User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in New York

Public toilets in New York have a density of around five per 100,000 residents. Public toilets have a long history in the state, and particularly in New York City, of being tools to improve health and of both exclusion and inclusion.

= Public toilets = A 2021 study found there were five public toilets per 100,000 people in the state of New York.

Government officials in Buffalo rarely appeared at public toilets to inspect their quality and cleanliness. Responsibility for maintenance is not centralized, but rather spread across several jurisdictions.

Public toilets are often located in semi-private public accommodations like hotels, stores, restaurants and coffee shops instead of being street level municipal maintained facilities.

New York City
New York City had 365 public toilets in 2021. New York City had a density of 0.79 public toilets per square mile of public park in 2018. Some small retails and restaurants open their facilities to workers in the city who otherwise would not have access to a toilet. Tourists, fruit-stand vendors, food-cart works, and street-fair vendors, bike messengers, construction workers, newsstand operators, dog walkers and taxi drivers are among those who face the greatest difficulties in New York City as a result of the lack of public toilets.

In New York City, five different city departments have the ability to fine people who engage in public urination or open defecation. They are the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Metro Transit Authority, the New York City Police Department, and the Department of Environmental Protection. There are fewer departments that can fine a person for not cleaning up their dog poop.

Herald Square in New York City had a stand alone public toilet since 2003. Public toilets in in a hut located at Standard Grill in New York's Meatpacking district were listed in a 2016 Lonely Planet guide to the 100 best toilets in the world because of their view.

An experiment was done in New York City in the 2010s to see if New Yorkers were willing to pay USD$8 a day for continual to clean toilets. The experiment was done in response to the dirty condition of existing public toilets. Self-cleaning public toilets use a lot of water, four times as much as non-self-cleaning toilets.

Cintas awards America’s Best Public Restroom. The ten 2020 finalists included the public toilets at Greeley Square Park in New York City. They have a full-time attendant, play classical music and have some self-cleaning features like a rotating toilet seat. The public toilets also have climate control. Another 2020 finalists included the public toilets at Kimpton Muse Hotel in New York City. Guests can chose one of six toilet stalls in the unisex facility based on their mood. The moods are glam, vain, rebel, passion, macho and envy. A third 2020 finalists included the public toilets at AirTrain JFK’S Jamaica Station. The toilet stalls are larger than earlier incarnations at the station to allow people to bring luggage into the stall. They also have changing tables in both the men's and women's toilets, and a family restroom.

History
The state legislature passed a law in 1865 related to general sewage system construction.

Railway stations began building big terminals in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. One of their features were big public toilet facilities. Train station designer Walter G. Berg said in his 1893 that public toilet facilities should be used to keep undesirable elements out.

The Progressive Era saw reformists make a major push to address public hygiene. As part of this push, they sought to improve the toilet and sanitation in tenement housing in cities across the United States. At the time, New York City and Buffalo were some of the biggest cities in the United States. The 1901 New York State Tenement House Act banned the practice of communal toilets, requiring each housing unit in a building to have its own toilet in a separate room in the apartment.

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.

Because of changes in attitudes and the country going in a more conservative direction, starting in the 1920s, public health officials began to advocate less for public toilets and improved sanitation as this was seen as primarily helping the less affluent. At the same time, these same public health officials were also often advocating for less privacy in public toilets, seeing it as counterproductive in their battle try to fight and track sexually transmitted diseases, especially among poor people and people of color. While maintaining privacy in public toilets had been a goal prior to that, it ceased to be by then.

Most city operated public toilets in the 1950s and 1960s were pay toilets. The fee to access these toilets was around a nickel or a dime, with the money earned being invested back into toilet maintenance and upkeep. At the time public pay toilets started being installed, New York City and Buffalo were some of the biggest cities in the United States. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, public pay toilets were viewed by feminist activists as sexist because public urinals were free but public sit style toilets were not. The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America, more commonly known as CEPTIA, tried to change this by getting municipals on public pay toilets. Their first success was in Chicago in 1973. This was then followed by municipal and state wide success in a strong of additional states including Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming. By 1980, coin-operated toilets had almost disappeared from the public landscape.

Most public toilets in public transit stations closed during the 1960s and 1970s as a means of trying to reinforce class privilege. While most of the 427 subway stations had public toilet facilities at some point, by the early 1980s, they almost all were locked and made inaccessible to the public. Some of this was because they had begun to develop reputations as being places where people had public sex and used drugs. Some subway stations in New York City had public toilets in the late 2000s. They were staffed with attendants, who often had to direct people who did not speak English.

Many public toilets were closed across the country in the early 2000s as part of security measures following the 9/11 terrorist attack.

54% of women in a Correctional Association of New York survey said they lacked sufficient  access to menstrual products while incarcerated. When products were available at the commissary, they were often too expensive for most inmates. They also often lacked access to toilet facilities to change menstrual products.

New York City
New York City's original sewer system was intended to drain storm water from the the city. People dumping sewage into it had become such a concern that by 1819, the Common Council formally banned that practice. In the 1840s, Trinity Church graveyard's outside wall was used as a place for open urination. During the winter, the situation was so bad that the road in front of the wall became slick with ice formed by the frozen urine. In the early and mid-1800s, New York City lacked a sewage system and did not have regular garbage pickup services, even as the city grew from 96,000 in 1810 to 1660,00 in 1865 to 3,437,202 by 1900. The city had a strong smell as alleys tended to pick up standing pools of filth. In 1865, New York sanitarian inspector requested public urinals be built on the Lower East Side because public urination led to the, "the disgusting stench that is kept reeking at every alley-corner, yard, and warehouse wall." There was some opposition to indoor toilets in the 1800s as sewage created dangerous gases. Public toilets, of the pit latrine style, were the norm in the city in the 1840s, with only the very wealthy having access to private toilets. These public toilets were shared ones in yard or in hallways. Women's groups were the biggest advocates for the introduction of female only public toilets in New York City in the mid and late 1800s. By 1910, outhouses had largely disappeared with toilets being almost exclusively found indoors. When the hole filled, the outhouses were moved to a new location. In areas with a greater populations density, this proved impossible and these became permanent with someone tasked with removing the pit's contents when it became full. The men who did this were called Nightsoil or Soilmen or Nightsoil Men. They often brought the contents to empty lots of the periphery of the city or dumped the contents into nearby waterways. Some was used by farmers. This continued until around 1873.

Cholera outbreaks occurred in 1832, 1849 and 1866 in large part because of poor sanitation conditions. Construction for first sewage system designed to carry human waste began in 1847. A French immigrant in the 1850s offered to build public urinals at his own expense in Manhattan to help address the open urination issue in the city. His planned urinals would use hollow cast-iron, be 10 feet tall, have a diameter of three feet and be partially open to the outside. He would make them profitable by installing advertising on the side. The government failed to act on his offer and other initiatives of that sort at the time. A group of New York City physicians recommended that public urinals be installed in 1865 in order to improve overall health in the city. The first plans to build public toilets in New York City by the New York Metropolitan Board of Health in the theater district were created in 1866. They initially planned to construct two but only ended up building one, located at Astor Place and 8th Street. Construction was finished in 1869. This public toilet was short lived. In 1872, the Department of Public Works removed it. To try to combat issues related to Night Soil Men, in 1872 the city hired Manhattan Odorless Excavating Company to clean the city's human waste.

In 1880, indoor plumbing began to expand in popularity, with water fixtures then able to reach the 6th floor though rarely beyond because of a lack of water pressure. To address that, wooden water storage tanks began to appear on the top of buildings. These hand pumped tanks often could hold up to 10,000 gallons and were viewed as important tools in improving public health and general sanitation in the city.

Mayor William L. Strong’s Committee on Public Baths, Water Closets and Urinals, supported by civic reformers in the city, started a push for the creation of more public toilets in the 1890s. Public baths were created in New York City to allow people to clean themselves. The purpose in creating them was to try to allow poor people to rid themselves of the class based stigma of being dirty. Admiration for London's public underground toilets was strong in New York City in the late 1800s. As a result, the city opened its first underground public toilet behind the Post Office in 1897 near the site new proposed city hall. By 1897, public toilers in New York City were being used by around 1,000 men on a daily basis. The daily average of women using public toilets was around 25. One of the reasons women did not use them is the facilities were small, and upper class women did not have room to maneuver and pee while wearing long, space taking dresses. Women also avoided them because they were frequently very hot inside during the summer and freezing cold during the winter. This was in part a result of of the cast-iron construction design.

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.

By 1919, there were over 800 public toilets in Manhattan subway stations, with about half for women and half for men. Many were dirty, and local health officials tried to pressure subway officials into improving their cleanliness. In some cases, people would steal brass fixtures. In other cases, people would rob public toilet users. Vandalism was common.

Between 1925 and 1932, 21 comfort stations were build in the Bronx, but only seven were located outside of public parks and Coney Island and left many areas underserved. Similar problems existed on Staten Island which had only three public toilets in 1932 and Queens with two public toilets, one of which was at Rockaway Beach. Nine public toilets were built in Manhattan between 1925 and 1932, but their location was still an issue as few were located on the Lower East Side and the Lower West Wide, which had some of the highest population densities in Manhattan. Public toilets in Manhattan in 1927 averaged over 80,000 users a day. Despite these issues, the municipal government did not want to invest in new public toilets, which would be costly to maintain.

City official Robert Moses inaugurated 145 public toilets in 1934. These were constructed as part of a plan by the city to increase public sanitation and toilet access. Women were often uncomfortable at public toilets in the 1930s, because they were easily outnumbers by men and the facilities were often egalitarian. As a result, middle class women who could left public toilets and instead used toilets in department stores, who provided much nicer facilities.

There was one public toilet per 4,343 residents in New York City in 1940. There were 1,676 public toilets in 1940. This included the toilets operated by the subway system.

By the 1940s, many municipal governments in the United States found themselves in charge of running and maintaining local public transportation networks and the public toilet network that came with them. These toilets had historically had maintenance issues, problems with vandalism and other issues. To try to keep their budgets in check, many cities closed public toilets associated with their public transit networks. They were assisted in doing this by affluent people being less willing to pay to use these facilities, especially as they increasingly had toilets in their homes.

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.

There were five public toilet facilities at Grand Central Terminal in 1953, of which one, a men's public toilet, was operated by American Coin Lock Co., Inc and had twelve employees.

City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone showed the body pictures of public toilets in 1990 that were found in Athens, Greece. He demanded that similar public toilets be constructed in New York City.

The street level stand alone public toilets installed in the early 1990s used a French model that automatically opened the doors every 15 minutes and charged USD$0.25 a use.

Disability activists in the 1990s began campaigning for more accessible toilets, complaining lack of accessible toilets was a discrimination issue.

The Bryant Park foyer restrooms opened in the 1990s after being closed for many years as part of general rehabilitation efforts in the building. The features included a self-cleaning toilet seat, an attendant and bouquets of flowers. The thinking was if this could be done at places like the Four Seasons, it could easily be replicated elsewhere.

Around 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg responded to criticism regarding a lack of public toilets in the city by saying that there were enough Starbucks that would let people use them to make up for the lack of city provided public toilets. A New York Times reporter joking advised Republican National Convention delegees to use the toilets at McDonalds if they had to go because the city had so few public ones that all the locals used Starbucks toilets. Starbucks nominally support this idea that New Yorkers and in other places in the US should use their toilets because they earned money from people coming into their stores for that purpose as people often bought drinks after using the toilet.

Four homeless people in New York City sued the municipal government in the early 2000s over the lack of public toilets. As a result, New Yorkers began to start rallying around public toilets, especially in support of homeless people, in the 2000s. The lack of public toilets was recognized as an issue in the city in 2001. The third item on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's priority list in 2002 was public toilets.

French advertising agency JCDecaux was commissioned to build 20 public toilets at the behest of the city, modeling them after the semi-automated ones found in Paris, with the first one opening in January 2008. They cost USD$0.25 to use, were self cleaning and could not be used for more than 15 minutes. Their installation coincided with the city building 300 news stands and 3,450 bus shelters. The first ones were installed near Madison Square Park and near Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. They were later installed across the city, including on in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. By August 2018, only five had been installed. The remaining 15 toilets that the city had already paid for were being stored in a warehouse in Queens.

Kerri Berson did her 2008 senior thesis on wheelchair access at various facilities, including public toilets, at New York University. It demonstrated that despite gains as a result of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there were still any problems with access.

Only 129 public toilets were found in the city in 2010, with 60 unavailable or locked for security purposes. The New York City Police Department issued 17,044 citations for public urination in 2015. During the covid-19 pandemic, the volume of complaints about public urination increased in New York City.

A site called AirPnP was created in the city, allowing people to rent public toilet space. Some businesses also saw an opportunity, improving or building new toilets in their facilities in order to attract new customers and grow their business.

Starbucks’ interim CEO Howard Schultz said in June 2022 that the company was considering limiting public toilet access across their United States stores, citing the increasing problems of dealing with people with mental health issues using them who can in turn pose a risk for Starbucks staff and Starbucks customers.

Sex segregated public toilets
By 1897, public toilers in New York City were being used by around 1,000 men on a daily basis. The daily average of women using public toilets was around 25. One of the reasons women did not use them is the facilities were small, and upper class women did not have room to maneuver and pee while wearing long, space taking dresses. Women also avoided them because they were frequently very hot inside during the summer and freezing cold during the winter. This was in part a result of of the cast-iron construction design. By 1919, there were over 800 public toilets in Manhattan subway stations, with about half for women and half for men. Because women were less likely than men to use public toilets in the 1910s and 1920s, many towns and cities made women's comfort stations smaller than men's toilets. Women's toilets also often had shorter hours because women at that time felt less comfortable being out on the streets at night.

New York City's transgender population began to advocate in the 1990s to use the public toilet that best aligned with their gender identity instead of their sex. The issue soon became contentious, especially as in some cases it required redesigning public toilets to cater to security needs expressed by the transgender community.

RefugeRestrooms.org is a website created in 2014 that lists safe and accessible public toilets for transgender, intersex and gender nonconforming people to use around the world. In July 2016, it included 330 public toilets within a 20 mile radius of Manhattan.

Women's toilets
Women of all economic classes shunned early public toilets in New York City, despite being cleaner than the men's, when first installed in the 1870s. Part of this was because these facilities were cold in the winter, requiring women to put their butts on freezing seats. The spaces were also small, only a little bigger than men's facilities, which made it difficult for women with larger dresses to enter and use them. At the same time, the spaces were largely public, requiring women to urinate and defecate in high traffic areas where they could easily be seen because the facilities were not adequately screened off, making them too public for actual use.

Department stores, catering to a large female client base, started building women's public toilets for their customers by the late 1800s. An 1897 Macy's advertisement said their new women's public toilets were “the most luxurious and beautiful department devoted to the comfort of ladies to be found in a mercantile establishment in the city. The style of decoration is Louis XV, and no expense has been spared [...]”

Women in the 1910s in New York City argued for the definition of women's comfort stations and rest rooms to be more narrowly defined. Starting in the 1920s, middle and upper-class women living in cities stopped using public toilets, and instead shifted to toilets in facilities like hotels, theaters, train stations and department stores. While these toilets were free to use, the cultural expectation was that they would be exclusively used by clients or people who had purchased tickets. This helped ensure that these facilities were not accessible to working class women. As the 1920s waned and fears around lack of public toilets began to lessen as Prohibition became more the norm, the demand from citizens for more public toilets reduced as people grew used to making do and using private community toilets at places like hotels, restaurants, theaters and department stores instead. Women had also been very interested in this topic as part of their activism inside the Suffrage movement. As that goal was achieved, these groups often also lost interest in issues around public toilet access.

Women were often uncomfortable at public toilets in the 1930s, because they were easily outnumbers by men and the facilities were often egalitarian. As a result, middle class women who could left public toilets and instead used toilets in department stores, who provided much nicer facilities.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, public pay toilets were viewed by feminist activists as sexist because public urinals were free but public sit style toilets were not. The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America, more commonly known as CEPTIA, tried to change this by getting municipals on public pay toilets. Their first success was in Chicago in 1973. This was then followed by municipal and state wide success in a strong of additional states including Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming.

Men's toilets
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 met with limited success.

There were five public toilet facilities at Grand Central Terminal in 1953, of which one, a men's public toilet, was operated by American Coin Lock Co., Inc and had twelve employees.

Accessible toilets
Kerri Berson did her 2008 senior thesis on wheelchair access at various facilities, including public toilets, at New York University. It demonstrated that despite gains as a result of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there were still any problems with access.