User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Connecticut

Public toilets in Connecticut, commonly called washrooms, are found at a rate of around six public toilets per 100,000 people.

Public toilets
washroom is one of the most commonly used words for public toilet in the United States. Euphemisms are often used to avoid discussing the purpose of toilets. Words used include toilet, restroom, bathroom, lavatory and john.

A 2021 study found there were six public toilets per 100,000 people.

History
By the 1910s, local city officials in Hartford were worried that children were being molested in public toilets at public parks. They were also concerned that public toilets had become places where homosexual activity was taking place.

In the 1900s and 1910s, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Toledo, Worcester, Salt Lake City, Providence, Binghamton, Hartford, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Portland and the District of Columbia all built underground public toilets, most located in the city center in the local business district. The prestige of building underground public comfort stations was so high that some towns and cities who were unable to afford underground public toilets opted for none instead.

State health officers in the 1930s were in charge of, among other things, inspecting public toilets.

Connecticut regulations in 1937 said, "No motor vehicle or trailer shall be equipped with an open toilet or other device that may be a hazard from a health and sanitation standpoint."

As the Prohibition effort began to take more shape in the 1910s, large cities in the Northeast and Midwest had women's groups advocating for the creation of large numbers of comfort stations as a way of discouraging men from entering drinking establishments in search of public toilets. This was successful in many places in getting cities to build comfort stations, but the volume of new public toilets built was rarely enough to meet public needs.

A large public toilet was built underground at in State House Square in Hartford in the late 1910s, with a second smaller one built underground in the 1920s at South Green. The latter was built in response to Prohibition. Both were expensive to operate but the city continued to maintain them into the 1960s for the benefit of local businesses. As the demographics changed in the area, the businesses moved out and a more racially diverse population moved in. The city government closed the South Green public toilet in 1963. The State House Square public toilets were closed in 1970, with the city originally saying it was an effort to save money but the deputy mayor blamed homosexual activity while another official said the public toilets at the State House location were prone to vandalism and the area had become unsafe at night.

American Coin Lock Co., Inc operated public toilets in the early 1950s at under contract from railway companies at train stations in New York City in New York, in Hartford, New Haven and New London in Connecticut, in Providence in Rhode Island, in Worcester in Massachusetts, and in Montreal.

The United States Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 established the right to legal separation of people by sex in places like public toilets.

After North Carolina banned people from using public toilets that matched with their gender identity and required people use the public toilet that matched with their sex in 2016, the state considered banning travel by state employees paid paid by the state to North Carolina.