NYC Joins Civilized World, Gets Pay Toilets

Few toilets — if any — have ever received the level of government and media fanfare that greeted the new public pay potty that opened today in Madison Square Park. First, the full force of New York City’s newspapers, television and radio were there to tape, record and take notes on the first flushes. Second, the toilet is the product of an on-and-off decades efforts (detailed below) by city officials to, uh, serve the needs of New Yorkers.

 
So it was understandable that the city officials reveled in the toilet paper roll-cutting ceremony (which, fittingly, they did with their hands) on Madison Avenue, between 23rd and 24th Streets. But they couldn’t resist the temptation of scatological humor: “No. 1!” (Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner), “in loo of” (Adrian Benepe, parks commissioner), “doesn’t block pedestrian movement” (Daniel L. Doctoroff, outgoing deputy mayor for economic development).

 
Officials said the 20 new toilets to be installed will be the first permanent ones in use in the city. The kiosk in Madison Square Park, made of tempered glass and stainless steel, is about the size of a newsstand, with an automatic sliding door that opens when a deposit of 25 cents is made. It will initially be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (bad news for late-night revelers), though those hours may be adjusted.

 
The toilet itself is made of silvery metal, and more rectangular with curved edges than the familiar oval shape. Flushing, as on an airplane, is done at the press of a button. And men, take note: There is no toilet seat to leave up. There are toilet covers available. Also inside are a sink, a mirror and a hand dryer.

 
A user has a (generous) 15-minute period of privacy before the doors pop open — with a warning light and alarm going off when there are only three minutes left. In between is an automatic 90-second self-cleaning process, which will be one of the great mysteries of New York going forward, since it happens only when the doors were closed. But the news media was given a behind-the-scenes peek at the process: for one, a sweeping arm sprays disinfectant over the toilet, before it blows heat to dry it. And jets propel about seven gallons of water with disinfectant on the floor, which is not dried, leaving it wet for the next user.

 
There are all sorts of “just in case” precautions in place. For one, there are two red emergency buttons: one small and waist-high, the other big and toward the floor, in case someone falls. There is also a separate yellow button to reach an operator. The toilets are locked every night to prevent someone from camping out inside. And lastly, the floor sensors have both a maximum (currently about 550 pounds) and minimum (45 pounds) weight allowance, or the doors will not close. The minimum is to prevent small children from getting trapped inside. The maximum allowance is a bit of strange choice — as it is generous to allow two, or maybe even three, people inside. (Are they trying to prevent a party?)

 
The pay toilets are part of a $1 billion street-furniture arrangement with Cemusa, a Spanish outdoor-advertising conglomerate to provide matching bus shelters, newsstands, bike parking racks and pay toilets. Since Cemusa makes money off the advertising on the “street furniture,” it actually pays the city: $1 billion in fees, and another $400 million in New York promotional advertising on other structures the company operates outside New York.

 
So far, one-third of the 3,300 bus shelters, 39 of the 330 newsstands and the first of four bike-parking shelters have been installed. But the toilets are probably the most complex structure of all. Even with a quarter fee, they, they are not cheap to run (with staff members having to check in every night and morning at least) and not particularly environmentally friendly (as at least 14 gallons of water are used for each use, between the flushing and the cleaning).

 
Thus, the Bloomberg administration was clever, perhaps, in wrapping the toilets into a contract proposal with other, far more lucrative, street furniture, given the pay toilets’ long and tortured history in New York City.

 
In 1975, the state outlawed pay toilets, on the theory coin-operated stalls in public restrooms discriminated against women. In 1990, a group of homeless people sued New York City and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for access to public toilets; the state granted the city an exception to the ban in 1993.

 
In 1992, the administration of Mayor David N. Dinkins authorized J. C. Decaux, a French company that has built public toilets throughout Europe, to install six toilets around the city as an experiment. Three were about the size of airplane toilets; the rest were large enough to accommodate a wheelchair. They were paired, one large structure and one small one, at three locations.

 
That experiment repeatedly stumbled.

 
The founder of J. C. Decaux was charged in Belgium with violating a law that forbids political contributions by companies with municipal contracts.

 
The City Council expressed reservations about whether access to the disabled would be adequate, but then backed down. J. C. Decaux and Gannett, another leading outdoor advertising company, eventually lost interest in the project after it became clear that the number of ads per toilet kiosk would be limited to two.

 
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Dinkins’s successor, tried to jump-start the effort, proposing hundreds of self-cleaning public toilets on the streets, to be subsidized by selling advertising space. In 1994, the City Council shelved the plan because of last-minute concerns over the height of the toilets. By the end of that year, there was just one pay toilet left, in City Hall Park, and plans for a pilot project. That effort collapsed in 1997.

 
Chronicling this sad history and the persistent dearth of toilets in 2000, Clyde Haberman wrote, “The fact remains that this is one of the few great world cities that make no attempt to help people cope with so basic a need, a situation that constantly amazes residents and visitors alike.”

 
In the meantime, it has been left to private groups to pick up the toilet slack, typically only for temporary periods. In 2001, the 34th Street Partnership, a business improvement district, temporarily installed two pay toilets in Midtown.

 
Those who planned to use the toilet today did not seem to be discouraged by that long history of defeat.

 
John Mack, 35, of Brooklyn staked out the toilet today, waiting for the demonstrations to end, so he could be the first to use it. He had come knowing it would be on the nightly news, but it wasn’t entirely a self-promotional gimmick. “I actually do have to use the bathroom,” he said.