14th Street and Broadway

Since our last visit, the Union Square branch has changed the appearance of its bathroom and provided us with another before and after segment.

This Virgin location has a large cafe on the main floor and this is where the restrooms are. There are two “oners,” one for men and one for women, though we’d expect that’s observed very loosely. Be warned that lines seem to be par for the course here. Our first visit gave us the impression that we might as well have been transported into the womb where the idea of graffiti itself spat forth from. Knowing that Virgin tries to be cool and edgy and distance itself from the stodginess associated with huge corporations, we wouldn’t be surprised if this graffiti was written by the employees as a job requirement. Since it was present in such a large amount, it did add a consistent character to the facility. Amidst all of this, the bathroom was kept clean. Chalky mint green wall tiles offer a bit of a change of taste, the piece of gum you chew after drinking twelve Pabst Blue Ribbon beers at a downtown dive.

In an effort to improve its image, Virgin cleaned most of the graffiti from the walls and mirror, but most just doesn’t cut it. Where this bathroom was once a tribute to the punk rock underbelly of New York music, now it is simply another casualty in the war on cleanliness. The mint green tiles were replaced with black. The toilet, once surprisingly white and pristine, was now left dirty and yellow, and tragically, the soap is still missing. They have, however, seemed to substitute soap at the sink for a “Take a penny, Leave a penny” trough, as though the four cents we found was any compensation for walking away with germs on our hands. We assume they were pennies; they could have been bacteria-stained dimes.

Update 07/28/09: With both electronic behemoths (Circuit City and Virgin Megastore) now gone, Union Square suffers a small setback in its public facility population. We knew this day would come, as people are making more purchases online than in actual stores. That’s fine, have your downloads. Let’s see you use iTunes’ bathroom.

Rating: 2.5

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