On New Year’s Eve 2021, I had, like many other New Yorkers, imbibed a bit. So when I awoke in the new year and took off for a trip to the Bronx, I quickly realized that the previous year wasn’t quite finished with me yet. I needed a bathroom, and quick. I frantically searched for an open bathroom in the wee hours of the morning. Struggling through the quiet streets, I slowly accepted my grim fate: I was going to have to crouch between cars or trash cans, come what may.

Then I saw it. Gleaming on top of the hill in the center of Claremont Park, its door open, projecting warm light into the morning mist. The open comfort station beckoned to me. Thanks to the union worker who arose earlier than me that morning, I was spared the humiliation of relieving myself in front of the entire world on the street, instead preserving a slice of dignity in a public toilet.

Countless New Yorkers and tourists face panicked searches for public bathrooms every day. In a city of 8.3 million residents and over 56 million annual visitors, the city’s current stock of 1,103 public bathrooms is paltry. Given how universal the need for relief is, the New York media periodically focuses on this lack of public bathrooms, sparking occasional action from city agencies and the city council. The third season of How To with John Wilson features an episode entitled “How to Find a Public Restroom”; Instagram pages such as Got2GoNYC and NewYorkNico have focused attention on public bathrooms, the former posting reels to point needy New Yorkers toward publicly accessible (but mostly privately owned and operated) bathrooms, the latter developing a film featured at Tribeca Film Festival following a character trying desperately to find a working bathroom while walking the streets of the city.