Planet of the Grapes

1000 Third Avenue & 59th Street

“Let’s go to Bloomy’s” has been said on the Upper East Side of Manhattan more than “let’s help someone less fortunate than us” by a ratio of 250:1. It’s an obvious destination when both looking for hats to wear to the U.S. Open or when having to take care of business if you’re in the area. Like the other big department stores it offers restrooms on several floors, and here we go all the way up to Lucky Seven…though the only lucky ones here are those whose parents at least offered to pay for the therapy after giving them credit cards but then forgetting their names.

This restroom greets you with a frosted door surrounded by black wooden paneling. It made you feel like you were about to enter a very chic bathhouse (but that’s a whoooole other kind of review). The black painted wood theme continues inside. It surrounds a full-length mirror, always a plus, especially when you’ve just gotten away with stealing an article of clothing you’re currently wearing and want to admire your sense of fashion, shoplifting skills, and general panache. The sinks are also black, a black marble, possibly unearthed from the great underground kingdom in the caves of what is now Tangier…or maybe Bloomingdale’s doesn’t go to the lengths we do for interior decorating. At any rate, they need to go to better lengths to maintain their restrooms; one toilet was out of order, and if you’ve ever studied restroom planning and crowd control you will know that just one broken toilet can create a ripple effect that results in longer lines, minor arguments, riots, and sometimes (rarely, but sometimes) death. The textured wallpaper was a very nice touch (pardon), and in general the restroom’s brightness and cleanliness made it feel radiant and pure, like a little debutante just prior to her ball…and subsequent fall into a life of petty arguments, rides to the Hamptons made more bearable by Vicodin, stuffed-shirt husbands who cheat on them daily, child bearing (but not rearing) as a form of social currency, and secret anguish over a purposeless life.

Rating: 6.5

1215 Lexington Ave and 82nd Street

Somehow, some way, a lot of men named Ray go into the pizza business in New York City. Or at least that’s what they want you to think. Not to get involved in ancient pizza feuds, we’ll just say there was an original followed by many impostors using the name “Ray” in order to lead people to the (false) assumption that they were affiliated, and we will leave it at that. We value our legs.

Anyhow, the subject of our observations here is not the pizza, as we would hope you realize by this point. Being that this is a pizza place, it falls into that grey area between, say, Starbucks (where anyone can walk in and use—or sometimes attempt to live in—a facility), and a nice restaurant (where you’re going to have to be very stealthy or very persuasive in order to relieve yourself without being a paying customer). This particular pizzeria gets points for seeming pretty laid back on the subject, but you never know who’s going to be behind the counter or what kind of mood they may be in. Whether it was luck or just how they are, the staff was very accommodating when the present reviewer requested toilet paper.

As for the bathroom itself, the walls are a swirl of light purple and white, a pattern we must hereby call “grape cream.” It seemed intuitively appropriate for a New York pizzeria. As for the sink, goose neck faucets serve you well by providing some room to move your hands around the sink, and we appreciated it here. However, what we did not appreciate was the soap bar. Putting a bar of soap in a public restroom is like eating in a t-shirt and underwear at a restaurant: both should only be done at home. Additional points were deducted for graffiti on the paper towel dispenser, the lack of paper towels and the dirty garbage lid you had to lift yourself. It had the essentials of cleanliness and room, relative to what you may expect for a pizzeria. All in all, if this were a slice, the crust, cheese and sauce would be pretty good, but some of the toppings were a little off.

Rating: 4.5

33 East 17th Street

And here we find ourselves at another Barnes and Noble, at what can be called one of the centers of Manhattan (or the furthest uptown that hipsters will venture), Union Square. There are facilities on both the second and third floors, although they are so similar that two separate reviews are unnecessary. Essentially, they are the same, but you’d be wise to note one fact: most of the characters from Union Square Park, desiring the shortest distance between Point A and Point B, use the second floor bathroom. And by characters we don’t mean “funny haha” (Groucho Marx and anyone whose picture is on the wall at Sardi’s). We mean “funny get the fuck away from me” (the Unabomber and anyone whose picture is on the wall at the FBI headquarters). Now, perhaps you seek out said characters and desire to engage in conversation with them in a public restroom; that’s fine. We’re just providing information, do with it what you will.

These bathrooms cover their walls with white tiles and one strip of green tiling, keeping with the Barnes and Noble colors: white for the purity of an open and seeking mind, green for the color of money. The floor tiles are grey, beige, and dirty (a color never found in the Crayola palette, but all too often found in our reviewing). The metallic paper dispenser provides a crisp and modern touch, the prettiest girl in an otherwise dingy brothel. The mirrors are modest and offer no adornments, the trash is just a tall pail left out. Pretty much everything here is purely functional and the lowest common denominator in terms of basic necessity, a veritable Plain Jane with a little dirt under the fingernails. Perhaps that’s what Barnes and Noble thinks of its clientele.

Rating: 4.5

14th Street and 4th Avenue

Circuit City offers a plethora of electronic gadgets, computers, televisions, electric-heated diapers, and digital portraits of 17th Century Chinese Dynasts. But Circuit City is not just another electronics chain. It understands the needs of today’s power-consumers and shopaholics. If you search hard, you can find the home theater section where they offer comfortable seats to experience life in a $10,000 living room. Though you’re supposed to be examining the TV’s crystal clear display and the cutting edge audio, you’re really there to take the load off your feet. Another rare feat is a public bathroom located in the store, not always an option at electronics outfits.

A gray tile wall with one red stripe recalling the company’s logo colors greet you as you enter. The gray may not look good with the floor’s thin layer of filth, but the bright red stalls bring a sense of life — a life solely spent in a warehouse or firehouse, albeit. The pale light brings the dirt out of the tiles like braces on un-brushed teeth, and they are once again that bane of bathroom tiling, small grey square tiles, the restroom design equivalent of marrying your safety choice. The restrooms are spacious but in the men’s room one lone urinal, tiny and low to the ground, pathetically hangs there as if the wall is very slowly shedding a porcelain tear. The sinks are not much better, looking like they only are there because they have to be (see: most retail employees), and one sink handle was broken. Several bottles of water littered a stall; at least it was water. A bare trash can underneath the baby changing station is too macabre to comment on. Even though the stuff Circuit City sells is current, it’s restrooms still have some catching up to do.

Update 07/28/09: With Circuit City’s global closing, we may have seen the last of the red-striped grime racer. Enjoy the pictures, they’re all that’s left.

Rating: 4.5

59th Street and 3rd Avenue

Being that Home Depot has become the mecca for people who like to build their own homes with their bare hands, we were expecting to find a glorified port-a-potty when we went searching for the restroom in their midtown Manhattan location. Instead, we found the bathroom equivalent of a surreal blind date: not only was the person very attractive, you actually had sex at the end of it. No, that does not mean we had sex with strangers in this bathroom (were you at school the day they went over metaphors?), it just means that our expectations were thoroughly surpassed, to our utter surprise.

Not only was this bathroom clean and well-kept, time and thought obviously went into creating a mood and atmosphere. Fake potted plants greet you in the entryway and adorn the sinks, and a deep brown wooden bench sits against the opposite wall. We could already hear the people in the suburbs snickering at us New Yorkers for having such amenities in a Home Depot bathroom: “Oh, please, that’s not a real Home Depot! It looks like that guy from the Home and Garden Network designed the bathroom.” But it gets better/worse. There are framed prints of leaves with some sort of explanation about the leaf and its family in Latin. Also, someone wrote “Marcus’ daughter will give you a good blow” in Latin on one of them; we guess that’s what you’ll get in New York, especially in a neighborhood near good private schools. In addition to the mirror above the sink, there is a gold (we’re guessing fake) plated mirror on another wall, as if the designers at this point are just saying “F. you” to all the other retail store bathrooms in the area. During our brief stay here, an employee came in to clean up, even though it wasn’t dirty. We got the impression this happens regularly. The light brown painted walls complemented the rustic light brown floor tiling. And for the coup de grace: there under the soap dispensers are little bowls to catch the excess soap that may drip after you pull your hand away. Are they kidding? Obviously not. Perhaps we should have known better.

Rating: 7.5

83rd Street and Fifth Avenue

There are two types of modern bathrooms. One is the ideal modern bathroom equipped with tinted glass stalls, ergonomic toilets that clean your privates and designer sinks and lights. Then there is the bathroom that prevails in the modern age: peeling walls, graffiti, broken toilets, and that familiar aroma from your resident crack addict. Approaching the bathroom by the Modern Gallery, one would think the Met of all places would know the difference.

The room is very small, poorly laid out and decorated in that same green floor and pink marble wall we’ve seen before. The graffiti in the stall is not nearly plentiful enough to be considered intentional. A large garbage can serves more as a roadblock than a trash receptacle. In a bathroom this small and crowded, the phrase “Suck it up” is probably repeated often. There are no urinal dividers in the men’s room, and we found yet another broken toilet. The sinks were the only redeeming quality, and for once they were found in their proper place, not in the middle of this gallery on the floor as an “exhibit.” They were clean and in good condition. Still, Edward Munch would scream at this bathroom.

Rating: 5

83rd Street and 5th Avenue

Part four of our Met tour takes us to the Far East, which according to the museum map is to the far east (rimshot). A great amount of thought appears to have been put into laying out their collections. Among this collection is a traditional Japanese garden where one can walk through, sit down, even meditate until closing hours. Of course, if you’re really good at meditation, you can make time stop and stay for longer.

If all that introspective thought gives you the urge, you can go past the room of Buddhas and left around the Chinese armor, you’ll find the Asian wing’s bathroom. You won’t find any zen gardens here. The room is shaped almost like a horseshoe and greets you with yet another full-length mirror. The floor is made of brick-colored square tiles; good for a Mediterranean kitchen, but here it just reminds you of elementary school in the way metal bars remind an ex-con of prison. However the floors and the white brick tile walls are fairly clean, like a geisha girl’s skin. The sinks are also well-kept and functional. We did find another stall casualty. One of the toilets was broken and filled with what can only be described as “bodily waste water.” Apparently the Yakuza are trying to send us a message.

Rating 4.5

83rd Street and 5th Avenue

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the cornerstone of New York City art museums and home to one of America’s finest collections. The building sports a classical facade: tall columns, broad friezes and a general majesty to make you feel insignificant, but in that romantic way, unlike the glass phalluses of this age that bear the title “modern architecture.” Of course, traveling around the back one would see up the skirt of the Met and notice its more contemporary posterior. Even the Met is not above a little nip and tuck. Although it’s not free to enter, admission is based on suggested donation, so if you really need a bathroom here you needn’t worry about being strapped for cash.

The sheer size of this museum requires several facilities. Perhaps they should add lodging as one could spend days perusing over this massive collection. Our first stop in a five-part series is the Egyptian wing. Coming on the heels of the Pharaoh’s Landing review, we felt it more than appropriate to see how a real Pharaoh lived and relieved. We didn’t find much in living. Most of the collection came from the great Egyptian tombs. However, if you make a left at the tomb entrance and pass the sarcophagi, you’ll find yourself at the restroom.

These facilities are certainly not fit for a God-king. The entire room is covered in small gray tiles topped with a fine glaze of grime. The floor is checkerboarded for a little variety, perhaps for a compelling game of Ritalin Checkers. Like the bat droppings that killed many tomb excavators, the ergonomic black soap dispenser emits a toxic odor that beckons you to leave this place immediately; the mysterious smell is either coming from that or the tombs that share a wall with this bathroom. There are a few redeeming qualities however: the sinks are hands-free and there is a full-length mirror, a rare sight in a public restroom. An emergency phone hangs by the door in case the mummies ever really came back to life without paying the donation fee. The corpse housed in this tomb was a broken toilet, embalmed in toilet water and toilet paper like the kings of old. We paid our respects and moved on.

Rating: 5

Parts Unknown

The main bathroom in Yahdderman’ home was hilighted recently, and now two other members of this organization must turn the looking glass on themselves, exposing all the glory and all the sorrow that comes when one stands face to face with his own reality. They live together and call their apartment “Pharaoh’s Landing,” though 1) they are not Egyptian divinity/royalty and 2) their apartment is not a wharf. A case in point for breast-feeding, as neither of this apartment’s inhabitants suckled on the maternal teet.

The bathroom’s centerpiece undoubtedly is the shower curtain. It’s deep red with writhing gold rings is at once regal and ridiculous. The curtain is the true hero of the day, as the rest of the bathroom is what you expect from a typical apartment: cramped, walls with heavy paint caked on sloppily, a toilet designed only for function, and a tiny sink. A hand towel hangs beside the sink as if it had been there when Moses lived here. Despite the building’s limitations on the bathroom’s construction and spotlessness (see general grime between tiles buried under decades of previous owners’ neglect) the facilities are kept clean and stocked so you will never go without the basic amenities.

Rating: 5.5

34th Street and Broadway

And now, onward and upward from the Macy’s basement to the 7th floor. Whereas the color palette in the basement brought band-aids to mind, here we have that very strange combination of orange and brown. Orange and brown can work in a weird way, beautiful and ugly at the same time, a swan with fangs. Or perhaps a dove with claws. How about a hummingbird with PMS? Sorry. The orange wall tiles aren’t even that orange, so maybe we were exaggerating to waste space…it’s the holidays and we want to get to the islands already! Anyway, the stalls are a light brown that call to mind an oft-referenced mode in our bathroom observation: 1970s municipal architecture. When will it die? To make matters worse, they are made out of a light, plastic-y material. If you ran into them you may well knock them over. Isn’t that something they do in the Midwest? Functionally, the designers made the mistake of making the walkway between sink and stall too narrow. Since the stall doors open outward, you may get backsided by one while washing your hands if you’re not careful. Big points off for that; you should always feel like you can take your time washing your hands. It’s what separates us from the animals. After quickly washing up you’ll rush to the paper towel dispenser only to find it is, in fact, dirty. Tisk tisk. Maybe you should stick to the basement. That orange tiling ain’t bad, though.

Rating: 5