The New York Public Restroom Edition
On access, civility, and problem solving
Colin here. We’ve written in the past about Tokyo’s incredible approach to bathrooms. For a city with such density and population, it isn’t hard to find a public restroom that is well maintained. There are utilitarian options in every train station, as well as in most parks and other public areas.
Sadly, New York is still in bad shape. The Bloomberg administration tried to do something about it, but right now the burden falls onto private businesses. And while Starbucks made public proclamations in the past about restrooms being open to all, Howard Schultz has started to walk this policy back.
According to NY Mag:
Howard Schultz, citing unspecified concerns about “security” and “hardening our stores,” said at a New York Times forum that the company was reconsidering the open-to-all bathroom policy that it set in place in 2018. He is using the language of preventing gun violence, but you have to assume that this is mostly about allowing access by unhoused people and the effect their presence has on paying customers in the coffee shops. Starbucks is within its rights to do this, of course. It’s a private company, and its bathrooms are not civic property. Most businesses — in New York City, at least — won’t let noncustomers use the toilets; many restrict their use to staff only.
Why is this interesting?
Without a more significant public push like Tokyo’s, citizens and visitors need to find other approaches to their bladder needs. Pay toilets popped up around the city, but that trend didn’t seem to go anywhere, nevermind the issues that raises. An alternative approach has been crowdsourcing the info. Flush, a public toilet app, has been a decent resource for tracking down a potty in a pinch. And now, of course, there’s a TikTok angle.
The Times reports:
At her sister’s urging, Ms. Siegel, who lives in Manhattan, created a TikTok account to document New York’s publicly accessible bathrooms, posting a video of the McDonald’s where she had found one and making the account public for others who might find such information helpful. Plenty of people apparently did. As of this past week, the McDonald’s video had been viewed 15,000 times, and the TikTok account, @got2gonyc, had 109,000 followers. In addition to posting information about the restrooms she finds, Ms. Siegel uses the account to share locations submitted by others, as well as codes for unlocking doors where needed. She also created a Google Map for adding restroom addresses in real time. She said she gets hundreds of submissions a week.
In my mind, one key measure of a city’s civility is its access to public toilets. While this is still a pretty sideways solution to the real issue, creative solutions will ideally encourage some infrastructural ones. (CJN)
—
WITI x McKinsey:
An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.
On inflation, world trade, and unemployment in China. McKinsey’s Global Economics Intelligence explores rising food and energy prices, slow GDP growth and growing unemployment in China, a slowdown in world trade, an increase in interest rates, and more. Don’t miss the analysis.
—
Thanks for reading,
Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)
—
Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).