Soho Bloomingdale’s will always live in the shadow of its older, snobbier, prettier sister, the original Bloomingdale’s on the Upper East Side. At least the one in Soho is, well, in Soho…which is good if garbage on the streets makes you feel more authentic, and you prefer cocaine to prescription drugs.

While this will always be Wings and the UES side location will always be the Beatles, this location’s bathrooms make a mark for themselves, like the aforementioned younger sister trying out for the rugby team just to stand out. But these bathrooms succeed in offering some unique accommodations. The stars of the show are the walls, covered in beautiful, textured tiles that we deemed a cross between jade and limestone that reminded us of our stay in the palace of an unnamed Chinese princess. On the walls hang a series of modern pinup pics, and kudos to the artist for choosing an authentic-looking model…she was pre-heroin chic and looked like she could enjoy a hamburger without guilt but still gets to the gym. Long lights hung on the sides of the sinks like vanity lights dripping downward as painted by Salvador Dali, and stainless steel baby changing station give well-to-do tots a chance to get up close and personal with their future refrigerators. An almost full-length mirror lets you almost assess your entire outfit. One of the toilets on our visit was unfortunately stuffed with toilet paper and God knows what else…receipts, therapist bills, Sex and the City ticket stubs? That of course was incidental and can happen anywhere, and unless it reflects a negligent cleaning staff, these bathrooms do the Bloomingdale’s name well.

Rating: 7.0

Large department stores love to utilize their basements, and the Bloomingdales “Lower Level” is no exception. In these subterranean shopping levels one usually finds clothing items for lepers, the insane, and men. Sometimes there’s even a cafe. The restroom here boasts the same type of door found on the 7th floor: black wooden paneling with a frosted glass center, a large rectangular Oreo for the installation art crowd. This bathroom asserts its individuality, however, with framed pictures of classic cars. It’s a somewhat obvious and uninspired choice, very “home office of a middle-aged Long Island doctor,” but here it shows that the designers were at least thinking, so we give them an “A” for effort. Towards the front of the bathroom is a private facility for the handicapped, always a thoughtful touch, except when able-bodied people use it for sex. That’s not noble, just in case you were wondering. The wallpaper is again a textured beige and certainly makes a case for wallpaper adding a warmth to bathrooms where shiny tiles cannot. For you audiophiles, the debate over analog vs. digital has it counterpart in the bathroom connoisseurship world in the form of wallpaper vs. tiling. The tiling used on the floors is tasteful, a classic white with black outlines. The sinks and mirrors are nice, but plain…the “marrying type.” However, maybe not all is as nice under the surface and a divorce would ensue down the line. A look under the hood shows the sinks are shoddily built, screws sticking out and all, just like some of the people who work in the makeup department.
Rating: 7.0

“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