When you've gotta go, go in style
Heeding the call of nature in the city
Anyone with a small child or a small bladder knows that nothing puts a damper on a day in the city like the unavoidable call of nature. According to the American Restroom Association, which advocates for public toilet availability, we can last from one to six hours between restroom breaks. For those of us on the low end of that scale, the dearth of public toilets in Boston can be frustrating. To that end, we recently drank lots of water and scoured the city for public places with quality facilities (and asked friends to weigh in on their favorite spots). Our definition of "public" was admittedly loose - we included hotel lobbies - but before you write in to chastise us for trespassing, just try relieving yourself at the Ritz. Nice, right?
Neighborhood Boston Common
How to get there Smile at the doorman, enter the lobby, and take the elevator or the carpeted staircase to the ballroom level.
The ladies' room is special; there's a sitting room with a sofa, two vanities, and chandeliers. Each stall has a small marble purse shelf, and the cloth hand towels are luscious. Margaret Schoen, a technology news editor, takes her daughters to use the Four Seasons bathroom when they visit the Public Garden. Her 4 1/2-year-old daughter Julie thought it was so fancy she asked to have her birthday party there. "I told her we'd pass on the Four Seasons for her fifth birthday," Schoen said, "but maybe her wedding."
Neighborhood South End
How to get there Enter the front door and head up a short flight of stairs. Take your first right. Warning: You'll have to walk by a fountain of rushing water, which may trigger your already full bladder.
The men's room at Jury's has its own music, two scented soaps, and "those really thick disposable towels that make me feel like I'm disposing of a whole family of trees to dry off," gushes Christopher Annear, an anthropologist from Somerville. "It is like a metrosexual door into the faintly masculine." The ladies' room is just as lovely.
Neighborhood Downtown Crossing
How to get there Go through the bar and down the stairs.
The restrooms aren't especially luxurious, but they are memorable. The stalls in the ladies' room feature full-length two-way mirrors, meaning that women can do their business while watching women who have finished doing theirs primp at the sinks. The men's has two ice-filled urinals. Some men think that's fun - a la spelling their name in the snow. Others aren't so impressed. "There's nothing redeeming about peeing on ice," said Boston businessman Collin Tuthill on a recent visit.
Neighborhood Harvard Square
How to get there The restrooms are on the second floor, between the hotel's renowned restaurants, Rialto and Henrietta's Kitchen.
When nature calls in Harvard Square, many visitors head to the public facilities in the basement of the Garage shopping mall, which are passably clean but often padlocked at night. To avoid frustration - and to pamper yourself a little - head instead to the facilities at the Charles, which feature marble sinks and cloth hand towels. "I took like 20 of them once," says Adam Tessier, a graduate student in Cambridge. "We use them in our apartment to dry dishes."
Neighborhood Back Bay
How to get there Use the Boylston Street entrance. The ladies' room is to the right of the steps between the entrance and the lobby. The men's room is in the lobby between the front desk and the bar.
The men's room is the real attraction here. It has waterless urinals, with a cartridge that traps urine and sucks it down the drain - a flushless trick that saves the hotel 40,000 gallons of water annually, according to Elaine Strunk, the hotel's director of green. As if that weren't cool enough, the room features three TV screens broadcasting sports or news above the urinals, helping men adhere to that most cardinal of man rules: Never look around the room while using a urinal.
Neighborhood Back Bay
How to get there Enter through the glass doors, head past the information desk, and either take the elevator or follow the signs down the stairs to the restrooms.
If you don't feel comfortable taking advantage of a hotel, a good Back Bay alternative is the central branch of the BPL, which features clean, safe, well-trafficked facilities. No cushy towels here, just automatic hand dyers, but there's a changing table in the ladies' room.
How to get there That thing that looks like a ticket booth? Look closer. It's a self-cleaning public pay toilet. Drop in a quarter, wait for the doors to open, step inside, do your business, and then press the exit button when you're done. The doors open automatically after 25 minutes.
At the one near the library, the toilet leaked a little when we flushed. Also, when the doors shut behind us, the kiosk started to shake. We thought we'd been tricked into boarding an unidentified flying space toilet but then realized it was the vibrations of a passing subway train. Speaking of which, an MBTA spokeswoman tells us that restrooms are available for T customers in every underground subway station, but you have to ask an attendant to let you in.
Neighborhood Theater District
How to get there Enter the lobby on Avery Street and ascend the staircase to your right. Hang a right, through a glass door. The restrooms are next to the big painting of abstract white blobs.
An awesome alternative to the nearby Loews movie theater, the restrooms at the Ritz are, well, ritzy. The textured sage walls feature original mixed-media pieces by local artist Stephen Mishol. The stalls have thick, floor-length wooden doors, and you dry your hands on cloth towels. And the top sheet of each soft roll of toilet paper is usually folded into a little point, indicating that the room is cleaned often by someone who pays attention to detail.
Neighborhood Kenmore Square
How to get there Immediately upon entering the front door, you'll see a sign directing you straight ahead to the restrooms.
There's nothing common about the facilities at Hotel Commonwealth, which are infinitely more pleasant than the beery restrooms of the clubs on Lansdowne Street. The hotel's facilities have cushy couches, marble sinks, automatic faucets, and soothing jazz music. We caught ourselves singing along to a Cole Porter tune last time we were there, but the stalls were so private that nobody complained.
