40 Lincoln Center Plaza

(located west of Broadway and Columbus Avenue from W. 62nd to W. 65th Street)

Having visited the grand performance halls of Lincoln Center and evaluated their loos, we decided to check in with the library that shares its home with these great stages, stages where we will inevitably present readings of our bathroom reviews one day.

The theater of course is a corner of the world rife with superstition, and evidently the designer of this bathroom did not escape the madness. Clearly, said designer believed in in the unifying power of the number four: the elements, the seasons, the corners of a square…and the numbers of sinks, stalls, (and urinals for the men) in the bathrooms at the NY Performing Arts Library. However, the old theater saying of “break a leg” was not taken all that seriously, as no handicapped person is getting in here. There are stairs that must be climbed to attain relief. The NYPAL must be one of the worst places for the handicapped to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon reading Othello.

Inside the restrooms, things are kept simple. With white walls and grey floor tiles, they test our patience for tired and uninspired restroom designs, but fortunately a decent amount of order and cleanliness holds it all together. Perhaps if this bathroom were an actor, it would consider itself an “empty vessel,” ready to become whatever you want it to (contrast this to the stately diva that is the NYC London Hotel). A telltale sign of the order instilled here is a button on a wall that reads “Checkpoint 37.” Being the curious young gents that we are, we pressed it, only to be told by a grouchy guard that we had now volunteered ourselves to go around to all of the other bathrooms at Lincoln Center and make sure we checked them. The guard was not too thrilled to hear our delighted reply that we had already done so, and to please refer himself to planetofthegrapes.com…

Rating: 6

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