If you're ever struggling to find a public bathroom in New York City, you are not alone. Hotels have been cracking down on people sneaking into their lobbies and your local coffee shop is monitoring the rest rooms with a key. However there were several public restrooms open across subway stations in NYC that have been closed since pre-Covid. To be exact, 133 bathrooms in 69 subway stations across the city have been closed. Now MTA has announced they will be reopening these bathrooms in waves starting in January 2023.
According to NYC Transit President Richard Davey, they have decided to reopen the bathroom after hiring 800 cleaners over the past 2 months. “The lack of public bathrooms generally in New York City has been a question that folks have asked about and we hope to do our part,” Davey told Streetsblog. “We are absolutely completely obsessed and focused on customer satisfaction and obviously this will be another amenity that our customers will be able to avail themselves.”
The first restrooms to open in January will be at eight subway stations:
- 161st Street-Yankee Stadium (B/D/4)
- 14th Street-Union Square (L/N/Q/R/W/4/5/6)
- Jay Street-MetroTech (A/C/F)
- Flushing-Main Street (7)
- Fulton Street (A/C/J/R/Z/2/3/4/5
They are still deciding on 3 more stations to add for this first round of re-openings.
Private security was hired last month to deal with people skipping their fare. That security will also now be in charge of bathroom watch.
“They could be available for example if a customer went into a bathroom and saw something that was inappropriate, that the security officer could get NYPD or otherwise assist the customer,” Davey said. He continues, "“We want to see how this goes, but the ideal would be to open all the restrooms at some point."