What Happened to the Public Restroom?

Madison Square Park's automatic public toilet (via).

When you gotta go, you gotta go. Unfortunately, in a city of 8.3 million people, finding a suitable place to relieve yourself can be difficult—especially in public parks and subway stations, where there isn’t a Starbucks nearby. Public restrooms are in demand, and the city seems to be doing little about it.

In 2005, the city signed a street furniture deal with Spanish advertising company Cemusa. The 20-year-contract calls for Cemusa to install a mere 20 APTs, or automatic public toilets. They will also install 37 bike parking structures, 330 newsstands, 200 bus shelters and replace all current ones (totaling 3,300 bus shelters).

Since 2005, only two APTs have been built—one on Madison Avenue and 23rd Street and one at National Street and Corona Plaza in Queens.

The APT is a uniquely weird structure. The restroom, which is extremely wide (6’7” x 12’), resembles Cemusa’s newsstands and bus stops, with glass and silver finishes and even prominent ad space. Check the green “vacant” light is lit; insert 25 cents (coins only, no bills) and the doors open like an elevator.

Then it gets a little awkward. The doors remain open for an additional twenty to thirty seconds to accommodate wheelchairs, leaving the customer impatiently waiting and avoiding the gaze of any passerbys who can see in.

Once the door closes, the APT is ready for use. The structure is soundproofed to keep all street noise out, but it’s easy to feel exposed. The toilet, which is stainless steel and has no lid (there are tissue seat covers available), openly sits in the corner.

The toilet is surrounded by a series of buttons: red for emergency, yellow for assistance, blue to flush, and black for toilet paper. Each user is only allowed three helpings of sixteen-inch strips of toilet paper. After twelve minutes, a yellow warning light turns on. The green button opens the door if the user is ready before their fifteen minutes are up.

What happens after a person exits the APT is what makes it truly unique. The doors shut and the “occupied” light stays lit. Inside, two robotic arms spray the toilet, sink and floor with disinfectant. Dryers then dry the space. After 90 seconds and 14 gallons of water, it’s ready for use again.

The inside of Madison Square Park's APT (via).

The main reason for the lack of APTs is the strict site requirements. Possible locations must be sidewalks or plazas controlled by government agency or public authority, traffic islands under the DOT’s jurisdiction, on parks property, or on wide streets in commercial districts. Access to phone and plumbing lines are also necessary.

Engineering issues halted construction on three additional APTs at the 69th Street Pier and on Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Brooklyn and the Lippman Arcade in Flushing, Queens, according to the New York Times in August 2009. Since then, none of the three have completed installation.

Many community boards also reject the APTs due to their high costs. The toilet and its installation cost anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000. Others, like Community Board 2, feel the futuristic design does not fit into the neighborhood aesthetically.

Laureen, who lives on 23rd Street, agrees with Community Board 2. "I think it's really cool," she said of Madison Square Park's APT, "but it looks a little funny next to the park."

In 2001, the 34th Street Partnership gave similar self-cleaning automated public restrooms a try. The number of visits to the two restrooms, located at Herald Square and Greeley Square, dropped from 28,000 to less than 14,000 in 2007, according to the New York Times in December 2009. They were replaced with regular restrooms that are manually cleaned in 2008.

Automatic or not, there are just as few restrooms underground. Of the city’s 468 subway stations, according to am New York, there are only 129 restrooms in 77 stations. About 60 of them are locked or used as storage. "They may be locked at any given time due to vandalism and ongoing repairs," said NYC Transit spokesperson Charles Seaton to am New York on April 11. Unlocked restrooms are closed between midnight and 5 a.m. for cleaning.

There doesn't seem to be much cleaning going on in the rare underground restrooms. Those deemed safe enough for use were filled with garbage and standing water and smelled of various odors, according to am New York. The men's restroom in the Hunts Point Avenue station didn't even have walls on the stalls.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they [the bathrooms] were disgusting," said Rebecca, who was riding the E train on a Saturday afternoon. "I wouldn't even know where to look for one."