One Publicly Maintained Restroom for Every 846,000 Visitors?
The City’s Chief Public Realm Officer, Ya-Ting Liu, has determined that there are a total of 15 publicly maintained restrooms in Lower Manhattan. For this analysis, the neighborhood is defined as Community District 1 (CD1), an assemblage of communities comprising 1.5 square miles, south of a line formed by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The locations of these lavatories fall into five categories: parks, libraries, privately owned public spaces, public plazas, and transportation facilities (such as subway stations).
According to an online map published by Ms. Liu’s office, nine are in local parks. Three are situated in Battery Park, and two more are in Battery Park City parks, while one each are in the Hudson River Park at Pier 25, Tribeca’s Washington Market Park, the Imagination Playground (South and John Streets), and the East River Esplanade on Pier 15. Two more public restrooms are in New York Public Library branches at 175 North End Avenue and 9 Murray Street. There is one in the Fulton Transit Center, and another in the Battery Park City ferry terminal. One more can be found in the privately owned public space of 180 Maiden Lane (in that building’s lobby), and another in the John Street Snack Bar, at South and John Streets. (The latter is a concession within the East River Esplanade that is contractually obliged to provide a public restroom, as a condition of its lease with the Parks Department.)
According to the Downtown Alliance, 12.7 million people visited Lower Manhattan in 2023. This estimate was provided by the market research company Audience Research & Analysis and counted anyone visiting Lower Manhattan south of Chambers Street who did not work or live in Lower Manhattan.
The actual total of Lower Manhattan restrooms available to the public is higher, but also ambiguous, because most in this category are not publicly maintained. They are located in private facilities such as restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, shopping malls, and museums. While some of these charge admission, or limit use of their bathrooms to customers who have made a purchase, or reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone they deem undesirable, many are open to the public without restriction. Examples of public restrooms that are privately maintained are those at Brookfield Place and the Tin Building.
In several instances, the tally published by Ms. Liu’s office appears to be incomplete or out of date. There are publicly maintained restrooms in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and the Battery Maritime Building (which is the terminal for the ferry to Governors Island), as well as in the National Museum of the American Indian at Bowling Green (to which admission is free), and at the World Trade Center. None of these are included in Chief Public Realm Officer’s database. And one of the public restrooms cited by Ms. Liu’s office is located in Wagner Park, which has been closed for construction for more than a year, and is not scheduled to reopen until 2025.