#public-restrooms

#public-restrooms

Every time Leah Goodridge leaves her home in New York City, she performs the same exercise: figuring out where the closest bathroom is. That's because Goodridge has uterine fibroids, which force her to use the restroom frequently, normally twice an hour after she drinks something. 'Every time I leave my house, I have to chart it out,' she said.

The city's quasi-governmental Economic Development Corporation called on vendors Friday to apply to design new modular public restrooms under Mayor Zohran Mamdani's $4 million pilot program, which will place the lavatories throughout the city. The EDC's request for proposals (RFP), which it shared exclusively with amNewYork before its Feb. 6 release, lays out criteria for companies bidding to design the public restrooms. It comes after Mayor Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced the pilot, which will test 20 to 30 modular restrooms.

Mamdani announced the new public bathroom plan in West Harlem, where a new bathroom will be installed later this year, he said. Everyone knows the feeling of needing a bathroom and not being able to find one, Mamdani said at the Jan. 10 press conference, which was flush with bathroom puns and innuendo. With this new commitment to public toilets, we're ensuring New Yorkers can travel through our city with a little less anxiety, starting today at 12th and St. Clair.

The Restroom Archive is an ongoing case study aimed at documenting public restrooms, capturing their humorous, chaotic, and often scary nature.

Cities across the country want to provide bathrooms, but costs and operational challenges stop them from doing so. - Jessica Heinzelman, Throne Labs co-founder

They were as nasty as nasty could be. There was a lot of piss in the urinals. There was a lot of piss on the floor. There was a lot of, um, doodoo in the toilets.