabric of America.
Voters don't generally get to vote directly on this question. It's a matter of executive power (and the ever-present threat of federal prosecution). NY may finally be lurching towards an implementation.
posted by praemunire at 11:13 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Voters don't generally get to vote directly on this question. It's a matter of executive power (and the ever-present threat of federal prosecution). NY may finally be lurching towards an implementation.
posted by praemunire at 11:13 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
(But even with safe injection sites, I think one must accept the fact that a significant subset of homeless people will still use public bathrooms to shoot up and public bathrooms will thus require a high level of service to remain safe regardless. There is a core homeless population that is, for various reasons, essentially incapable of medium-term planning and can't engage with institutions at all, even an Insite model.)
posted by praemunire at 11:17 AM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 11:17 AM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I keep asking this question and still don't have an answer: Do heroin users actually want to use safe injection sites? I mean, obviously if I have a home/RV/car/tent I'm gonna want to use there cause I can kick back and relax, watch a movie, whatever. The injection site makes me leave after I'm done shooting, right? That doesn't sound fun or comfy. Where's the line for "safe injection is preferable to this"? I'm not sure a safe injection site beats a clean, private Starbucks bathroom- but I'm not the user of these facilities so I'd love to hear a real perspective on it
posted by keep_evolving at 11:31 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by keep_evolving at 11:31 AM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
There's an area in North Philadelphia near a subway stop (sorry, I don't remember exactly where) where it's not just that there are no free public restrooms, none of the stores let customers use rest rooms. At all, even if you buy something.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:35 AM on November 19, 2021
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:35 AM on November 19, 2021
Hin the 1970s there was an effective campaign to ban pay toilets in the US called the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America.
It's a privilege to pee.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:37 AM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's a privilege to pee.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:37 AM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Waltz into large hotels like you are a guest or meeting someone and use their lobby/restaurant toilets. The downside is you have to look like you are not homeless which means I have to be careful not to go to far with my hobo aesthetic.
Seconding this strategy although I have been accosted by staff in a Manhattan hotel lobby rest-room because I wasn't a guest; my back-pack and hiking boots invalidating me, somehow.
posted by Rash at 11:43 AM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seconding this strategy although I have been accosted by staff in a Manhattan hotel lobby rest-room because I wasn't a guest; my back-pack and hiking boots invalidating me, somehow.
posted by Rash at 11:43 AM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Do heroin users actually want to use safe injection sites?
In 2017, [Insite] recorded 175,464 visits (an average of 415 injection room visits per day) by 7,301 unique users; 2,151 overdoses occurred with no fatalities, due to intervention by medical staff.
I mean, obviously if I have a home/RV/car/tent I'm gonna want to use there cause I can kick back and relax, watch a movie, whatever.
Then you're not shooting up in a public restroom.
posted by praemunire at 12:05 PM on November 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
In 2017, [Insite] recorded 175,464 visits (an average of 415 injection room visits per day) by 7,301 unique users; 2,151 overdoses occurred with no fatalities, due to intervention by medical staff.
I mean, obviously if I have a home/RV/car/tent I'm gonna want to use there cause I can kick back and relax, watch a movie, whatever.
Then you're not shooting up in a public restroom.
posted by praemunire at 12:05 PM on November 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
...And more recent statistics here. All a straightforward Google search away, so I'm not sure who you were asking.
posted by praemunire at 12:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 12:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Every time I have to pee when out in public I'm conscious of the privilege extended to me by virtue of being a middle-aged white woman who can pass for Karen. No one asks if I'm a customer, no one cares if I'm a customer, they give me a key or a code and away I'm able to (literally) go.
There's about a 20-tent encampment on my block right at the moment, and a portable toilet on the next block. Judging by the state of the sidewalks, no one is using it.
posted by cyndigo at 12:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
There's about a 20-tent encampment on my block right at the moment, and a portable toilet on the next block. Judging by the state of the sidewalks, no one is using it.
posted by cyndigo at 12:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
We can't have public goods like bathrooms or parks or benches or libraries if we are unwilling to make sure everyone has a place to live.
Because if someone has nowhere to live, their only option is to use something like a public restroom or a public bench as a poor excuse for a home. And that makes those things unusable for everyone else as public restrooms or benches.
Making a public restroom uncomfortable is never going to make it less uncomfortable than having no place to live at all.
posted by straight at 12:18 PM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
Because if someone has nowhere to live, their only option is to use something like a public restroom or a public bench as a poor excuse for a home. And that makes those things unusable for everyone else as public restrooms or benches.
Making a public restroom uncomfortable is never going to make it less uncomfortable than having no place to live at all.
posted by straight at 12:18 PM on November 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
My city used to have underground restrooms in all the business districts that you accessed by subway-style stairs from the street. They've all been long since capped off but I'd bet some of them still exist underground.
My own hometown in Canada had a staffed pair of these right in the core. They lasted from the turn of the last century until circa 1985. They were shuttered because of the usual reasons outlined in the thread above, but also with the fig leaf of accessibility: traversing a narrow iron staircase isn't friendly to those in wheelchairs, or those pushing a stroller, or even those who have been shopping and are carrying things. Nothing went in nearby to replace them. (There is a big mall a block away which opened a decade earlier; famously, early on it decided to lock up all its washrooms because there were rumours of drug use and only a massive public outcry opened them again -- seems if you have a building where a couple thousand people work and an order of magnitude more pass through every day, having zero toilets is not a great idea.)
After being sealed up with their entrances covered over some 35 years ago, the two underground washrooms were officially ended maybe a decade back, when some additions were made to the small park where they are located. The entrances had been demolished in the eighties, but the facilities themselves were just walled off with a cap on the old stairwells.
At the time of the official permanent closing, the stated plan was to fill them with gravel and concrete. However, I was walking through the park the day they were doing it, and either there had been a change in plans I had missed, or someone with an eye to the future had pulled some strings: they were filled instead with sand.
The mirrors and stall doors were removed, but the marble counters, the toilets and urinals, the radiators and plumbing: all still in place, and all now preserved like Pompeii. I took some photos to prove it. I wonder if in another half-century, still another renovation of the park will reveal a shocking find to that era's city government.
These days I occasionally lead a free walking tour of the core. I always pause there and tell any locals on the tour about the fate of these things, which anyone born before about 1975 recalls.
Also, for those interested in the larger topic of vanishing public washrooms, I highly recommend Lezlie Lowe’s book No Place to Go. She is a journalist who became acutely conscious of the issue when she became a mother and found that a startling number of washrooms are up or down stairs, which by design or happenstance exclude strollers. As well, she had aging parents looking at moving into a seniors’ complex with plenty of parkland and common space and zero public toilets (the planners seemingly not considering that people’s bodies work differently at 85 than at 35).
I am disabled myself, and a lot of my trips in the city are navigated off my internal constellation of where there are washrooms available if I need one. Of course, the pandemic has caused a lot of these stars to go dark; in the middle of a global health crisis it sure seems a good idea to get rid of as many places as possible for people to wash their hands.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
My own hometown in Canada had a staffed pair of these right in the core. They lasted from the turn of the last century until circa 1985. They were shuttered because of the usual reasons outlined in the thread above, but also with the fig leaf of accessibility: traversing a narrow iron staircase isn't friendly to those in wheelchairs, or those pushing a stroller, or even those who have been shopping and are carrying things. Nothing went in nearby to replace them. (There is a big mall a block away which opened a decade earlier; famously, early on it decided to lock up all its washrooms because there were rumours of drug use and only a massive public outcry opened them again -- seems if you have a building where a couple thousand people work and an order of magnitude more pass through every day, having zero toilets is not a great idea.)
After being sealed up with their entrances covered over some 35 years ago, the two underground washrooms were officially ended maybe a decade back, when some additions were made to the small park where they are located. The entrances had been demolished in the eighties, but the facilities themselves were just walled off with a cap on the old stairwells.
At the time of the official permanent closing, the stated plan was to fill them with gravel and concrete. However, I was walking through the park the day they were doing it, and either there had been a change in plans I had missed, or someone with an eye to the future had pulled some strings: they were filled instead with sand.
The mirrors and stall doors were removed, but the marble counters, the toilets and urinals, the radiators and plumbing: all still in place, and all now preserved like Pompeii. I took some photos to prove it. I wonder if in another half-century, still another renovation of the park will reveal a shocking find to that era's city government.
These days I occasionally lead a free walking tour of the core. I always pause there and tell any locals on the tour about the fate of these things, which anyone born before about 1975 recalls.
Also, for those interested in the larger topic of vanishing public washrooms, I highly recommend Lezlie Lowe’s book No Place to Go. She is a journalist who became acutely conscious of the issue when she became a mother and found that a startling number of washrooms are up or down stairs, which by design or happenstance exclude strollers. As well, she had aging parents looking at moving into a seniors’ complex with plenty of parkland and common space and zero public toilets (the planners seemingly not considering that people’s bodies work differently at 85 than at 35).
I am disabled myself, and a lot of my trips in the city are navigated off my internal constellation of where there are washrooms available if I need one. Of course, the pandemic has caused a lot of these stars to go dark; in the middle of a global health crisis it sure seems a good idea to get rid of as many places as possible for people to wash their hands.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
I'm not sure a safe injection site beats a clean, private Starbucks bathroom
For most people, as you point out, a private personal space (home or similar) is best, but a safe injection site outranks a public bathroom even if the former's liable to move you along, because the comparative luxury of not being immediately hustled out is not worth the (actually pretty high, in a commercial bathroom) risk of being at the center of a big messy scene and then being immediately hustled out. Also, even though you can nod off on a toilet seat, it's not like public bathrooms are typically comfortable places to hang around indefinitely even if you can count on privacy.
posted by jackbishop at 12:27 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
For most people, as you point out, a private personal space (home or similar) is best, but a safe injection site outranks a public bathroom even if the former's liable to move you along, because the comparative luxury of not being immediately hustled out is not worth the (actually pretty high, in a commercial bathroom) risk of being at the center of a big messy scene and then being immediately hustled out. Also, even though you can nod off on a toilet seat, it's not like public bathrooms are typically comfortable places to hang around indefinitely even if you can count on privacy.
posted by jackbishop at 12:27 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
> The first is that governments are incapable of getting value for money. San Francisco HAS public, staffed toilets! They cost $200,000 to operate annually ($30 per flush!)
I think this is the crux of the issue, as well as a whole bunch of other infrastructural issues in the US, and it doesn't seem like it's being addressed, well, anywhere. It's the same problem that kills lots of other good ideas, like public transit. The costs are just astronomically high, even compared to other developed countries.
The county next to mine rather infamously spent more than a million dollars building a bus stop. (They called it a "Super Stop", but really, it's just a fucking bus shelter by the side of the road, with a couple of electronic displays showing the bus schedule that generally don't work.) I can't imagine what a public restroom would cost. Two million? Five? The environmental reviews alone would probably run into the millions. And then you want to staff it?
Yes, the US has a fair number of fundamentally awful people who would happily load homeless people (and a lot of others besides) into cattle cars and gas them without a second thought. Always has been, probably always will be. You will never get their support for any project that benefits anyone they don't like, no matter what the upside to it might be. All you can do is ignore them and press onward. Call them the lunatic fringe, call them the crazification factor, call them whatever—the key part is that, like the Terminator, they cannot be bargained with, cannot be reasoned with, and they absolutely won't stop (voting) until they are dead. They are not, in my view, worth wasting a lot of energy interacting with.
But there is—at least in my community—a significant number of people who aren't totally averse to the idea of public spending on public goods (and, due to where I live, are often public sector employees themselves!), but blanch at the cost. They are, somewhat justifiably, skeptical of the costs involved when municipalities try to build stuff. If you can't build a public bathroom for less than it costs to build an entire McDonalds restaurant ($958k-2.2m, apparently, although that includes the franchise fees and restaurant equipment), and I have reason to believe that we basically can't with the system we have in place right now, people are probably going to vote it down.
If we could figure out how to get costs under control, at least to the level that other developed nations pay for their infrastructure, I think a lot of things would suddenly become possible that are currently out of reach. But until we can do that, I think public bathrooms are just one item on a long list of Nice Things we can't have.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:35 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I think this is the crux of the issue, as well as a whole bunch of other infrastructural issues in the US, and it doesn't seem like it's being addressed, well, anywhere. It's the same problem that kills lots of other good ideas, like public transit. The costs are just astronomically high, even compared to other developed countries.
The county next to mine rather infamously spent more than a million dollars building a bus stop. (They called it a "Super Stop", but really, it's just a fucking bus shelter by the side of the road, with a couple of electronic displays showing the bus schedule that generally don't work.) I can't imagine what a public restroom would cost. Two million? Five? The environmental reviews alone would probably run into the millions. And then you want to staff it?
Yes, the US has a fair number of fundamentally awful people who would happily load homeless people (and a lot of others besides) into cattle cars and gas them without a second thought. Always has been, probably always will be. You will never get their support for any project that benefits anyone they don't like, no matter what the upside to it might be. All you can do is ignore them and press onward. Call them the lunatic fringe, call them the crazification factor, call them whatever—the key part is that, like the Terminator, they cannot be bargained with, cannot be reasoned with, and they absolutely won't stop (voting) until they are dead. They are not, in my view, worth wasting a lot of energy interacting with.
But there is—at least in my community—a significant number of people who aren't totally averse to the idea of public spending on public goods (and, due to where I live, are often public sector employees themselves!), but blanch at the cost. They are, somewhat justifiably, skeptical of the costs involved when municipalities try to build stuff. If you can't build a public bathroom for less than it costs to build an entire McDonalds restaurant ($958k-2.2m, apparently, although that includes the franchise fees and restaurant equipment), and I have reason to believe that we basically can't with the system we have in place right now, people are probably going to vote it down.
If we could figure out how to get costs under control, at least to the level that other developed nations pay for their infrastructure, I think a lot of things would suddenly become possible that are currently out of reach. But until we can do that, I think public bathrooms are just one item on a long list of Nice Things we can't have.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:35 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
only a massive pubic outcry
OK, I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.
posted by praemunire at 12:41 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
OK, I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.
posted by praemunire at 12:41 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
When I lived in The Hague, there were modern, clean pay toilets right at ground level in the main central drag, but at night free urinals would magically rise out of the ground for men to use. I asked at the time what women did when they needed to go after a night of too many biertjes, and I found my answer when I saw a woman using those urinals in a way I'm not sure the designers considered.
I don't know why we can't have something similar here. I see men pissing against walls everywhere in NY these days, surely that's worse.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I don't know why we can't have something similar here. I see men pissing against walls everywhere in NY these days, surely that's worse.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
If you provide public toilets in areas with substantial general homeless populations, they will get trashed on an hourly basis and people will OD in them frequently (and even just using often means sharps, which are a danger to others). You actually need to supply a high level of services, too, especially if you're hoping to make them usable by the general public.
Twenty years ago I worked in a Kinko's in Seattle, and we had problems with the bathroom. There was a key, and a customer simply had to ask for it, but very often homeless/junkies would shoot up in there. We would find needles in the trash and once I saw a spray of blood on the walls. So then we had to make sure people were paying customers, which sucked. But it kept happening, and the last straw was when some dickhead stuffed the toilet with paper and flooded it. After that the manager just closed down the toilets. I think after a while we had to re-open them, though.
The businesses--and the people who work in them--are just reacting to a larger phenomenon that they have no power over. Us Kinko's workers couldn't solve the homelessness problem or the heroin problem. We were just trying to do our jobs, and dealing with the bathroom all the damn time was an annoyance no one could handle. Public restrooms--or rather the lack thereof--are a symptom of a larger set of problems.
posted by zardoz at 1:02 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Twenty years ago I worked in a Kinko's in Seattle, and we had problems with the bathroom. There was a key, and a customer simply had to ask for it, but very often homeless/junkies would shoot up in there. We would find needles in the trash and once I saw a spray of blood on the walls. So then we had to make sure people were paying customers, which sucked. But it kept happening, and the last straw was when some dickhead stuffed the toilet with paper and flooded it. After that the manager just closed down the toilets. I think after a while we had to re-open them, though.
The businesses--and the people who work in them--are just reacting to a larger phenomenon that they have no power over. Us Kinko's workers couldn't solve the homelessness problem or the heroin problem. We were just trying to do our jobs, and dealing with the bathroom all the damn time was an annoyance no one could handle. Public restrooms--or rather the lack thereof--are a symptom of a larger set of problems.
posted by zardoz at 1:02 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
If we could figure out how to get costs under control, at least to the level that other developed nations pay for their infrastructure
Somewhere recently I saw a claim that, all else equal-ish, common law countries were having the runaway costs problem and civil law countries weren’t.
posted by clew at 1:02 PM on November 19, 2021
Somewhere recently I saw a claim that, all else equal-ish, common law countries were having the runaway costs problem and civil law countries weren’t.
posted by clew at 1:02 PM on November 19, 2021
...the last straw was when some dickhead stuffed the toilet with paper and flooded it.
My town library put a child-size toilet into a new, dedicated bathroom just off the Children's Room. (There were multi-user Ladies' Room and Men's Room down the hall, but this was nice so families didn't have to pack up every time one of the kids needed to go.)
After three extremely expensive visits by the plumber to remove "blockages" -- culminating in an entire pair of underwear forced into the tiny fixture -- it was removed. Multi-lingual signs didn't help. An extra, very-visible trash can didn't help.
When the suburban library's children's room get trashed on the regular... *elaborate shrug*
posted by wenestvedt at 1:16 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
My town library put a child-size toilet into a new, dedicated bathroom just off the Children's Room. (There were multi-user Ladies' Room and Men's Room down the hall, but this was nice so families didn't have to pack up every time one of the kids needed to go.)
After three extremely expensive visits by the plumber to remove "blockages" -- culminating in an entire pair of underwear forced into the tiny fixture -- it was removed. Multi-lingual signs didn't help. An extra, very-visible trash can didn't help.
When the suburban library's children's room get trashed on the regular... *elaborate shrug*
posted by wenestvedt at 1:16 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
TR;DR it can't be overstated how much public restrooms serve as a reminder of the contempt people have for the people that serve them.
My first W2'd job at age 14 required me to clean toilets. So did every subsequent job for the next 4 to 5 years. Cleaning a restroom is hazardous work without artifacts of drug use. Sanitation is hard thankless work, and I don't know many people who would do it willingly. When these discussions come up I can't help but think of the people who will staff them. Yeah, stainless steel toilets, urinals and sinks are far from the friendliest fixtures, but you can safely clean them with a garden hose from 10'. Steel toilets also don't break as easily when you try to smash them with a skateboard.
I know enough small business owners and their horror stories to not fret too much about the bag of Doritos I have to buy to poop in peace.
I tend to collect pictures of egregious "uses" of public restrooms on my cell phone, and I have readily found terrible examples across a broad spectrum of locations. It has gotten to the point where I've been asked nicely but firmly to stop posting them in my friend's discord channel. By and large porta-potties are the biggest offender, followed by a sliding scale of fastness-of-food to grubbiness of restaurant bathroom. Here in very Southern California the parks have somewhat decent public restrooms, but I'd be lying if I didn't see a toilet ripped clean off the wall.
Turds in urinals, turds in sinks, plugging the toilet with 10 lbs of paper and the remnants of your lunch. Some of it is for valid reasons, others not so much, all of it left for someone else to deal with.
posted by The Power Nap at 1:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
My first W2'd job at age 14 required me to clean toilets. So did every subsequent job for the next 4 to 5 years. Cleaning a restroom is hazardous work without artifacts of drug use. Sanitation is hard thankless work, and I don't know many people who would do it willingly. When these discussions come up I can't help but think of the people who will staff them. Yeah, stainless steel toilets, urinals and sinks are far from the friendliest fixtures, but you can safely clean them with a garden hose from 10'. Steel toilets also don't break as easily when you try to smash them with a skateboard.
I know enough small business owners and their horror stories to not fret too much about the bag of Doritos I have to buy to poop in peace.
I tend to collect pictures of egregious "uses" of public restrooms on my cell phone, and I have readily found terrible examples across a broad spectrum of locations. It has gotten to the point where I've been asked nicely but firmly to stop posting them in my friend's discord channel. By and large porta-potties are the biggest offender, followed by a sliding scale of fastness-of-food to grubbiness of restaurant bathroom. Here in very Southern California the parks have somewhat decent public restrooms, but I'd be lying if I didn't see a toilet ripped clean off the wall.
Turds in urinals, turds in sinks, plugging the toilet with 10 lbs of paper and the remnants of your lunch. Some of it is for valid reasons, others not so much, all of it left for someone else to deal with.
posted by The Power Nap at 1:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
j_curiouser hostile architecture depends on hostile landscape/architects and engineers, where is their social conscious? We have this in NZ too, so far I've not been asked to do it, I hope I'm now busy enough to refuse.
posted by unearthed at 1:49 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by unearthed at 1:49 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure a safe injection site beats a clean, private Starbucks bathroom
People who use drugs are aware of the risk of overdose. I'm sure a very significant portion of the people who use safe injection sites do so not because it is more comfortable, but because the safe injection site is, well, safer. Insite in Vancouver provides: clean needles and other equipment, testing of drugs (which is crucial when many overdoses are due to people receiving something other than what they purchased), and most importantly medical staff to respond immediately if someone overdoses. This isn't a minor point — medical staff respond to multiple overdoses per day. That's about one per hundred visits.
Widespread safe injection sites aren't going to prevent some people from using public washrooms for that purpose, but they certainly will help.
posted by ssg at 2:00 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
People who use drugs are aware of the risk of overdose. I'm sure a very significant portion of the people who use safe injection sites do so not because it is more comfortable, but because the safe injection site is, well, safer. Insite in Vancouver provides: clean needles and other equipment, testing of drugs (which is crucial when many overdoses are due to people receiving something other than what they purchased), and most importantly medical staff to respond immediately if someone overdoses. This isn't a minor point — medical staff respond to multiple overdoses per day. That's about one per hundred visits.
Widespread safe injection sites aren't going to prevent some people from using public washrooms for that purpose, but they certainly will help.
posted by ssg at 2:00 PM on November 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
At my worksite the boss was forced to put up a sign in Vietnamese asking the occupants of the loo to use a tissue to blow their nose...not there fingers and then wipe it on the wall...
posted by Czjewel at 2:11 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 2:11 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
this topic makes me angry in weird ways.. I've been volunteering to help maintain a park for a few years, and the portables may have to go. I find myself thinking about this at odd moments, and I get angry that we've reached a point where a small percentage of the population can trash public facilities to the point it's just easier to remove stuff. You need a car to reach this park, we're not talking about the homeless and addicts. Just run-of-the-mill assholes, the same type of person who revs their vehicle down a crowded street and obliterates the social fabric for the duration of 1-2 minutes, just because they can.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:35 PM on November 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 2:35 PM on November 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
maybe a fifth of the public restrooms around here have sharps containers. they're not empty. seems safer for everyone.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:41 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 2:41 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I mean, hell: maybe a fifth of international, Category X airports I’ve been to have sharps containers. It is absolutely a need and it absolutely goes unaddressed. It’s not just for intravenous drug use; ask any Type 1 diabetic who doesn’t have an insulin pump.
But the installation of sharps containers in public washrooms doesn’t negate the need for dedicated safe injection sites. Or the fact that some folks, whether it’s a hypodermic or their blood or their feces or their bloody sputum, aren’t conscientious (or conscious) enough to care which biohazards they’re leaving for people to clean up. I worked in a hospital long enough to know just how pervasive it is, across demographics.
posted by armeowda at 3:54 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
But the installation of sharps containers in public washrooms doesn’t negate the need for dedicated safe injection sites. Or the fact that some folks, whether it’s a hypodermic or their blood or their feces or their bloody sputum, aren’t conscientious (or conscious) enough to care which biohazards they’re leaving for people to clean up. I worked in a hospital long enough to know just how pervasive it is, across demographics.
posted by armeowda at 3:54 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Costco.
I have used several in the Portland area and they are always open to the public and always clean. And the food is cheap too.
posted by cybrcamper at 5:33 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have used several in the Portland area and they are always open to the public and always clean. And the food is cheap too.
posted by cybrcamper at 5:33 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
"All my life, people like you been using stalls made for people like me," Wendell said. "I never asked the question, but I'ma ask it now. Why?"
"I'm gonna be honest," Morgan said, sheepishly. "It always seemed like a little apartment.
posted by clavdivs at 6:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
"I'm gonna be honest," Morgan said, sheepishly. "It always seemed like a little apartment.
posted by clavdivs at 6:46 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
DC is slowly inching forward on a public toilet program.
posted by schmod at 7:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by schmod at 7:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I wish instead of building dancing murder dog robots we were building robots to clean and repair public bathrooms.
posted by emjaybee at 11:42 PM on November 19, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 11:42 PM on November 19, 2021 [17 favorites]
I suppose I have internalized the practice, you have to pay 2 bucks to pee at the Walgreens or whatever, and get a banana or Gatorade in exchange.
But there ain't no place to pee on Mardi Gras day
posted by eustatic at 3:51 AM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
But there ain't no place to pee on Mardi Gras day
posted by eustatic at 3:51 AM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I find it alternately amazing and depressing that this is a need that everyone on Earth (and everyone who had ever lived) has, what, a half-dozen times a day, and there is still virtually no public recognition that it exists or accommodations for it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:54 AM on November 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:54 AM on November 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
I also remember back in the 80s and early 90s there being a whole lot of pearl clutching not only about people trying to live, sleep, do drugs, and trash public lavatories, but a huge "but prostitutes and gay people will use them to have sex" objection. This was, according to editorials, church sermons, and adult discussions in our family's social bubble, absolutely unacceptable and all public toilets should all be shut down and, preferably, demolished or at least filled with cement, like an old radioactive hazard site.
I remember from around this time our boy scout troop going to a nearby Scout-owned campsite and discovering that all the standing-structure outhouses had been removed and replaced with "Pilot and Bombadeer" style toilets -- just a couple of boards set up for you to sit on and shit, two holes side by side, open to the air with absolutely no privacy. We, being semi-civilized young men, set up tarps around them, only to be told by a very embarrassed site manager that we had to take them down. Why? Some Karen had found a few gay porn magazines in the old outhouses, and in a panic had convinced the board of directors for the site that the only solution was this ridiculous setup. We didn't go back there, and a few years later the entire site was sold to developers, which was probably the actual goal of such an obvious site-ruining rule change.
posted by Blackanvil at 8:14 AM on November 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
I remember from around this time our boy scout troop going to a nearby Scout-owned campsite and discovering that all the standing-structure outhouses had been removed and replaced with "Pilot and Bombadeer" style toilets -- just a couple of boards set up for you to sit on and shit, two holes side by side, open to the air with absolutely no privacy. We, being semi-civilized young men, set up tarps around them, only to be told by a very embarrassed site manager that we had to take them down. Why? Some Karen had found a few gay porn magazines in the old outhouses, and in a panic had convinced the board of directors for the site that the only solution was this ridiculous setup. We didn't go back there, and a few years later the entire site was sold to developers, which was probably the actual goal of such an obvious site-ruining rule change.
posted by Blackanvil at 8:14 AM on November 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
NYC used to have public bath houses, because many apartments did not have hot water. I don’t know how relevant that was in the 1980s, but they were gone in a hot minute with the coming of the AIDS epidemic.
By Ed Koch. Who was gay. I can’t believe the human race sometimes.
posted by Melismata at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
By Ed Koch. Who was gay. I can’t believe the human race sometimes.
posted by Melismata at 8:32 AM on November 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
One key insight from Laura Norén, down in the article:
“Basically, [Americans] are afraid of strangers,” she says.
posted by doctornemo at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
“Basically, [Americans] are afraid of strangers,” she says.
posted by doctornemo at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
“Basically, [Americans] are afraid of strangers,” she says.
This is a bit of a derail, but I worked for a long time for an international membership-based travel organization. I recall being at a meeting in maybe 2005 where the head of the American association made his update, his presentation was full of graphs with jagged downward arrows like in old New Yorker business cartoons: volume of business, membership sales, website hits, outbound trips, inbound trips, everything. After a few sidewise glances at each other, someone on the audience raised a hand and asked what the hell? He shrugged and said, "It's our foreign policy. Our country tells Americans they will be shot at or blown up if they go anywhere, and we make it incredibly difficult and unpleasant to visit, so of course the business is in free fall."
Travel and tourism is the one potentially evergreen industry. Egypt's peak as a world power vanished around the time that Cleopatra had her messy triangle with Caesar and Mark Antony, but the Pyramids and the Sphinx aren't going anywhere, and people have been coming and spending money to see them for millennia. By the same token, the Statue of Liberty and Mt. Rushmore are there for the long haul, and people will always pay money to go see them.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:13 PM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is a bit of a derail, but I worked for a long time for an international membership-based travel organization. I recall being at a meeting in maybe 2005 where the head of the American association made his update, his presentation was full of graphs with jagged downward arrows like in old New Yorker business cartoons: volume of business, membership sales, website hits, outbound trips, inbound trips, everything. After a few sidewise glances at each other, someone on the audience raised a hand and asked what the hell? He shrugged and said, "It's our foreign policy. Our country tells Americans they will be shot at or blown up if they go anywhere, and we make it incredibly difficult and unpleasant to visit, so of course the business is in free fall."
Travel and tourism is the one potentially evergreen industry. Egypt's peak as a world power vanished around the time that Cleopatra had her messy triangle with Caesar and Mark Antony, but the Pyramids and the Sphinx aren't going anywhere, and people have been coming and spending money to see them for millennia. By the same token, the Statue of Liberty and Mt. Rushmore are there for the long haul, and people will always pay money to go see them.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:13 PM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Hm, in the long run the Lakota might choose to alter tourism at Six Grandfathers
( Mt. Rushmore).
posted by away for regrooving at 1:42 PM on November 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
( Mt. Rushmore).
posted by away for regrooving at 1:42 PM on November 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
In the late-2000s in San Francisco there were public self-cleaning bathrooms around the city that cost 25 cents to use. I remember walking past the 24th Street BART one and the door of it opening to reveal four or five probably homeless people sitting on the floor of one shooting up.
Public libraries are generally the only place homeless people can access the internet, take a nap, read, and use the toilet for free which leads to duties of librarians being expanded to include administering Naloxone.
One of the many things homeless people are judged as ugly for is that they smell like urine and/or feces. Could this possibly be a direct result of the difficulties of finding a public toilet? I refuse to judge them, only the people who lock the toilets.
posted by bendy at 8:05 PM on November 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
Public libraries are generally the only place homeless people can access the internet, take a nap, read, and use the toilet for free which leads to duties of librarians being expanded to include administering Naloxone.
One of the many things homeless people are judged as ugly for is that they smell like urine and/or feces. Could this possibly be a direct result of the difficulties of finding a public toilet? I refuse to judge them, only the people who lock the toilets.
posted by bendy at 8:05 PM on November 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
"I wish instead of building dancing murder dog robots we were building robots to clean and repair public bathrooms."
Repair might be too much to ask for, but cleaning sounds possible.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:59 AM on November 21, 2021
Repair might be too much to ask for, but cleaning sounds possible.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:59 AM on November 21, 2021
In the late-2000s in San Francisco there were public self-cleaning bathrooms around the city that cost 25 cents to use.
My city installed one of those in the early 2000s in a bar-crawl district but it broke quickly and has been blocked off for more than a decade now.
posted by octothorpe at 8:41 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
My city installed one of those in the early 2000s in a bar-crawl district but it broke quickly and has been blocked off for more than a decade now.
posted by octothorpe at 8:41 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I wonder how the right-wing hysteria over and media/political assault on trans* people using the "wrong" public restroom fits into this abdication of responsibility for the public good. I don't really have any fully formed thoughts on the subject, but it seems like one would feed the other somehow...
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:23 PM on November 21, 2021
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:23 PM on November 21, 2021
I wish instead of building dancing murder dog robots we were building robots to clean and repair public bathrooms.
Toilet-cleaning robot.
posted by mpark at 2:47 PM on November 23, 2021
Toilet-cleaning robot.
posted by mpark at 2:47 PM on November 23, 2021
> Same goes for the idealistic notion that private business could fix this by making its facilities available to all comers.
A woman came to my workplace recently with a card from her doctor saying she was allowed, for medical reasons, to use any employee bathroom anywhere. While I understand why she needs that card, I also really don't want the public to use the employee bathrooms where I work.
(There was a public portapotty a few yards away but she didn't want to use it.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:55 PM on November 27, 2021
A woman came to my workplace recently with a card from her doctor saying she was allowed, for medical reasons, to use any employee bathroom anywhere. While I understand why she needs that card, I also really don't want the public to use the employee bathrooms where I work.
(There was a public portapotty a few yards away but she didn't want to use it.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:55 PM on November 27, 2021
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Even in bluest of blue SF, people complain that the homeless shit in the streets. Where else are they supposed to shit without a bathroom? Like are the homeless supposed to be superhuman and just hold it in indefinitely?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:47 AM on November 19, 2021 [64 favorites]