1230 5th Ave. at 104th Street

El Museo del Barrio celebrates the rich Caribbean and Latin American cultures in New York. Too tempting to avoid, we must hereby make the stock comment that if you visit the corresponding restaurants these cultures provide, especially if you sport gringo digestive chemistry, you may in fact need the bathroom after such meals, and soon. Accordingly, this museum offers a couple of bathrooms, and one resides in the Hecksher building, before you even enter the museum itself. It’s great if you’re in the neighborhood, in need, and don’t have the time to go to the museum (in our efforts to aid the New York pedestrian, we are attempting to review all the facilities of “suggested donation” museums before moving on to their more expensive, but less anxiety-causing counterparts).

The bathroom here is a “oner,” (let’s not forget that’s one letter off from “loner”). Its saving grace was the large black “foot button” acting as the flusher on the toilet. Please re-read the last sentence. Thank you. And now we must question, and hope you join us in doing so: why is this not the standard in public restrooms? Let’s face it, the motion sensor stuff is a sham, they rarely work correctly short of your having to do an Irish jig in front of them to get them to flush. And even when they do work reasonably well, they make the option of a “mid-game” flush much more difficult. Sure you can use your foot on toilets with standard handle flushers, but it’s nice to see SOMEONE just acknowledging that yes, most sane people use their foot to flush, so we not design with that in mind? And even for that mid-game flush, this button is easier than a handle to elbow.

Like a Journey tribute band, the bathroom itself looked like it had not evolved since the ’70s. No plate protected the light switch, but we must admit we did get a little nostalgia for the throwback of the hand dryer they had: the big silvery guy with the round spout. The wall tiling was large at least (most tiny tiles are easy and unattractive, like those skeletal size -4 fashion models), but for the grand finale, we leave you with this: the sink had hair and green herbs in it. They swear it was oregano.

Rating: 4.0

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