Planet of the Grapes

81st Street and Columbus Ave

On any construction site, you will encounter an outhouse and walk no closer than five feet in front of it before deciding instead to look for a Starbucks bathroom. Not us. We dive head first… not literally. This deluxe Mr. John outhouse presents itself in the same way a car dealership spreads out its luxury line for unsuspecting victims of carnivorous salesmen. We encountered this facility next to a circle of cones surrounding a cement block with a biscuit stuck in it. Peculiar, but we were near a museum…

Roomy enough for five people to have a forced discussion about wood paneling, the bathroom is (ironically) made out of plastic. The bright blue walls are translucent enough to let natural light in without letting natural shame out. The toilet area has a nice form and shape, and a handrail is available for handicapped people. A hand sanitizer dispenser lets you clean your hands without the need for water. Though we found some toilet paper and “misfirings” at the foot of the toilet, outhouses are not traditionally tended to on a regular basis (much like the emotional needs of wealthy children).

The bottom line? You can dress it up, but you can’t take it out. The form and function still doesn’t make up for the fact that an outhouse is an outhouse, and if you live in New York City you will most likely hold it in until you get to the next facility, which still might be worse than this one anyway. But there is no denying this is a better outhouse than most. Thank you, Mr. John. You have helped bridge the gap between outhouse and proper restroom.

Rating: 5

81st Street & Broadway

The age-old question of quality vs. quantity seems to answer itself when you gaze upon any well-known food establishment. A French bistro with a high Zagat’s rating will clearly be concerned with the quality of their presentation. In the case of McDonald’s, who pioneered the “drive-thru within a drive-thru” and added to Webster’s dictionary the term “Super Size,” quality is put on the back burner. While they boast to have sold over 100 trillion trillion hamburgers, anybody who stops to ponder what is in a McDonald’s hamburger gets a look of intestinal discomfort.

Before the economic crunch, when Wall Street denizens did most of their business on a hooker’s back rather than on their own knees, McDonald’s opened a new restaurant every four hours. This much was obvious given their cookie-cutter design and the complete lack of attention spent on the bathrooms. Here it is no different. The gray floor and white wall tiles did little to personify the vibrant logo and imagery of the establishment (though we know that Ronald McD has a lot of skeletons in his closet…and perhaps bathroom). A thin layer of grime covered everything from the ceiling to the toilet, and the full garbage can spilled litter all over the floor. Atop the can was a perilously placed baby diaper, perhaps a baby’s version of “tagging.” The toilet paper dispenser was despicably empty, a cheap shot at people who take too many napkins. Most functionality was intact: the toilet flushed, the soap dispensers spewed new foam soap, and the sink provided hot water…though most would rather take the foam soap and leave than touch the faucet handles. If you dared, a blow dryer would take care of those wet hands for you. And if you work here, a loose tile probably hides a compartment of acne cream to battle your life manning the deep fryer.

Rating: 4

71st Street and Broadway

Stepping into this bathroom reminds us of stepping into Van Gogh’s mind, at least while he was painting landscapes during the day. No, this is not an absinthe hallucination, but rather a very abstract and dare we say clever way of saying that yellow is a predominant color in this bathroom as well as certain paintings by the tortured Dutchman (give Planet of the Grapes money). The warm light invites the user to stay as long as necessary and perhaps contemplate taking up painting. Apparently some patrons have already done so and hung several small canvases featuring flowers and more flowers.

The walls have a brick tile pattern, a safe but respectable choice, and black tiles with a diamond pattern adorn the floors. We’re not quite sure what it is about diamond patterns incorporated into floor tiling in bathrooms, but we find ourselves quite taken with them. For some reason we enjoy stepping on diamonds more than giving them to women…we’ll let the therapists take that one. At the end of the day though, diamond patterns can fancy up a bathroom quicker than a pregnancy can legitimize a marriage (or is the the other way around?). This oner is well stocked and the deluxe soap dispenser spouts a foam soap, as light as it is soft, like washing yourself with Santa’s beard. The only misstep is some grime on the frame of a large and otherwise pleasant mirror. This bathroom will make you feel like a sunflower basking in the rays, a celebration of all things yellow.

Rating: 6.5

The American Museum of Natural History (cue Intelligent Design joke) knows how to wow. It greets its front-door visitors with a gigantic Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton (or as creationists call it, “Untitled Bone Sculpture”). The visitors then embark on a journey of plexi-glass and fossils, taking them back through time and space. It’s one of the few places where you can get your picture taken next to a woolly mammoth, there and at Sean Connery’s house.

The main entrance’s closest bathroom, however, will send needy visitors running away screaming. The first step inside takes you down a long narrow hall and into a room with an ill-conceived number of walls. The large mirror is not in front of the sink, but off to the right. Any new users will easily get in the way of those already grooming, perhaps sparking some competition. Maybe the bathrooms are being video monitored and used as research for a future exhibit on “Early 21st Century Restroom Etiquette in Humans” (we’d better be invited to the fundraiser party). The walls sport an off-white, slightly greyish-blue hue found only in abandoned beach houses. One of the sinks were broken on our visit, and the towel dispenser was empty. An upstairs bathroom provides a better option with clean white tiles, brushed steel stall, and a handicap “oner” with its own sink and soap dispenser; it was overall better stocked and in better shape. Logic stands to argue that the better bathroom should be closer to the entrance and not something a customer should have to work for. Perhaps natural selection will fix this problem in time.

Rating: 5.5

51st Street 7th Avenue

The Michelangelo Hotel looks as fancy as it sounds. The lobby boasts fanciful Victorian furniture and frames with Impressionist paintings on the walls (sorry, Michelangelo). Traversing through the marble hallway to the front desk, a staircase on the right will take you across a balcony and straight to the bathroom. If you are just meeting somebody there for “business,” they have luxurious leather seats and private phone booths made of wood (given the ubiquity of cell phones, are these booths now part of the “art,” a 20th century artifact?).

The bathroom has a light brown marble floor, a standard among the wealthy, just like adultery. The walls boast a tan canvas wallpaper adorned with landscape paintings, a safe choice, like following your father into real estate, but one befitting these environs. Against the brightness of the room are the completely black marble sinks and counter top with individual black soap and tissue dispensers. A wall hook by the urinals in the men’s room allows people to hang their trench coats, because peeing with a coat draped over one arm is so pedestrian. A wall rail allows handicapped people to use the standing urinal, a quite charitable endeavor. On the downside, the stall walls and doors are made of a cheap-looking formica and does a great disservice to the decor. However, if you are a wealthy businessman looking for a little discrete action but can’t use a proper hotel room for whatever reason, the cheap formica among all this affluence is only appropriate.

Rating: 7.5

54th Street & 7th Avenue

Eateries like Cafe Metro are a dime a dozen in the city. The food is “pretty good,” and the place is well lit and colorful. Perhaps it is reminiscent of your single uncle’s apartment. The bathroom of Cafe Metro, unlike the dining area, is not so common. Located in an additional downstairs eating section, it is a very small “oner” with dark gray, brick style tiling. Theses bricks possess a natural rock look and texture to them, perhaps to provide a brief respite from the man made caverns of the New York skyscrapers. Upon further scrutiny, one may find that the toilet is slightly askew, but this does not impede its function (we like to think that about ourselves, thank you). The sink is a marvel: a white porcelain vanity trough built into a stand-alone wooden counter. Pegasus must have drank out of something like this. The faucet comes out of the wall, not visibly connected to the sink at all. Some customers wrongfully exploited such a sink and left water all over the counter.

The thought and design behind this restroom goes above and beyond the call, but there is still a problem with space. The room is very small to begin with, and a garbage can juts out from under the sink. The can is too large to fit inside properly and just gets in the way of things, like the drunk dock worker who somehow got into your last orgy. As for the soap dispenser, it helps if you work out; the mechanism needs a little firm loving. If this is the only blemish, then Cafe Metro is the equivalent of a pink topaz in the rough.

Rating: 7

811 7th Ave at 53rd Street

The Sheraton is no Waldorf, but it’s also no Motel 6. Throughout the country it’s relied on as a solid chain. In New York City, perhaps aware of its place among the giants, The Sheraton puts its best foot forward, like the awkward sophomore who finally got invited to a party thrown by the seniors. And if that is the case, preppy was definitely the wardrobe of choice. The bathroom’s blue wallpaper is comprised of thick, alternating light and dark stripes. This is what Ralph Lauren’s son’s childhood bedroom must have looked like. To continue with that theme, the white marble sinks sit below large mirrors housed in dark wooden frames.

The blue wallpaper only occupies the top half of the walls, the bottom half being a white brick, providing a clean contrast. So far, the effect is quite pleasant and dignified. However, the flooring uses those (quite pedestrian) hexagonal tiles. These are somewhat two-toned; most are white with some blacks thrown in for good measure (need we make an old country club joke?). Looking down at the floor thus produces a sigh of disappointment. It’s as if our aforementioned sophomore wore the right glasses, the right sweater vest, and the right khakis to the party, but put on a pair of beat up Keds–and wasn’t even ironic about it! Flourescent lighting by the stalls detracts from the warm yellows of the lights surrounding the sinks. The bathroom is only being half of what it could be (perhaps one of the parents married down?) At least the blue carpeting in the outside hallway leading to a wooden door made for a nice introduction. Perhaps the Sheraton needs a few more etiquette classes and the right company to make it a champion.

Rating: 6.5

6 Union Square East

Since the late 1990s it seems there has been a growing number of food chains that seek to defy the fast food stigma by offering classier fare like pastries, soups, dolled-up sandwiches, and most importantly, foreign-sounding names. Au bon Pain is at the forefront of the movement with several locations throughout the city.

We were directed to the “additional seating” area after asking for the restroom (and again, we did not buy anything, as we seek to find restrooms the pedestrian can use for free). A few cramped tables in a narrow hallway in the back constituted this “additional seating,” and seeing as how this Au bon Pain is next to Union Square, it’s probably to hide patrons not cool enough to be seen eating by the windows (downtown NY, like high school all over again). We waited in line as employees went in and out of a back storage area, and a large bag of bagels sat there, asking to be taken (we did not, those usually go to shelters). An early warning sign occurred in the form of an unpleasant odor before we even arrived at the restroom. The woman before us actually walked into one of the two “oner” facilities and almost immediately walked back out, shaking her head at us as if to say, “maybe you are braver or stupider than I.” We soon saw the probable cause of her distress: no toilet paper. In certain scenarios, of course, having no toilet paper conjures a similar feeling to being on a life raft in the middle of the ocean and realizing it’s sprung a leak. The puke green-colored door is appropriate when considering the floors and walls evidently do not get cleaned often. This dirty state of affairs is not helped by the fact that the “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign is not in front of the sink, but rather, on the wall opposite the sink, and up top near the ceiling. We realized this was starting to affect our impressions of Au Bon Pain beyond their bathrooms, which essentially possessed no character even if they were cleaner and better-stocked. The hair in the sink put things over the top, but at least if it were an employee’s there’s less of a chance it will end up in the food.

Rating: 3.0

503 Broadway

Located past the fitting room like our previous Banana Republic review, the sibling company “Old Navy” doesn’t care if you sneak in by yourself. Gap, Inc., designed Old Navy like the ratty younger brother who perpetually lives in the mental state of freshman year at college. That way, if Banana’s upscale image turns you off, the company still gets your money in the end. However, Old Navy settles into the neighborhood of SoHo comfortably and embraces the space it occupies by leaving it looking like a warehouse.

Their acceptance of the industrial look would benefit them quite well in their facilities, had they gone all the way with it. But only going halfway with the Bohemian look is the same as when an uptown banker tries to come down to this neighborhood to “pick up artsy chicks”–all the cool kids see right through it. Sorry, but the INC is still the biggest part of Gap, Inc. The bathroom is lit brightly by caged, industrial fixtures. The top third of the wall is left as exposed brick to “legitimize” things, and the floor has a brushed concrete look with half a coat of paint on it. But the stalls, gray as they are, look a little too polished for the image they were going for. Also, there is an odd smell lingering in the air, something that will never be cool no matter how uncool it is. Overall you get the sense that they could have done much more to make it “look the part.”

Rating: 6.5

552 Broadway

Banana Republic has always kept a stiff upper lip when sneering at its rivals in the retail clothing industry. No matter where you go, you can always count on BR to sell the “safe” look. Its presence alone can deter the marginally adventurous shopper from experimenting at the next door leather shop. It comes as no surprise that the establishment is very guarded about their image, but the measures to which the SoHo branch’s bathrooms are kept secure is a bit too much to swallow. When we asked for the bathroom we were lead individually by an attendant through the fitting rooms to a locked restroom where only employees had the key. Once inside, we were able to lock it, though that didn’t make us feel any more welcome.

There are two oners here, and neither one passes the mark of impressive. A brushed marble green tile hugs the lower half of the walls, the only sign of color, the lone plant growing through a crack in the city sidewalk. To the establishment’s credit, the room is kept clean and functional with a few amenities such as toilet seat covers. We were starting to see that the “conservative-with-a-hint-of-personality” aesthetic that informs the clothing also applied to the bathroom design. At least they’re consistent. At the washing station a very wide half-length mirror offers more than the idea that you’re just in a public bathroom; it also works well for people who are only trying on tops (or, people whose legs are not their best feature and want to focus of their well-proportioned torso). However, the sink and counter top, and almost everything on it, is made of industrial brushed steel and reminds us that the public bathroom designers care only about one of the “F”s: function*. Thankfully, they care enough to do it right.

*The other three being feng shui, feel-goodedness, and fornication.

Rating: 6.0