The attendant encountered by that patron was Pat Velasquez, who says: "It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I’m a people person and you get to meet everyone — tourists and regulars... The bathroom is the main part of everything. People cry in here. They lean on my shoulder. I’m like a psychiatrist. Sometimes they’re drunk and throw up. Or they come in and make private calls. Or they want to smoke and are disappointed that I’m here, so they can’t."
Another "21" patron is quoted: "I’ve known Pat as long as she’s worked here.... I love seeing her. We have a good relationship. I know about her personal life, we have a little chat. You need to have the right personality to do this job. Most attendants are rude. They just want their money, and that makes it uncomfortable. But not here."
So that reveals the basic problem that was always there with bathroom attendants. They stand around looking like their job is to intimidate or guilt you into giving them money. You see them and think, Oh, no, I have to deal with this. And these days, who even has a ready supply of quarters and one-dollar bills? Is that what you should give — a dollar? 50¢? Does that seem chintzy? I'm just trying to go to the bathroom, and I have to think about this? Does she take Apple Pay?!
By the way, remember pay toilets? They were everywhere once — one stall would require a dime to get in, when the other stalls were free. That was a mystery to us kids, and of course, we never got to see what was so special (which was, apparently, just that it was only used by people who paid a dime). Why did that go away? From Wikipedia:
In the United States, pay toilets became much less common from the 1970s, when they came under attack from feminists as well as from the plumbing industry. California legislator March Fong Eu argued that they discriminated against females because men and boys could use urinals for free whereas women and girls always had to pay a dime for a toilet "stall" (i.e. cubicle) in places where payment was mandatory. The American Restroom Association was a proponent of an amendment to the National Model Building Code to allow pay toilets only where there were also free toilets. A campaign by the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America (CEPTIA) resulted in laws prohibiting pay toilets in some cities and states.....Feminists!
Isn't there also a feminist argument against bathroom attendants? I'm sure many women using the toilet in bathrooms with attendants and wondering if they're supposed to tip and whether they have the cash found that to be an occasion to think up feminist arguments.
Oh, no, now I'm reading "You Marxist, I Clean Toilet/Racism, Labor, and the Bathroom attendant" in FRAME: a journal of visual and material culture. Excerpt:
By performing the figure of the racialized female immigrant bathroom attendant in academic space, I gesture to the ironies of canons of postcolonial feminist scholarship in the context of racist and sexist labor inequality. The bathroom attendant is also a figure through which one can discern how racist ideologies bleed into contemporary practices of xenophobia and citizenship, which racialize female immigrant labor in visceral ways.I wonder if the NYT, before murmuring sentimentally about the fading institution of bathroom attendant even considered the politics. It's writing about the "21" Club, quoting patrons who enthuse over an employee with a Hispanic name. Whatever happened to wokeness?
Feel free to use that as a title for a style piece someday, NYT. Whatever happened to wokeness?
John Nevil Maskelyne, English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet.
Posts
73 comments:
Europe still has a lot of pay toilets.
I'm not going to say if it is an antiquated job, and there are male attendants in the men's rooms I'm not sure how it is a feminist issue, but I never know what to do when I'm not expecting an attendant. I rarely have the right cash, and I don't need them to hand me a towel.
There are a few restaurants I used to go to frequently in Chicago that have them, one is much more casual than you would expect - is it Quartino? But maybe partially to keep homeless people from wandering up the stairs and camping out in the restroom.
What happened with vibrating beds in hotels? I've seen them referenced in about a dozen sitcoms and in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles but I don't believe I've ever heard them personally referenced by anyone and have certainly never encountered them in real life. Were they just honeymoon suite amenities or were they prevalent across lodging types?
Better a pay toilet than no toilet I say.
I'm recently back from a month in Thailand visiting friends and in laws. Bathroom attendants are still quite common there, particularly in places that want to give off a "high end" image. They're always women, and one of their common practices is to come behind you while you're washing your hands and give you a shoulder massage.
I also used to frequent a lesbian dive bar in Tampa a lifetime ago, and they had a black homeless woman as a bathroom attendant, yet the bathroom had no door.
There were some pretty fancy enclosed pay toilets on the sidewalks in Nice. The whole thing was drenched in some kind of liquid between uses. But I'm pretty sure the locals are supposed to pee in the alleys.
Here I sit, broken hearted
Paid a dime but only farted
Next time I’ll take a chance...
J. Farmer- when I was little, my family used to stay at a motels when we were taking driving vacations, and we encountered Magic Fingers often enough that I remember them. I don't remember them being thought of as sexy, but then I was way too young to pick up on such a thing. I just remember wanting to try it, but 25 cents was too rich for my blood. Finally my sisters and I got my parents to spring for it, and it was pretty disappointing.
Pedicure parlors have big chairs that have a similar massaging action. I don't think it's always about the sexy.
"Were they just honeymoon suite amenities or were they prevalent across lodging types?"
This is a topic I've blogged in the last month or so.
They were standard at Holiday Inns.
"By performing the figure of the racialized female immigrant bathroom attendant in academic space, I gesture to the ironies of canons of postcolonial feminist scholarship in the context of racist and sexist labor inequality."
No you don't.
California legislator March Fong Eu argued that they discriminated against females because men and boys could use urinals for free…
Pay to Spray!
The only places that still have bathroom attendants are clubs, right? I suspect that they're three to make sure that drug use doesn't pose a liability risk to the club. In other words, their real job is to report overdoses.
Why do you assume Velazquez is an Hispanic name?
It could be Portugese.
I think you are stereotyping.
John Henry
I guess the 21 Club is in New York City? The last several times I flew Charlotte (NC), it really struck me that all of the restrooms had attendants. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to make them much cleaner than typical airport restrooms.
The Corvette car show in Carlisle has restroom attendants. They always have a smile and a basket full of cash.
Not until the author of "You Marxist, I Clean Toilet / Racism, Labor, and the Bathroom attendant" actually works in a public toilet for the money it pays will there be any measure of social justice.
The tipping problem is easy to solve: a big sign that says, Thank you, but we do not allow tipping our bathroom attendants.
Sounds like a dumb idea anyhow. I would just find a bathroom attendant annoying, I think, but I can't remember when I last saw one.
@Ann Althouse:
This is a topic I've blogged in the last month or so.
They were standard at Holiday Inns.
Figures I'd miss that. I was overseas for most of April and only checked in infrequently. I chose not to bring my laptop with me this time, and that left my condo's "business center" (i.e. a computer and a printer) as the only viable option for participating, which I didn't take.
I've heard of attendants that have set up in nightclub bathrooms without actually working for the club.
Kind of like Kramer's job.
At least the NYT could employ a more woke term: "excrement workers"?
I hate bathroom attendants. They hand you a paper towel that you could have gotten yourself then expect a tip. They block the exit so you have to tip them. Fuck bathroom attendants.
@MayBee:
Pedicure parlors have big chairs that have a similar massaging action. I don't think it's always about the sexy.
I get pedicures from a place halfway across town because I love their chairs so much. Perhaps its just the way they were used as tropes in old sitcoms. I think they were supposed to convey that a motel was old fashioned, low rent, or had seen better days.
Del: I had no idea those beer cans were gonna blow like that
Neal: You left ‘em on a vibrating bed. What did you think would happen?
If you don't get that reference, we can't be friends.
"Why do you assume Velazquez is an Hispanic name? It could be Portugese. I think you are stereotyping."
No. I know it's a Spanish name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velazquez
I'm not assuming.
In the 1960's my wife was teaching in the inner city of Cincinnati. LBJ started the war on poverty and her school got funds which were used in part to take yutes to a high end supper club across the river in Kentucky. It had a retractable roof so one could dance beneath the stars......and BR attendants.....which the yutes promptly rolled for the tip money.
Valet parking in the public bathroom. It's the last vestige of Country Club living left.
I thought it was widely understood that the main reason some places still have bathroom attendants is to discourage drug use in the bathrooms. Not sure if the NYT article considers this (I will not subject myself to reading another NYT article), but someone should have brought this to the author's attention before publishing the article.
Last time I ran into bathroom attendants was at the rest areas on the Autobahn in Germany. Kind of creeped me out.
On reflection, were they there as employment for slackers as the way the govt got welfare to them?
Pay toilets and bathroom attendants seem to be related to clean bathrooms and better behavior in the bathrooms. People not parking themselves for extended periods in the toilet stall
(Hey YOU...are you dead in there? if not you need to see a doctor about that blockage!!!)
I'd pay a dollar if I knew that the next time I needed to use the toilet/restroom it would be clean, not have piss or shit on the toilet, no used needles laying around and trash on the floor.....
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...there would be toilet paper in the stall!!!!
@Dust Bunny Queen:
I'd pay a dollar if I knew that the next time I needed to use the toilet/restroom it would be clean, not have piss or shit on the toilet, no used needles laying around and trash on the floor.....
My god, what establishments are you frequenting?
@yoobee:
I thought it was widely understood that the main reason some places still have bathroom attendants is to discourage drug use in the bathrooms.
How does that work? Isn't most bathroom drug use done in the stall?
Blogger robother said...
At least the NYT could employ a more woke term: "excrement workers"?
"Nadlers"?
Now NYT writers don't have to learn to code when they get shitcanned.
The first time I traveled to Europe, my friends taught me to always have "Pee-pee Geld" with me.
My god, what establishments are you frequenting?
Traveling and stopping at a random fast food restaurant
Gas stations.
Government rest stops on the highway. (I'd rather find a tree or bush on a side road.)
Mall restrooms.
Reno.
You must live a very sheltered life. How nice for you.
Government rest stops. Unless they are full of truckers stopping, they are horrible (calif and oregon).
Full of homeless hanging about. Sleeping on the picnic tables, under trees, on the sidewalks. Begging for money. Following you about. Using the restrooms for their personal bathrooms. The rest stop is their home. Taking sponge baths in the sinks. Stealing all the toilet paper. No soap. Doors torn off of the stalls. Rifling through the garbage and your car if you don't lock and guard it. And of course..drug use.
Not all are like this. The truckers keep some semblance of order :-)
In Oregon, two of the government rest stops (in both directions of the highway) were completely abandoned and torn down because it became unusable to the traveling public, dangerous, nasty to use and the government just said "screw this"
Pay toilets wouldn't help this and would be "unconstitutional" or some such argument. SO. They closed it.
In Michigan the rest stops (run and maintained by the state) are really nice and well maintained. You do not have to pay to use them. Typically they have restrooms, vending machines, picnic tables, and an area for dogs. I've never been to one that's been dirty or frequented by druggies. There's parking for cars, trucks, and RVs.
In Michigan the rest stops (run and maintained by the state) are really nice and well maintained.
-----------------------------------
Wisconsin and Minnesota too. Illinois has the highway oasis.
If you notice, there are always government workers -- bathroom attendants of a different sort -- sweeping with their brooms and pans on the stick, and their yellow relective vests. They go in, and do the common areas, and walk around the outskirts of the buldings/parking lots too. Men and women. The workers are deterrents, as well as the cameras, the easy access to the highways, the design (well lit, wide paths), and the volume of people going in and out.
It's nice to avoid the gas station and fast food bathrooms, if you choose not to patronize.
By performing the figure of the racialized female immigrant bathroom attendant in academic space, I gesture to
By performing I gesture to?! And people wonder why many don't take non-STEM academics seriously.
Try that in a redneck patois: "By acting like this what I'm gettin' at is..."
Geez, "gesture to" is just awful. "In academic space" is probably just so common it's not noticed anymore (bad as it is), but "gesture to?" Geez.
Hey honey we're so proud of your 8+ years of advanced education that's cost you/us a few hundred thousand dollars--what's the pinnacle of your accomplishment, in terms of academics? Well Mom and Dad, you may not believe it but after all that hard work and long hours studying I'v finally been able to definitively GESTURE TO something in a really important and groundbreaking way!
I mean, geez!
When I was in East Germany, there were pay toilets and an attendant.
I don’t remember pay toilets, so it was very strange to me.
Since I was young and an American, I thought she was there to not only to make sure people paid to use the stalls, but in the Workers’ Paradise, there was no unemployment. For all I knew, she could have been a very smart woman with a chemistry degree or a doctor and stuck handing out towels because of communism.
My dad told me and I don’t know if he was wrong, but during a World Exhibition, America introduced free toilets to the world in the American pavilion. People were amazed.
About 15 years later, I’m in the Moscow International Airport and walk into the Women’s bathroom. The 2 occupants knew I was American because I looked on in disbelief. A row of stalls and the toilet paper was in 2 huge dispensing rolls equidistant for about 10-12 stalls. And there were no seats on the porcelain. An odd-shaped porcelain.
Remnants of communism. Their control tower looked like something out of a 50s sci-fi movie. Then you taxied down a runway past cannibalized planes.
Pennsylvania has nice rest stops. It must be a local stone they use. And Hershey’s ice cream.
I'm sure plenty of people in urban areas would welcome pay toilets as an alternative to no toilets.
Of course, that's not possible. It can't be done because all toilets must be wheelchair-accessible, which increases their cost and space requirements beyond what most are willing to pay for the convenience. Because, Progress is insisting that if everyone can't have something then no one should have it. Because Equality.
BTW, the other coin-operated device that not quite gone but far more rare than it once was is the jukebox. A few bars still have (internet-connected) jukeboxes, but, jukeboxes were once nearly ubiquitous and are now rare.
As for bathroom attendants, well, I'm sure there's an art installation in there somewhere. And perhaps even a social-justice themed thesis.
I've always hated bathrooms with attendants. Aside from the annoyance of feeling obliged to tip a dollar to someone simply for handing me a hand towel, I don't like the intrusion of an observing third party while I empty my bladder or bowels.
MayBee @ 6:58 AM: My experience as well. It wasn't just the Holiday Inns back in the 50's-- Magic Fingers were ubiquitous in motels. Sort of a perk before cable TV.
Naturally, being kids, we wanted to try them, but Mom wasn't going to spend $0.25 on that! She was nothing if not thrifty. I inherited that from her.
Now the Magic Fingers are only a memory of a simpler time.
“The politics” means “the pretense some people use to bully others”.
One would hope that the "By performing..." paragraph sets new standards for pretentious and meaningless gibberish, but I fear it is all too typical of what passes for thought among the wokeratti. If this is "the Academic space" - flee!
When I was in Germany in the 80s the men's bathrooms at the beer fests had an attendant whose main job seemed to be smoking, scowling at you until you dropped some change in the tip bucket and occasionally running a mop over the floor. If you were lucky they waited until you had vacated your spot at the trough before they mopped it. The attendants were almost always women in their 60s who looked like they'd been imported from some remote East German village.
Speaking of memories of a simpler time, my wife and I used to go to a blues club in Philadelphia. It was a mixed crowd, about one-third to a half white. People of all kinds coming together for the love of music, like in The Blues Brothers. This was before the Obama years and all the racial healing, which fixed that kind of cultural appropriation once and for all.
When James Cotton was in town, there was bathroom attendant on duty. He was a smiling apparently biracial man with a little tower of cologne bottles for guys who were feeling lucky that night. It was the usual deal where he hands you a towel and waits for a tip.
Being a honky from the burbs I wasn't ready for this so I took the towel and gave him a buck.
Next time I ignored him and got my own towel.
James Cotton died not so long ago. I'm glad I got to see him perform.
I was in a tour group in a river town in Germany, when a pee-break was decreed. The ladies lined up for the stall which cost €.25 to open. So the first lady paid the toll and opened the stall, then held the door open for the next, and so on. An attendant would have stopped that, I suppose.
What you know that isn’t so ... Althouse doesn’t know Velazquez. It's a Basque name originally, and has a long history in both Spain and Portugal. So while probably Spanish in any particular instance it is not certainly so. Here's a better link than Wikipedia https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Velasquez
Growing up in England the term for going to the toilet was spending a penny.
My wife and I recently watched a little movie called "Club Havana", where the washroom attendant was integral to the plot, as all the other female characters confided in her. The movie wasn't that good; we only watched it because it was directed by Edgar G Ulmer, the director of "Detour", which was good, very good indeed. "Club Havana" was one of those movies that's bad, but it's caught your attention, and you stick with it to see what happens at the end. The women in the movie spent a fairish amount of time in the washroom, confiding and emoting and plotting.
I believe I learned from Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's that a girl headed to the ladies' room needs a 50-dollar bill. And that's when a 50 was really worth something!
@Dust Bunny Queen:
You must live a very sheltered life. How nice for you.
It was a bit of a joke. But I do avoid public restrooms at all costs. When I am on the road, I tend to use interstate hotel/motel lobby bathrooms. I am actually pretty good at finding decent restrooms on the road. Maybe a gift.
When I am on the road, I tend to use interstate hotel/motel lobby bathrooms.
For all the bashing that they get, when traveling on the road....McDonald's is the best for those "pit stops" along the highway. Not only are the restrooms clean, they are damned convenient.
Easy off of the highway. Easy in and out. Usually full of other weary travelers. Use the facilities. Get an iced-tea and maybe a sandwich.... if you feel guilty about taking advantage of a free restroom.... and then hit the road again. IN and OUT in about 15 minutes.
I'm getting ready to take a 10 hour drive from my house to visit family. From my NE Ca location to a middle of the state location over on the coast. I will still be in California even after 10 hours and would have 5 more hours if I wanted to go to San Diego. I have all the McDonald's, Mom and Pop diners, and nice truck stops memorized :-)
Bathroom attendants? You'll find them today in upscale strip clubs and night clubs. I slip the guy a couple of bucks and look him in the eye, sending a tacit message that I'll be back, and this is all you're getting from me. They're cool with that.
My high school friend and I decided to take a walk down memory lane and visit our high school campus. We then marveled at how nice the campus looked without a smoking area. A custodian that we chatted with couldn't believe it when we let him know that the smoking area wasn't for teachers, but for students. It was necessary to keep the bathrooms clean and fairly free of improper behavior. He told us the kids were back to hiding their vaping in the bathroom, but with vaping the bathrooms were cleaner and without smoke. It does mean that those inclined to rule breaking are once more away from easy view.
The quest for clean and safe bathrooms is an enduring one.
Attendants used to be a fixture at "high class" restaurants. The theory was if you were rich enough to eat there, you were rich enough to tip the attendant some $$. And he was there to keep the place clean and help anyone out if they needed it.
Pay toilets..ah yes I remember those from my childhood. 10 cents was a lot of money back then to a kid. 25 cents would get you a candy bar.
When I was in Turkey back in the mid-eighties, I was visiting Istanbul and used a public toilet. Apparently there was a fee involved, and when leaving, I was stopped by the attendant. The smallest bill I had was I think a 10,000 TRY, which was something less than 1 US Dollar. He refused to take it - apparently it was too much. Eventually, a Turkish AF conscript came to my rescue - he gave the attendant a 100 TRY bill, and then he gave me a hundred, "For next time." I have carried that note ever sense, to remind me of the generosity of those out in the world we seldom think about or consider.
“I hate bathroom attendants. They hand you a paper towel that you could have gotten yourself then expect a tip. They block the exit so you have to tip them. Fuck bathroom attendants.”
I think that it is my cheapness. And, maybe the attitude. I see them in the nicer clubs, and a lot of the guys treat the attendants as their best friends. To me, they come across as trying too hard to be sophisticated, when instead, they come across to me as bar flies.
There's not much of a career ladder in the bathroom attendant business. I bet the attendant at the 21 Club makes a pretty penny, but it's not the kind of job you work your way up to. You don't train in smaller venues until you reach the big time at the 21 Club. There are no competitive exams to qualify. You either land the job of you don't. I wouldn't recommend to any young person that they go into the bathroom attendant field. You have to know someone to land any of the glamour jobs.
My mother spent the second world war in London where all public toilets were pay toilets costing 1 penny. Do any of you remember those big round pennies the Brits used to have. For the rest of her life she used the term, "spend a penny" as in "I need to spend a penny." instead of pee.
“Government rest stops. Unless they are full of truckers stopping, they are horrible (calif and oregon)”
No complaints from AZ up through NV, UT, ID, and MT. Never liked them in NM. But the rest of the west, east of the Left Coast, seem just fine to me. And my partner, who is a lot pickier (something about not liking to hover).
“For all the bashing that they get, when traveling on the road....McDonald's is the best for those "pit stops" along the highway. Not only are the restrooms clean, they are damned convenient.”
Again, my partner would agree.
She has a small bladder, so this is a major issue when traveling. She has a whole bunch of stories how her ex, being a guy who likes to fix things, addressed that problem.
As far as gas stations, she has a pretty good memory of which are good and which are not. Except last Sat, when we were driving to Coeur d’Alene. There is a 60 mile stretch over the pass with one possible stop at 40 miles. Every time we stop there, she complains how filthy it was. Sat, we were about 5 miles beyond it, when she asked if we were going to get there soon. Nope. Didn’t stop because each time you tell me never to stop there again. She whined about not stopping the next 15 miles until we got to the gas station we always stop at anyway.
Europe is the only place I have ever encountered a restroom attendant, and also the only place I have ever encountered a pay toilet in the last 40 years.
By performing the figure of the racialized female immigrant bathroom attendant in academic space, I gesture to the ironies of canons of postcolonial feminist scholarship in the context of racist and sexist labor inequality. The bathroom attendant is also a figure through which one can discern how racist ideologies bleed into contemporary practices of xenophobia and citizenship, which racialize female immigrant labor in visceral ways.
Ohhhhhh, baby. It gets me so hot when you talk like that.....
The last vibrating bed I remember seeing was in a Holiday Inn in Cincinnati in 1978 when my mother took to my first baseball games.
However, I can understand why an upscale club might have an attendant- it helps prevent drug use and other activities for which patrons might want to use a toilet.
Speaking of the "Iron Throne"...
We refer to our comode as the "Iron Duke"-- the "Wellington", by Kohler
Two comments on this funny thread:
1. In "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Holly Golightly judged the success of an evening by how much her date that night would give her when she asked for some money to tip the ladies' room attendant. She said anything less than $50 was a failure. (Of course, the attendant never got the tip.)
2. For all of you deprived folks who don't live or travel in Texas, you've missed out on Buc-ee's Travel Stops, which has built a financial empire on having lots of incredibly clean and well-maintained restrooms in their gas stations/ snack emporiums along the interstates here.
readering said...
Growing up in England the term for going to the toilet was spending a penny.
5/9/19, 9:38 AM
See, I told you so!
Somebody way up thread said, "Fuck bathroom attendants." OK, but then you really do need to tip them.
Whoever it is that praised McDonalds for bathroom facilities on the road, I second the motion. My wife could use a frequent pee-er card, but Mickey-Ds doesn't require one. It's not that McDonald's restrooms are the most luxurious, or even most pristine, but they are decent, and there are a lot of them. In return, on road trips we always stop at McDonalds for breakfast or lunch, to pay them back.
Some years ago we visited Dubrovnick, Croatia, on a cruise, and after awhile I needed to stop into a public rest room. Pee-ing was easy: A slate wall with a running water drain under it. But for Number 2, there was a hole in the floor, over which one could squat. IF one could squat. And there was NO attendant!
The Godfather said: "... And there was NO attendant!"
Well if you expected the attendant to hold your hand to steady you, that would call for a pretty good tip in my opinion. Personally I'd prefer grab bars.
By my recollection, the traditional Japanese toilets ("squatcrappers" to you gaijin) in the smaller restaurants and so on don't have grab bars near them (generally speaking, "grab bar" technology has not made it to Japan). One dare not place a hand on the floor for balance, of course. This must be a skill the locals learn early in life.
A colleague of mine met us for dinner once in Japan after spending the day in a different part of the city. The first thing he did when he got there was to look into the restroom and verify that it had a Western-style toilet in it. He came to the table with a great look of relief on his face and shared his happiness with his discovery: "I had the worst experience of my life today..."
I have seen male bathroom attendants in a few fancy hotels and concert venues (men's room). In one or two, the guy was NOT an employee of the hotel (ie he was a hustler), which was odd. In Germany there were female bathroom attendants in the men's room--very odd.
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