NYC Bathroom History
Many public bathrooms in NYC were shut down or fell into terrible shape during this economically difficult decade of budget cuts.
What are the 1970s?
Rather than using tax dollars, many cities fund the high costs of public restrooms by selling space for this on the walls, screens, or outer kiosks of the facilities.
What is advertising (or ads)?
Seeking to bolster hygiene and curb pathogen transmission, contemporary facilities are increasingly adopting these hands-free components for water faucets and soap distribution.
What are motion sensors (or touchless technology)?
Proving their vital role in city life, approximately three-quarters of NYC's public restrooms are located in these green public spaces.
What are NYC public parks?
Named after two chronic digestive conditions, this state law legally requires businesses to allow people with urgent medical needs to use their private restrooms.
What is the Crohn's and Colitis Fairness Act (or Restroom Access Act)?
During the 1930s, this influential NYC Parks Commissioner oversaw the construction and renovation of hundreds of park comfort stations.
Who is Robert Moses?
Since 1961, NYC has given real estate developers extra building space in exchange for building and maintaining these open public spaces.
What are POPS (Privately Owned Public Spaces)?
This company is partnering with NYC to pilot modular smart public restrooms that can be unlocked using a smartphone.
What is Throne Labs?
Accounting for 20% of the city’s restrooms, these buildings are generally very clean but are closed on Sundays.
What are NYC public libraries?
A 2024 NYC Council report evaluating park restrooms was named after this common phrase people say when they need a bathroom.
What is Nature's Call?
Frustrated by the lack of places to go in Times Square, opera student Teddy Siegel went viral by launching a TikTok account under this catchy handle to map NYC’s open bathrooms.
What is @got2gonyc?
NYC's modular restroom pilot avoids expensive utility work because the units don't require connections to these underground systems.
What are sewer and water lines?
This eco-friendly, waterless restroom type turns human waste into useful soil using natural decomposition and air vents.
What is a composting toilet?
In stark contrast to New York, nearly all of the 900 train stations in this foreign megacity's transit network feature clean, reliable public restrooms.
What is Tokyo?
Highlighting a major gender gap, a 2025 citywide assessment showed that baby changing tables are much harder to find in restrooms designated for this group.
What are men's restrooms?
In the early 1990s, this NYC mayor approved testing modern, self-cleaning public toilets imported from Europe.
Who is David Dinkins?
Rather than building new toilets, London pays local shops and restaurants a yearly fee to let the public use their restrooms under this scheme.
What is the Community Toilet Scheme?
This famous prefabricated steel restroom model features open grates at the top and bottom, allowing police to easily check whether it's occupied.
What is the Portland Loo?
To deal with individuals relieving themselves in public transit elevators, Boston's MBTA launched a $100,000 pilot program to install high-tech sensors that detect this specific liquid.
What is urine?
To respect privacy, advocates recommend that every stall in a public restroom be equipped with a small bin for disposing of these hygiene products.
What are menstrual products?
Picture the Homeless launched an advocacy campaign in 2018 with this catchy, rhyming name to get NYC to deploy its stored automatic toilets.
What is the "Free to Pee" campaign?
While other cities spend about $220,000 to install a prefabricated Portland Loo, NYC's extensive red tape and utility requirements pushed the installation cost per unit in 2023 to this shocking amount.
What is $815,000? (Note: This is just for installation; the unit itself costs $185,000!)
Architect Shigeru Ban designed public restrooms in Tokyo using walls made of this surprising material, which is transparent when empty but turns completely opaque when the door is locked.
What is smart glass (or colored transparent glass)?
According to advocates, approximately how many additional public restrooms does NYC need?
Around 2,000.
In Germany, the popular community network where local shops and restaurants let the public use their restrooms for free is called "Nette Toilette," which translates to this in English.
What is "Nice Toilet"?