Public Toilets in New York

Jefferson Market Library, Manhattan.

WARNING. Be sure you go to the bathroom before you visit the PUBLIC Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue and 9th Street. After hanging out and enjoying books, basically using what my tax dollars pay for, I thought I would take a break and take a leak after consuming a few cups of tea that morning.

Where are the bathrooms please?
We don't have bathrooms for the PUBLIC.
What?
We don't have bathrooms for the PUBLIC.

I knew this didn't include children. Children are not public. I hopped off to the children's room and found a sign with two stick figures letting me know there were toilets behind that door.

Excuse Me Miss!
I'm going to the bathroom.
It's only for children.
You have a toilet behind that door and your telling me I can't use it?
This is an historical building and all historical buildings do not have public toilets. It's the law.

An outrage. I took myself down the street to find a cafe. It was being cleaned. I had always found it difficult to find a public toilet when my daughter was small, I remember telling her to hold it while riding the subway and then frantically looking for a toilet while she whined (I have to go). Often the only solution was to take her into a bar or restaurant, where I was told toilets for customers only, so I had to buy a drink before taking her to the toilet. New Yorkers are surprised when I tell them there are plenty of public toilets in New Zealand, there are even public showers on Lambton Quay.

PENN STATION (AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN) WHERE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE PASS EVERY DAY. If you need to use the toilet at 4 a.m. as I did recently, you can forgetaboutit.
The women's bathroom is closed for cleaning every day from about 3.00 a.m. to about 5 a.m., a police officer told me. (I asked him where there was another bathroom and he said that was it!) It was bad enough I had to wake up at 2 a.m. and drink two cuppas to get to where I was going to find I couldn't go to the bathroom. Penn Station is open 24 hours a day, there are many fast food restaurants open as well, but the only bathroom for women closes for cleaning but not for men. I stood outside the men's bathroom wondering if I should chance it when a woman came out giggling. The police officer was watching me (I know men have been arrested for using women's bathrooms in Penn Station, but what about the other way around? In fact a transsexual was arrested at Penn Station a few years ago and she took them to court. She won her right to use the women's bathroom, the problem was, she looked like a man to those who watch the bathroom to be sure men don't use it.)

I walked down 8th Avenue and found a McDonald's a few blocks away. I never eat the food but it had toilets. Inside I saw a barricade of trash cans and a security guard in front of the bathroom entrance. The young man looked at me (he must have seen the piss rising in my eyeballs), stepped aside and said go ahead. After, I saw he had bigger issues to deal with. A young woman, well groomed and dressed in very chic black mini skirt, tights et al, was sitting on the floor eating a big Mac. The security guard was explaining to her she had to sit at a table. She held her hands up to him and said okay, but she stayed on the floor. The guard was just doing his job but the woman wasn't budging. Later I imagined her being dragged off and I thought of Carol Ann Gotbaum, the woman at the Phoenix airport who was on her way to a rehab center. She was dragged off for raising her voice and died minutes later in custody. I saw the video footage of the incident. She didn't look provoking at all. It was said she accidentally strangled herself with her cuffed hands because she was drunk.

Public comments on many blogs (by anonymous people of course) are very cruel about her death, saying she brought her own death upon herself, but look at the video, she didn't attack anyone.