NEW YORK – Tourists in New York open their mouths as they gaze at the skylines of skyscrapers, or in surprise as they identify the settings of their favorite movies, but when the amazement fades, a more earthly question always arises: Where to find a public toilet in its streets?
The shortage of toilets is a problem that also affects New Yorkers and that is aggravated in the districts beyond downtown Manhattan, where the lines of people waiting their turn in front of the few existing bathrooms, such as the one in Bryant Park, are also a clear sign of this problem.
PROPOSAL TO ADDRESS LACK OF RESTROOMS
For this reason, the president of the district of Manhattan, Mark Levine, and the councilor of the City Council, Rita Joseph have presented a bill to “combat the notorious lack of public toilets in the city” and that proposes the location of at least one toilet in each zip code.
“Public restrooms will help people to relieve themselves with dignity, while ensuring the healthiness of public spaces,” said Joseph, referring to the custom of some passers-by to urinate on sidewalks, in nooks and crannies, taking advantage of works or areas of little concurrence.
According to these two politicians, among the 100 largest cities in the United States, New York ranks seventh from the bottom in number of public toilets per capita.
But in addition, they insist that “the lack of available, accessible and clean public restrooms in the city disproportionately harms New Yorkers who are homeless, elderly, disabled, pregnant, menstruating women or people with medical conditions” .
The office of the New York Department of Transportation limited itself to assuring Efe that it is processing requests to locate more public toilets, although it acknowledged that it would like the process to be faster, “understanding the challenges of locating them.”
The website of the official New York guide ensures that the City Council commissioned the construction of twenty automatic public toilets more than a decade ago, but “the majority remain in a warehouse in (the district of) Queens”.
According to this website, in addition to the central toilets in Bryant Park, considered the jewel in the crown of New York toilets for their attention and service, which includes flowers at the entrance and piped music, there are only a handful of places to go both in the district of Manhattan like those of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island, spread over three islands and the mainland.
APPS LOOKING FOR A BREAK
In a tight spot, the best places to find relief are city parks, which among the vegetation usually have appropriate facilities, in addition to large train, subway and bus stations and also some large fast food chains or cafes.
Above all, when more and more restaurants and bars are putting up signs making it clear that the use of their services is reserved only for their customers or those who are willing to pay.
To help residents and tourists in distress, there are several mobile applications with varying degrees of success that try to place on the map the places where passers-by are welcome, such as “kidney current“, a private initiative of Professor Wansoo Im.
Im, specialized in urban planning, tells Efe that he launched his application in 2005, when he traveled from neighboring New Jersey to New York to visit two of his daughters who were studying at university.
“My daughters wanted to go to the bathroom but we couldn’t find one and when we found one there was a long line, like in most public bathrooms,” explained Im, who ended up taking a subway to go to services at the Penn train station. Station, because I knew there were toilets there.
At that time, Im had the idea of launching a map with the restrooms of the city, but that would include not only the few public places, but also those chain restaurants, museums, hotels or large bookstores where the free use of toilets is allowed. services.
Originally from South Korea, Im explains that 17 years later he is still keeping his initiative alive because “the toilet problem not only continues, but it got worse during the pandemic,” with many places that were open closed for safety reasons.
He welcomes the proposal to increase the number of public toilets in the city, but considers that a better and cheaper solution would be to promote collaboration between private businesses and citizens so that the former accept that pedestrians can use the toilets.
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