For half a century, it wasn’t only the horses racing to the finish line in Saratoga Springs, NY,
the trendy “summer place to be.” Tourists enjoying the city’s main park often discovered
too late that no public restrooms were available there.
The Albany Times Union reported yesterday, however, that ”Public facilities are
due to open before the summer tourist season in a $180,000 project at Congress Park. “ (Oct. 24,
naturally, raised the “potty parity” issue, which ethicalEsq discussed last year.
University of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case, creator of the Toilet Survey, has been
studying the issue for years, and explains that separate facilities are not always equal, as equal
square footage does not produce equality. Thus, she says:
“What are you equalizing: excreting opportunities, or are you equalizing waiting time?
I’m not being frivolous when I say these are important questions to debate.”
As the home of liberal Skidmore College, and proud of both its traditions and its progressiveness, I’m
counting on Saratoga Springs to help clarify, and maybe solve, many of these issues.
Finding a public toilet was apparently a frequent problem for travelling haiku poets in
often bringing humor to the topic. For example:
mountain village–
a temporary toilet
in blossom shade
where piss dribbles,
dribbles down…
irises
get ready to see
my piss waterfall!
croaking frog
Cute Caleb Lemley doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of restrooms in Congress Park.
(original photo by Times Union photographer Cindy Schultz, Oct. 24, 2004, no longer available at the site)
- You know, Caleb is almost as cute as Denise’s Little Baggage Tyler: “Tyler swinger”
toilet seat up -
bedroom
suddenly chilly
[Oct. 25, 2004]
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