It’s a fact of life… we all have to go sometimes. New York City is short on public bathrooms. You wind up going in a bar, gas station, department store, and find the pissoir that they offer because they are legally required to do so.
It wasn’t like that decades ago — NYC built some handsome Beaux Arts and later Art Deco public bathrooms along the prominent public ways, and while some of them fulfill their earlier function, some do a different job entirely.
This number, for example, was photographed by FNY Correspondent Gary Fonville in 2001 (we now speak of Forgotten NY in terms of decades). From the looks of things, it was still doing the job it was built to do at that point.
Cut till 2016, and it’s still a public pissoir in a way, but now has the added function of dispensing hamburgers, chili, baked potatoes and chicken sandwiches.
Who knows if the 2016 restaurant patrons know about the original purpose of the joint?
4/28/16
6 comments
“It’s a fact of life… we all have to go sometimes. ” Tell me about it! When I was training at Coney Island Hospital in the 90’s, there wasn’t a single functional rest room along the entire length of the boardwalk! Then they wonder why they have “quality of life” issues…
I remember the pissoirs of Paris.Good idea,but they still got rid of them cuz women were envious
of them.In high class neighborhoods they could get pretty ornate with fancy ironwork but in working class hoods they were pretty plain and dumpy-looking.
Not to mention the nefarious activity they sometimes enabled late at night if ya get my drift,nudge-nudge,wink-wink
At the 170th St Station of the #4 train…
Something like this has happened in my Witch City hometown:
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/salem-willows-restroom-to-become-clam-shack/article_4cdd2b8d-27b1-58d8-bebd-b3502ee1604a.html
And the year before that Boston Common’s bathroom building got the same treatment, it’s now an Earl of Sandwich location
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/13/boston-common-bathroom-becomes-fast-food-kiosk-fit-for-nobility/8z0dFPryRLnYgujpfswwgK/story.html
http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/4935/the-attendant-cafe-in-london