Monday, April 1, 2024

What a relief: Portable toilets return to Tompkins Square Park

Updated April 2: The toilets have been unlocked!

Hopefully, this isn't an April Fool's Day joke! 

This morning, workers brought in a truck full of porta-potties for Tompkins Square Park. (Thanks to EVG reader Lauren G. for the photo!)

The busy 10.5-acre park had been without toilets since Jan. 9, when city workers carted off the three porta-potties from their temporary home near Ninth Street and Avenue A.

At the time, sources told us that the previous porta-potties were constantly trashed and not really the most fun things to use. So, the thinking was, Why replace them with more only to meet the same fate?

So, in the past three months, anyone who needed to answer nature's call did so in nature, including in, on and around the playgrounds, causing a stink among residents. (Photo below from this morning via our friends at the De Colores Community Yard.)
As previously reported, the restrooms in the Tompkins Square Park field house are closed due to an 18-month (or so) renovation that began last May. The porta potties arrived around the same time ... before an August 2023 relocation.

In February 2023, a Parks official explained that temporary toilets were not part of the contract "and cannot be supplied during construction." The alternative for public use during this period: The restrooms at the McKinley Playground on Fourth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue adjacent to P.S. 63/the Neighborhood School — roughly a seven-minute walk.

By March 2023, though, Community Board 3 noted that porta potties would be on-site after all. 

According to the Parks Department website, work at the field house is 34% complete, with an anticipated wrap-up date of September 2024.

Updated 5 p.m. 

There are three port-potties... located near the ping-pong table by the field house... the two line green models are actually called Key Lime Restroom...
Per the Callahead website
The KEY LIME RESTROOM is designed with bright key lime coloring specially for waterfront and seaside locations. The KEY LIME is another design by Charles W. Howard, CALLAHEAD's President & CEO, to add to the long list of specialty designed restrooms to look amazing and add value to any location. The Rockaways, City Island, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, Jones Beach, Brighton Beach, the Hamptons, Fire Island and Montauk are just a sample of where the KEY LIME RESTROOM is a popular rental.
And Steven notes the grand opening must be at a later date — all three latrines are padlocked...

8 comments:

Carol from East 5th Street said...

Great headline. Thanks for the laugh!

Exterminator said...

The only difference between these
porto potties and the outdoor dining
sheds is that these are a bit smaller.

Eden Bee said...

On my way!

TechSquared said...

pee at last, thank god almighty I can pee at last

(sorry, I'll show myself out)

Anon said...

This field house renovation is a bit puzzling. What is happening that justifies the long time horizon? This seems like a one month job distributed over 1.5 years.

bill said...

From one April Fool to another, thanks for the April Fool's note.
Oh, I'm also a fool in Jan.-March and May-Dec. in addition to being a comedy school flunkout.

Concerned Citizen said...

How many did we get and where are they located now?

Kevin G said...

18 months to renovate an existing restroom building?? Can we please get an exact accounting of the money on that project? Some countries build entire cities in the time NYC takes to repair small buildings.