After a marathon week of public appearances and policy pronouncements, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday turned to an issue that has long animated, and united, New Yorkers like few others: public restrooms.
Standing in Harlem near an offramp of the Henry Hudson Parkway, Mr. Mamdani announced a plan to expand New Yorkers’ access to public restrooms by committing $4 million to install at least two dozen modular toilets across the five boroughs.
“In a city that has everything, the one thing that is often impossible to find is a public bathroom,” he said, flanked by Julie Menin, the City Council speaker, and several local representatives. Mr. Mamdani grinned slyly as he delivered a speech peppered with puns and allusions.
“While this may not be the most glamorous side of governance, it is also the work that will be felt in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers for years to come,” he said.
The plan is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at making street-level infrastructure improvements across the city, a campaign promise that has emerged as an early priority for the new mayor.
Last Saturday, Mr. Mamdani announced plans to revive a pedestrian-focused redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn, which was unexpectedly swept up in a corruption scandal involving an aide to his predecessor, Eric Adams. On Tuesday, the mayor helped spread asphalt on a 43-inch-wide pit at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge that had long rankled cyclists.
Building more free and accessible restrooms has been a particular concern for New Yorkers, who have complained for decades about the city’s scarce and unsanitary network of public toilets. New York, a city of more than eight million people, currently has around 1,000 public bathrooms, or about one restroom for every 8,500 residents, Mr. Mamdani said. That puts it well behind other cities across the United States and the world.
Under Mr. Mamdani’s plan, the city will commit $4 million to a request for proposals, which will seek bids for about 20 to 30 modular public toilets. Unlike traditional restrooms, modular toilets can be installed above ground without connecting to sewer and water lines, making them cheaper and faster to build.
The request for proposals will cover the first round of modular restrooms, and if successful, the administration will consider building more units as part of a separate procurement process, Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, said.
By itself, the request for proposals is unlikely to make an immediate dent in the city’s overall public bathroom shortage and would still leave New York lagging far behind other major cities.
In Iceland, the country with the world’s highest density of public bathrooms, there were 56 per 100,000 people, according to a 2021 report by the British company QS Bathrooms Supplies. Madison, Wis., had the most of any U.S. city, with 35 per 100,000 people.
During the news conference, Ms. Menin said San Diego, Denver and St. Louis all also had more bathrooms per capita than New York.
“New Yorkers should not have to be worried about where to go when they have to go,” she said, calling the city’s resources “really shameful.”
Last year, the City Council enacted a bill requiring the city to double the number of public restrooms by 2035, bringing the total number to 2,120. Building more public toilets was also listed among the top 17 ways the new mayor could improve the city in a recent survey by The New York Times.
Mr. Mamdani said the request for proposals would be released within his first 100 days in office, though he did not provide a timeline for when the toilets would be completed and accessible.
In addition to the new program, the mayor and Ms. Menin announced plans to build a self-cleaning public restroom later this year at the intersection where they held Saturday’s news conference, on 12th Avenue and St. Clair Place in Harlem.
On Saturday, Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Menin took turns signing the final approvals for the new bathroom at a small wooden desk that had been placed beside the lectern, posing for photos as cars whizzed by behind them.
A handful of people, including a few young children with bicycles in tow, had gathered in the middle of the rumbling West Harlem intersection to hear Mr. Mamdani speak.
Allegra LeGrande, an Inwood resident, said she was thrilled by the news.
“People go on the bike path and they go on the train tracks because there’s nowhere else to go,” she said, speaking about the lack of public restrooms at a playground in Fort Washington Park, just north of where she stood.
“It is an equity issue,” Ms. LeGrande said.
Anusha Bayya contributed reporting.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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