Mayor Bloomberg has two months to get his legacy out of the toilet.
Hizzoner can brag about Manhattan’s beautiful High Line and the gleaming new ballparks in The Bronx and Queens once his 12-year tenure ends, but at least one mission remains incomplete: installing 20 public restrooms throughout the city.
So far, only three loos have been plumbed since Bloomberg boldly announced in September 2005 that he’d install 20 throughout the city.
Potty users pay 25 cents per visit and are located at Madison Square Park in Manhattan, Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and Corona Plaza in Queens.
“Toilets are really important. We all need them,” said Shawn Shafner, founder of the POOP Project, a public toilet-advocacy group. “There’s a dearth of them in the city.”
The city Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project, has a 20-year contract with the Spanish company Cemusa to install the toilets but is in no rush to get them all up and flushing.
Construction comes at no cost to the city, but in return Cemusa gets to sell advertising space on the structures’ walls.
“DOT is committed to siting these amenities only where they’re technically feasible, appropriate for the area and supported by the community,” said Nicholas Mosquera, an agency spokesman.
“There is no set installation schedule.”
But some New Yorkers want more.
“People will resort to what they’ve been doing — going in the corners,” Keyon Jones, of Brooklyn, groused while walking by the Madison Square Park loo.The Department of Transportation is now reviewing potential locations on 125th and 175th streets in Manhattan, Williamsburg Plaza in Brooklyn and Fordham Plaza in the Bronx, Mosquera said. Construction on a toilet at Cadman Plaza in downtown Brooklyn is slated for early next year.
Carol McCreary, who co-founded PHLUSH, a public toilet advocacy group, said she avoids visiting New York because finding relief is such a hassle.
“I’m an active person. I have a disabled husband,” said McCreary, who lives in Portland, Oregon. “We need restrooms.”