City Toilet Removed, But It Will Be Back

Phillyskyline’s Brad Maule clues me in on a development I should have been paying more attention to. The pay toilet is gone!

The toilet opened in November 2006 and probably attracted a few customers or something. The toilet was removed because it was simply a pilot toilet on loan from Wall USA, which along with CBS and Clearchannel are bidding for Philadelphia’s street furniture (read: ads) contract.

Anyway, we have a few ad- and toilet-free months (okay, not really ad-free) until the winning bidder gets to put a ton of toilets all over the city. Brad (who’s responsible for the photo) has more at his website.

City Residents Soon To Be Blinded With Ads

The pay toilet that has been letting you shit on City Hall since last November will soon have a bunch of friends in town: The City of Philadelphia will soon choose from one of three companies to install street furniture in the city.

The street furniture — benches, bus stops, newsstands, honor box corrals, trashcans, advertising kiosks (sadly) and, of course, toilets — will make whichever company wins the bidding a lot of money from advertising. The city will get a bunch of money, too, which will be evenly distributed among city citizens and also given to the poor. Or they’ll pave the sidewalks with platinum and buy John Street a space shuttle.

The city did ask the companies to create a uniform look for the city’s street furniture, so all our ads will be color-coded. The company who wins the right to put giant ads in Center City will also be allowed the right to complain about Frost/El Toro and Bob Will Reign, who aren’t big companies paying for the right to put graffiti in the city.

Meanwhile, one of the bidders is a group that includes Clear Channel and two former press aides to Mayor Street. I look forward to their ugly street furniture.

Ads to adorn Phila.’s new shelters, benches [Inquirer]

Reason #40 To Love Philadelphia: More Toilets!

When I first came up with this idea in November, it was no surprise that the first reason to love Philadelphia was the pay toilet outside City Hall.

Well, now the Daily News reports the city is attempting to get 35 more installed from Penn’s Landing to the Parkway.

This is a great idea, even if other cities have had problems with groups of people going into the pay toilets to do drugs. Thirty-five toilets, lining the Parkway, as far as the eye can see! It will be fantastic.

Plus, they’ll all be covered in ads. Even better!

35 self-cleaning facilities could be operating by fall [Daily News]
Archives: Pay Toilets

Reason #1 To Love Philadelphia: The Pay Toilet

Okay, new feature on the site. But not one that I’ll forget in like a week this time, I swear!

It’s simple: Every day, a new reason to love Philadelphia and the surrounding area. First thing in the morning. It’ll brighten up your day. Maybe. Possibly not.

And today’s first reason is rather simple, and obvious: The new pay toilet outside City Hall. Aside from a couple near City Hall during the Rendell years, Philly went hundreds of years without any pay toilets, and where do they put the first one? Right outside the city’s center of government. Fantastic.

Plus, it’s only a quarter.

Yesterday: Now You Can Finally Shit On City Hall

Now You Can Finally Shit On City Hall

The wait is over.

The city’s first public toilet is here.

All citizens, rejoice! In a brief ceremony — yes, a ceremony — the Oz-like curtains were removed from around the pay toilet, which is now operational for just a quarter on the north side of City Hall.

One connected man — even with pay toilets, it’s how everything gets done in this city — was chosen to be the first to take the celebratory flush.

“If you compare this toilet to a typical Port-O-John, the difference is night and day,” says James Lewis, the director of facilities and public property for the city, and the pay toilet’s first user. “It was a really wonderful experience,” he said of being the first one to flush the city’s newest addition.

Amen, I say. This toilet opening clearly is the beginning of a new golden age for our fair city. Take that, Julia Vitullo-Martin!

New era is public toilets is here [Metro]
Archives: Pay Toilets

Our Dreams, Flushed

Remember just last week, when the city’s soon-to-open pay toilet was all rainbows and puppydogs? Yeah, well… apparently not.

A few years ago, Seattle installed pay toilets for about $600,000 a year. The Seattle Times editorializes for the toilets’ removal, citing, oh, quite a few things:

The high-tech toilets were launched a few years ago to provide a safe, clean place to go to the bathroom for Seattle’s homeless, tourists and others with no other place to freshen up. Cost to the city is about $600,000 a year. The toilets have turned into publicly subsidized drug and prostitution parlors. A security guard at the waterfront location filmed nine people piling into the bathroom at once.

The bottom line is the toilets are not used often enough for the original purpose. Some homeless people say they wouldn’t dare venture in because of safety concerns about unsavory activities going on inside. Bathroom cleaners often find drug paraphernalia left behind. [...]

The original idea for the toilets came from the need to stop people from urinating and defecating in public — all of which is still going on.

What, those nine people all really had to go!

Seattle’s gold-plated toilet mistake [Seattle Times via The Next Mayor]
Nov. 2: Flushing Philly’s Troubles Away

Flushing Philly’s Troubles Away

Yes, folks, there it is. The eagerly awaited pay toilet on the north side of City Hall is here! Although the 25-cent flusher isn’t open yet — and is indeed guarded by a gate — we are all only a few days away from the toilet’s official launch.

The Daily News updates the pay toilet story today, making note of John Street’s amazing tenacity in making sure Philly has a pay toilet, and making sure it’s just outside of City Hall. So, y’know, if any Council members need to use it.

The toilet, though, isn’t even Philadelphia’s to keep. It’s a toilet on loan from Boston. Yes, Boston has six public pay toilets, but one of them was shipped down to Philly for a three-month trial run. (And it’s from a German company!)

There is, however, an emergency phone, in case you strain yourself while taking a shit. The toilet is from Wall Corp., which says it’s “the Mercedes-Benz of the street-furniture industry.” There’s a 25 minute time limit, after which the doors will just spring open. It’s only available during the day and also self-cleans in 50 seconds!

Is there anything this toilet can’t do? This being Philadelphia, the city’s Boston-loaned toilet won’t quite have the same luster as as the ones in Beantown:

Although Boston has a program to give tokens to homeless people to operate the toilets, the city will keep the 25-cent charge in place during the pilot period.

Hooray! Thanks, Mayor Street!

At your disposal, a new-age toilet [Daily News]
Oct. 20: Freedom To Flush (For A Quarter)

Freedom To Flush (For A Quarter)

I have to commend John Street. He saw a problem. He leaped into action. He found a solution. He implemented it.

And now Philadelphia has one more high-tech pay toilet at City Hall than it had before.

Oh, yes. Within a week, the city’s first pay toilet — costing a cool 25 cents — will open at City Hall, possibly in William Penn’s hat. It apparently sanitizes itself after every use within 50 seconds, although waiting for a minute outside a stupid pay toilet for almost a minute after the previous person is done seems pretty annoying.

Still, a sanitized bathroom for a quarter at City Hall. What does KYW 1060’s Mike Dunn think about it?

Public property commissioner Joan Schlotterbeck says that first pay toilet will be ready to flush in about a week, and it will cost just a quarter to use:

“Walk into the space, use the facility, doors open after you’ve finished, and the entire inside is sanitized and prepared for the next use.”

(Dunn:) “All for 25 cents. That’s a bargain.”

“I would think so.”

A bargain. Indeed.

City Hall to Get High-Tech Pay Toilet [KYW 1060]