He\u2019s already being accused by critics of turning the Big Apple into a toilet, and now Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to roll out new public restrooms for \u201cdesperate\u201d New Yorkers to relieve themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The socialist pol was joined by Council Speaker Julie Menin in West Harlem Saturday in announcing a $4 million pilot citywide program to install up to 30 \u201cself-cleaning\u201d modular public bathrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many of our fellow New Yorkers feel a desperation too often in their lives \u2026 Suddenly,\u00a0 you feel it. You have to go to the bathroom,\u201d said Mamdani.<\/p>\n
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani was joined by Council Speaker Julie Menin in West Harlem Saturday to announce a $4 million pilot program to install up to 30 \u201cself-cleaning\u201d modular public bathrooms across the five boroughs. Debra L. Rothenberg\/ZUMA Press Wire \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a city that has everything, the one thing that is often impossible to find is a public bathroom. \u2029In the greatest city in the world, you should not have to spend $9 to buy a coffee just to be able to find a little relief,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mamdani said the city would begin soliciting proposals from prospective bidders within the next three months to install 20 to 30 new restrooms, including a new one at the site of Saturday\u2019s press conference on 12th Avenue and St. Clair Place. The site already has a public toilet Mamdani said has long been languishing.<\/p>\n
It was unclear Saturday where the other bathrooms would be located, when they would be operating or what criteria the city use to decide what neighborhoods get them.<\/p>\n
However, the new restrooms will provide a much-welcomed alternative to the city\u2019s public streets, sidewalks and subways that have long been targets for New Yorkers seeking relief \u2014 especially the rising homeless population.<\/p>\n
Unlike the new modular \u201cself-cleaning\u201d bathrooms Mamdani wants to build for the public, this filthy public bathroom in Manhattan\u2019s Union Square Park won\u2019t clean itself. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
The new units will be self-cleaning, limited to 15-minute use per person and have maintenance performed on them twice a day.<\/p>\n
There are about 1,100 public restrooms in the city serving 8.6 million New Yorkers, but the City Council last year set a goal of building 2,100 new bathrooms by 2035.<\/p>\n
A padlock is on gate at McKinley Playground on East 4th St. in the East Village in June 2024, making it impossible for the public to use its bathroom. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
Mamdani said the cost to build public bathrooms \u2014 which he estimated running more than million bucks a pop \u2014 has long \u201cprohibited\u201d the city from opening up more. However, the modular bathrooms being sought through the \u201crequest for proposals\u201d from interested suppliers should cost \u201cfar less than what we\u2019ve come to expect in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menin called the lack of public bathrooms \u201cshameful,\u201d saying as a Manhattan mom of four kids there were many times while they were growing up where she found herself desperately seeking a toilet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they got to go, they got to go, and you don\u2019t have a lot of time to find a bathroom,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s already being accused by critics of turning the Big Apple into a toilet, and now Mayor Zohran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29314,19077,57,9,24,55,54,56,87,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-96057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-bathrooms","9":"tag-julie-menin","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}