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Should NYC Install These Public Urinals?
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 30, 2016
Modified Aug 15, 2018
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 30, 2016
Modified Aug 15, 2018
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(AP)
If you need to urinate while away from home, you will have to find a welcoming place to do so, or else you risk a citation—around 20,000 are doled out in NYC annually. Thankfully, there are some public restrooms in NYC, some of which are not located in a Starbucks—some of them are actually kind of nice!
When we talked to New Yorkers who had been charged with public urination in 2013, one big question came up: "In a city that has it all, why is one of the most basic human functions so difficult?"
Part of the answer lies with policies aimed at ridding the city of homeless people, with consequences that echo throughout the social strata of the city. The enforcement of public urination and other minor offenses which rely so heavily on the subjective decision of the particular officer are part of the "broken windows" policing policy, aimed at combating petty crimes like public urination, but more importantly, at displacing those who commit these crimes.
San Francisco has dealt with public urination similarly to the way NYC has, and in 2002 banned it, threatening a $500 fine if caught. But now they're leaning in to their pee problem, and this month they introduced their first open air urinal in Dolores Park, right in view of everyone on the MUNI.
It is as disgusting as it sounds.
But in the world of pissoirs, this one in San Francisco doesn't look too top shelf (in fact, it's missing some flourishes from the original design, including a wall of privacy vegetation). Now, over in Europe, they know a little something about pissoir design:
In the Netherlands and Paris. (Wiki)
Should NYC become the second city in the states to install them? This is mostly a question for men, since no one seems to have taken women into account in any pissoir design ever.
Tagged
pissoir
pissoir poll
public urination
urinal
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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