Secret NYC: Discover the City’s Most Lavish Loo

When you’re in New York City and you really need to find a toilet, you don’t have many reliable options.

You could sashay into a busy restaurant, telling the hostess, “Oh hi, I just forgot something inside, haha!” and make a bee line for the rest rooms. Or you could hold it till you get to Macy’s (women’s lavatories on floors 2, 4, 6, 7, 12; men’s on floors 7, 9, 10). You could also pop into a bar and order the cheapest well drink that you’ll only sip at for a minute after you’ve used the toilet, and then get up and leave so as not to start the whole vicious cycle all over again.

But if you happen to be within trotting distance of Bryant Park at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, you can use the posh potties located inside the little Beaux-Arts style building tucked behind the world-famous New York Public Library, at 42nd Street. Sure, you could also use the rest rooms inside the main library (yes, the one with the lions out front), but they are nothing to write home about.

Instead, avail yourself of the Bryant Park public toilet – it is a bucket list NYC experience that comes with true bragging rights. Once inside this spotless comfort station, you are greeted with lovely bouquets of fresh flowers, paintings of the park created by artists-in-residence, and calming classical music that is specially curated each day.

Designed and constructed in 1911, at the same time as the main library building, the rest rooms have since undergone numerous restorations and upgrades. The most recent of which was in 2017 with $300,000 worth of designer fixtures and features modeled after bathrooms at the Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, and Plaza hotels. The sleek Toto toilets are equipped with automatic plastic seat liners that dispose of themselves when you’re finished. For the grand reopening in 2017, a toilet-paper cutting ceremony was held.

Use of this designated historic landmark facility is free and wheelchair accessible. These rest rooms are popular though, and at busy times separate men’s and women’s lines form outside along the 42nd Street sidewalk. But the lines move quickly and when it’s your turn, you’ll be ushered in by a uniformed attendant.

Operation of the Bryant park public toilet is paid for by private donations and corporate sponsorships. It is often ranked among the top free public rest rooms in the world.

A video of the automatic toilet seat covers in the Bryant Park rest rooms:

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Photos: Header, Wikipedia; all others, Jane Kratochvil/NYC Parks Department. Video: @losviajesdealifog/YouTube