Latest / Ridiculous History / The Ridiculously Inspiring Story of Free Public Restrooms, Part One: Everyone Has To Poop

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The Ridiculously Inspiring Story of Free Public Restrooms, Part One: Everyone Has To Poop · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the myth legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams. I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: want to brag about Max just a little bit because
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: this guy, Uh, I'm ben bowling, You're no brown? Yeah,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Uh No, I got to brag about our super producer, Uh,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: mister Williams, because, uh Max, if you could explain how
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you went from long flowing stresses to donating your hair
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  Speaker 1: to an actual charitable society.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm still working on that.
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  Speaker 3: I got the hair right here.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Actually, he's got his hair in a bag.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I had to get it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It doesn't fit in a normal envelope, so I have
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: to get a larger envelope. But I no, I'd rather
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: more talk about the mustache. But I guess if you.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: Really love it, I think that I think the cut
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: looks dope, it suits you. The stash is rocking, and
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: it's all for a good cause, So I mean there's
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  Speaker 4: no downside.
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  Speaker 2: Frankly, I mean I've been going that hair for about
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  Speaker 2: seven years now, so it feels really great to cut
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: it all off and ship it out to hopefully somebody
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: who has better use for it.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Wasn't Locks of Love. It was the other one right
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: that you were shooting for. It's one of them.
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  Speaker 1: You're just seeing to any takers. I got it, and
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the mustache Mafia.
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  Speaker 4: Max.
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  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you as always. Quick question
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  Speaker 1: by way of an awkward segue. Uh, when you were
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  Speaker 1: getting your flowing locks on, lock severed? There we go?
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  Speaker 3: Thank you all.
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  Speaker 1: Uh did you have to use the restroom?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely? Of course I did.
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  Speaker 2: But the place I got my haircut was really nice,
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  Speaker 2: and it's like one of those really fancy restrooms that
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  Speaker 2: have like real towels that like you know, you unrolled
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  Speaker 2: you was you try your hand?
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  Speaker 3: Are you saying you had to use the restroom mid cut?
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  Speaker 3: You couldn't? I mean, how long could it before that?
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  Speaker 3: Because you knew it was going to be in the chair?
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  Speaker 3: I got yeah, I gotcha. I got you now.
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  Speaker 1: Uh, Noel, you and I have well you, Max and
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  Speaker 1: I have traveled these great United States often and our
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  Speaker 1: travels continue.
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  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: You and I in particular have traveled across the planet
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  Speaker 1: pretty often, and uh not to put too fine a
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  Speaker 1: point on it. We've had to be in poob at times.
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  Speaker 4: You know what, I'm a fan of travel Band. I'm
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  Speaker 4: also a fan of Pean and poopin. I can't lie satisfy.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's an opportunity to catch up
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  Speaker 4: on the day's news. I mean, I will say I'm
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  Speaker 4: gonna sit down the pier, not to be tmi, but
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I just I look at it as an opportunity,
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  Speaker 4: That's all I'm gonna say.
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  Speaker 1: I hear you, man, and no matter who you are,
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  Speaker 1: prince princess has a pauper at some point in the
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  Speaker 1: next twenty four hours, science proves you are going to
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  Speaker 1: need to use the restroom. It's nuts, because, you know, dud,
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  Speaker 1: back when I was back when I was writing a
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: show we called brain Stuff, I figured out how many
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  Speaker 1: times the average person farts per day.
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  Speaker 3: Technically, people fart and they don't even know it.
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 4: Are we talking about like little just any expulsion of gas.
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  Speaker 1: Little hinges, little fins of your.
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  Speaker 3: Little What did he say? What did our boy not? Hemingway?
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  Speaker 4: Little little little spart, spooty spooty sports little little thing.
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  Speaker 3: James Joyce, Oh little creaky creaky, creaky toots.
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  Speaker 1: Are we ever going to recover from that episode?
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  Speaker 4: I was actually walking in a subway station with my
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  Speaker 4: girlfriend and there was a James Joyce quote on the
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  Speaker 4: wall and I just did one of those did you.
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  Speaker 3: Know moments that were so known for.
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  Speaker 4: She did not not only did she not know, she
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  Speaker 4: didn't believe me, And then I had to pull it
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  Speaker 4: up and can I just say that James Joyce letter
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  Speaker 4: about the farts and all that pky stuff.
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  Speaker 3: It's on lyricsgenius dot com. It's amazing.
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  Speaker 4: It's like dissected like like a like like a Kanye bar.
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  Speaker 3: To jump in here real quick.
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  Speaker 2: I was out in Portland last year and somehow we
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  Speaker 2: got on topic of James Joyce, uh with my friends
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  Speaker 2: Kevin and Lizzy, and I read them the letter and
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  Speaker 2: they're just like, this isn't comedy. This is a real
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  Speaker 2: thing that he wrote.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, this is a real thing.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not comedy poetry, I would argue.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, an abundance of flatche And please do check
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  Speaker 1: out our earlier episode, which I still can't believe we
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  Speaker 1: got away with.
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  Speaker 4: One of the few NSFW episodes of ridiculous history.
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  Speaker 3: I think you could.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe include the one about the George Carlin swears yes
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  Speaker 4: that we did with Fetterman.
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  Speaker 2: And in the History of BS, did we believe the
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  Speaker 2: the James Joyce episode.
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  Speaker 3: I can't remember if we did or not. The sexual
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  Speaker 3: f bombs we had a disclaimer at the top.
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  Speaker 1: What you need to know is that James Joyce is
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  Speaker 1: there as a person. James Joyce is very interested in but.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, but he's a kinky boy, and we
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  Speaker 4: don't think shame here on ridiculous history. But all this
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  Speaker 4: to say, Everybody Poops, which was a book we all
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  Speaker 4: maybe grew up with making you feel good about your
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  Speaker 4: body and all the things that come out of it.
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  Speaker 4: And then I'll never forget the Family Guy joke, and
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  Speaker 4: then the less popular, much less popular Nobody Poops but
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  Speaker 4: You Yes, which was a Catholic children's book in the
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  Speaker 4: Family Guy universe.
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  Speaker 1: We do know that most people on average are going
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  Speaker 1: to pull a number two between three times a week
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  Speaker 1: up to three times a day. Very very loose estimation there,
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  Speaker 1: like loose bowels. Will keep it regular is what they
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  Speaker 1: call it, right there is Yeah, you're fiberfolks. As a result,
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  Speaker 1: we also know that humanity overall, despite all the differences
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  Speaker 1: cultures may have, they all spend a great deal of time,
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  Speaker 1: research and energy figure it out the best way to
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  Speaker 1: handle this unceasing universal need for urination and defecation because Noel,
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  Speaker 1: as you and I have discussed in previous episodes, a
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  Speaker 1: lack of public hygiene inevitably will lead to serious disease.
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  Speaker 4: Outbreaks right the miasma effects as it was once believed
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  Speaker 4: to be during the Great Stink of London, This idea
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  Speaker 4: of sanitation creating some sort of stink cloud that infected
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  Speaker 4: people through the air alone, which you know, nobody wants
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  Speaker 4: to breathe in the stink of others. But truly, what
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  Speaker 4: is most dangerous is when let's just say, human waste
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  Speaker 4: leaks into you know, communal drinking water and groundwater and
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  Speaker 4: things like that.
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  Speaker 1: And battles have been won and lost based entirely upon sanitation.
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  Speaker 1: Even before humans understood germ theory, every culture, every civilization
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  Speaker 1: figured out, hey, this human waste can be fertilizer, but
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  Speaker 1: it can also be incredibly dangerous in addition to you know,
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  Speaker 1: being gross. This all leads us to the oft ignored
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  Speaker 1: wonder of the modern world, the public blake toilet. When's
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  Speaker 1: the last time, Nola, Max, you guys used.
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  Speaker 4: A public toilet, So it's funny you should ask that one.
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  Speaker 4: Not funny, it's just and then we're going to get
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  Speaker 4: into it. But here in the States, by and large,
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  Speaker 4: you're gonna do everything you can to avoid using a
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  Speaker 4: public toilet because they are notoriously quite gross. Whereas in
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  Speaker 4: Europe and definitely in Asia, uh, they are much more
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  Speaker 4: well maintained. Some of them even cost a few shekels,
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  Speaker 4: and that money is then used to you know, keep
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  Speaker 4: them in a tip top shape. But here, uh, you
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  Speaker 4: end up seeing a public bathroom at a gas station,
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  Speaker 4: for example, You got to really have to go to
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  Speaker 4: want to give that a try. And I did do
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  Speaker 4: that recently because I really had to go.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and you walk or the the the odor or
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  Speaker 1: the employee at the at the gas station hands you
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  Speaker 1: a small key with a cartoonish big key.
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  Speaker 3: Ye, what is this like a boat key? Like it overboard?
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  Speaker 1: It's gotta like. I saw one that was a shingle
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  Speaker 1: from a rooftop and the guy told me, well, that's
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  Speaker 1: so we know people bring it back. Let's go to you, Max.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So I was gonna originally say, like, oh, I
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  Speaker 2: can't even think of the last time, but Noldan mentioned
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  Speaker 2: the gas station bathroom, like, oh, because I just came
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  Speaker 2: back from the beach. I was down at Saint George Island,
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  Speaker 2: which a beautiful, wonderful beach down in Florida, and uh yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we stopped at a gas station on the way back,
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  Speaker 2: and oh, yeah, I had forgotten how rancid gas station
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  Speaker 2: bathroom is gonna be.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you also here in the States, you'll
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  Speaker 1: see porta bodies, that's what we call them, at concerts,
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  Speaker 1: at public venues.
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  Speaker 3: I mean plastic boxes and blue.
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  Speaker 1: Plastic boxes, rectangles where people do bathroom war crimes.
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  Speaker 3: You know what another name for those is. And I
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  Speaker 3: know we'll probably get into more of this as well.
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  Speaker 4: Chemical toilets, Yes, yes, the idea, that's what the blue
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  Speaker 4: stuff is that's supposed to make it somehow sanitary. I
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  Speaker 4: don't know that it always works, because boilboy, I've never
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  Speaker 4: met a porta potty that I wanted to be friend.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never sent a Michelin star review for a
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  Speaker 1: porta potty. But we know that rest stops along these
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  Speaker 1: great highways of these wonderful United States, they have bathrooms.
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  Speaker 1: A huge amount of businesses, like we were talking about
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  Speaker 1: with gas stations, they will tend to have restrooms, not
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  Speaker 1: all of them. The trick is that often businesses in
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  Speaker 1: the United States will require you to purchase an item
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  Speaker 1: before you use the facilities. But still, especially if you've
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  Speaker 1: traveled across the world, you know that the USA is
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  Speaker 1: a pretty easy place to pop a squat. This is
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  Speaker 1: not the case in other parts of the world. Leads
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  Speaker 1: us to today's episode. This is part one of a series.
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  Speaker 1: How did we get free public restrooms? What a ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: what a necessary invention? We have a notoriously capitalistic society here,
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  Speaker 1: So how did everybody seem to largely agree on this
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  Speaker 1: specific point of waste down welfare?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 4: And I mean, you know, to your point, then it's
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  Speaker 4: not quite the same in other parts of the world.
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  Speaker 4: But also your experience may differ by geographic location here
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  Speaker 4: in the United States, because in places like New York,
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  Speaker 4: for example, there are people that go to great length
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  Speaker 4: to make spreadsheets of the public bathrooms that are available,
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  Speaker 4: and typically that are only at like.
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  Speaker 3: Starbucks, Yeatarbucks, thank you.
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  Speaker 4: But to your point about having to buy something, which
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  Speaker 4: I think is such an odd like sort of what's the.
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  Speaker 3: Copy for caveat?
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  Speaker 4: But also weird to enforce accept under certain circumstances, one
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  Speaker 4: of which which I really appreciate. I recently went to
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  Speaker 4: a McDonald's in Queen's and there is a bathroom with
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  Speaker 4: a code, and it's one of those places where everything's
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  Speaker 4: kind of automated. And guess where the code is ben.
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  Speaker 1: On the receipt?
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  Speaker 4: Correct something correct, which I think is an enforceable way
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  Speaker 4: of doing that, because the people are not really available
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  Speaker 4: there for you to get the code from, and if
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  Speaker 4: you do ask for it, they'll just be like, my
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  Speaker 4: hands are tied.
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  Speaker 3: It's on the receipt.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, folks, fellow ridiculous historians, not to
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  Speaker 1: call you out, but we know that some of you
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  Speaker 1: are in a bathroom stall as you're listening to this.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. It's an opportunity, It's an opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: Let's fast forward past the ancient civilizations struggles with sanitation
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  Speaker 1: to look at the rise of the modern toilet situation.
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  Speaker 1: We owe a lot of our research here to an
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  Speaker 1: historian named Peter C. Baldwin, who traces the origin of
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  Speaker 1: public toilets in US cities to the old saloon, the
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  Speaker 1: old back bat wing doors, you know, the kind of
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  Speaker 1: stuff you'd see Doc Holiday engaging with in Tombstone.
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  Speaker 4: For sure, they looked at this as a way of
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  Speaker 4: attracting clientele, much like you know, back in the day
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  Speaker 4: when movie theaters were the only some of the only
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  Speaker 4: public places that had air conditioning, you know, in the summer,
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  Speaker 4: in the summer heat.
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  Speaker 3: In early days of AC, very similar deal.
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  Speaker 4: It was a built in way of attracting folks as
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  Speaker 4: effective Peter C.
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  Speaker 3: Baldwin puts it as free lunches.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, as effective as right. And now we see
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  Speaker 1: hotels and department stores and railroad stations they're offering washroom
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  Speaker 1: or water closet facilities, but they tend to screen out
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  Speaker 1: entire sectors of the population. We found in the research.
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  Speaker 1: I found an eighteen ninety three manual for designing railroad stations,
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  Speaker 1: and it said you need to create these specific distinct
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  Speaker 1: spaces so the paying customers not only can poop where
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  Speaker 1: they want, but they also will not have to interact
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  Speaker 1: in any way with what the manual call the lower
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  Speaker 1: classes and quote in southern sections the colored element.
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  Speaker 4: Poof Indeed, in the early nineteen hundred is when railroads
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  Speaker 4: really became an embedded part of the infrastructure of the
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  Speaker 4: country and the great connector between some of America's biggest
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  Speaker 4: metropolitan cities and some more rural kind of outposts train stations.
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  Speaker 4: And it kind of continues to be the joke today
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  Speaker 4: about like train station bathrooms not being the best were
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  Speaker 4: sometimes the only place in town with modern plumbing. So
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  Speaker 4: to keep locals from just absolutely, you know, blowing up
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  Speaker 4: the bathrooms, railroad companies installed locks on the stall doors,
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  Speaker 4: only to be unlocked by a railroad employees for ticketed passengers.
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  Speaker 4: So we're looking here at the advent of you got
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  Speaker 4: to buy something to.
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  Speaker 3: Use the john very much.
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  Speaker 4: So.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that leads us to understand that the nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: to early twentieth century story of public toilets in the
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  Speaker 1: US was really a story of inequality. We have to
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  Speaker 1: remember that a ton of people in this country did
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  Speaker 1: not have running water at the time. They relied on
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  Speaker 1: ditches or streams or outhouses. And people with money had
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  Speaker 1: the challenge of pooping way easier, especially if they were
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  Speaker 1: identified as white and Christian or wasp right white faction
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and products.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was only a few years in the past,
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  Speaker 4: old when I learned what that actually meant.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. We also know that public urinals around American
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  Speaker 1: cities in the eighteen hundreds, they were pretty sparse, they
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  Speaker 1: were pretty scattered, so public urination was frequent. Also, urinals
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  Speaker 1: were not very user friendly for women or female identifying people.
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  Speaker 3: Nope.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. This led the progressive reformers to push for municipally
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  Speaker 1: supported toilets. They used a specific turn of phrase. They
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  Speaker 1: called them comfort stations or rest rooms.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, much like truck stops are often referred to as
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  Speaker 4: rest areas. I think it is another kind of version
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  Speaker 4: of sort of sanitization of you know, something that maybe
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  Speaker 4: folks would not typically like to think about what actually
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  Speaker 4: goes on there.
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  Speaker 3: Let's just call it in a place of rest.
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  Speaker 1: What's in that closet? Water? It's the poo poo hole, right,
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  Speaker 1: you can't call it the poopee passage.
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  Speaker 3: The WC.
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  Speaker 1: Man.
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  Speaker 3: I love that to this day. It's such a funn
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  Speaker 3: throwback when you go to places and it's the WC.
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  Speaker 4: Which I guess that would be maybe a naval term, right,
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  Speaker 4: wouldn't that have been a military term?
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  Speaker 3: The water closet?
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  Speaker 1: That's interesting. I don't know, I wonder if I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if it just dates back to that being the place
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  Speaker 1: that had running water.
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  Speaker 4: Also sure, because to your point, that was not common
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  Speaker 4: indoor plumbing. Much like like I was mentioning earlier in
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: the early days of air conditioning, most people couldn't afford it,
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: but it was a great way to get your cool
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: on in the hot summer months by going and catching
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: a film at the nickelodeon.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we know that elite women's groups got involved
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  Speaker 1: with progressive reformation movements, specifically for the idea of public toilets.
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  Speaker 1: By nineteen nineteen in the United States, more than one
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  Speaker 1: hundred cities had opened what they again called comfort states,
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  Speaker 1: either above the surface or underground. We got a plot
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: twist for you, folks. Everything went wrong again in nineteen
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen when the United States of America enacted a cartoonishly
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: bad idea cold prohibition. It's a crime to manufacture, transport
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: sell ingest alcoholic beverages. A lot of unforeseen side effects, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, don't tell me what I can't do. And by
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  Speaker 4: the way, really quickly been I was wrong. Water closet
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  Speaker 4: just didn't come from the military. I think I was
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  Speaker 4: thinking of the head. That might be more of a
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  Speaker 4: military term or a term for a naval restroom. Water
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  Speaker 4: closet was sort of an upgrade from the old English privies,
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  Speaker 4: which were just dry places for be and pooping. You know,
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  Speaker 4: that would just be you'd go down into a hole,
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  Speaker 4: whereas the water closets contained a running water. To your point, Ben,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: but Boyle boy was prohibition a bad idea that had
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: a lot of unforeseen constant on to your point.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, we're talking uh birthing straight up dynasties
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of organized crime, the creation of NASCAR, which is cool.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And then of course the government sponsored fatal poisoning of
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: people who still wanted to uh they get drunk despite
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  Speaker 1: the fact that it was illegal at the time.
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  Speaker 3: We know there was a safe alternative would be death.
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  Speaker 1: Government And what was that old joke? People will vote
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: for prohibition as long as they can stumble to the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: polls and check out our Oh gosh, I was thinking
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: about this when I was researching this series. No, what
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was the what's the word for that practice? American political missions.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: People hammered, forcing them to get intoxicated and them going.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Cooper Yeah, so America deathly He did have like so
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: much of the world a drinking problem for a while.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: One of the knock on consequences that we don't often
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: talk about with prohibition legislation is that prohibition meant thousands
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: of those saloons with those restrooms closed, which means that
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: their restrooms also disappear. There was a massive increase in
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the demand for more public facilities, and.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Probably people using going back to using the restroom in
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: the streets can contributing perhaps to, you know, a worsening
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: of public sanitation.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Everything smelled pee and poop. You think New York and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Chicago have a distinct scent now high the back to.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: The early nineteen hundred, especially in the summer months, no
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: doubt about it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, and our professor we mentioned earlier. Baldwin
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: notes that it did not take long before quote, concerns
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: about inadequate privacy, safety, and cleanliness discouraged many people, particularly women,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: from using public comfort stations.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Oh gosh, reminded about how fun that that is.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Comfort stations. It's like almost like a level above restrooms. Yeah,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it's another euphemism. And though it was a culture war, guys,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: there was a series of campaigns about comfort station crimes.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Very Fox sorry, I thought it was similar to some
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: of the more recent claims about trans people being in
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the wrong restroom. These accounts didn't have a lot of
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: hard evidence. They were more like disturbing gossip, moral panic.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: Just so so, only about a fifth of the folks
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: using these comfort stations were women, and members of the
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: women's groups who had advocated for these in the first
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: place were generally not among their numbers. Is that because
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: they were kind of more high class or what was
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: the issue?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Kind of because they were more high class. Honest, they
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: had their own washrooms and water closets. And another thing
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people hated behind closed stall doors
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of politics was that these comfort stations cost money. You
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: had to run them, you had to maintain them. It's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the tragedy of the commons all over again. Everybody loves
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: a public service, but historically, at least in the US,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: everybody also does anything they can to avoid personally paying
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for it. Right, so, these comfort stations were expensive to municipalities.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Nobody was winning an election based on building more, and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: even when the overpowering stench of urine was wafting from
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the alleyways and it was clear something had to be done,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the local government time and time again was like, well,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: we only have so much money, so they didn't build
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: these They didn't build this public good, these public facilities
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: as quickly as they should, especially in big, big cities
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like Boston, Chicago, New York City.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Well, right, historically, there is an estimate from that era
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: and out of Manhattan that more than eighty thousand people
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: were using the public facilities every single day. So then
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: on the heels of the Prohibition crisis came another nationwide
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: crisis you might have heard of, the Great Depression. During
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: that time, New Deal policies led to federal public works
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: projects that constructed bathrooms in public parks as well as
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: alongside highways interstates. This was crucial for some rural residents
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: and visitors and travelers, you know, migrant workers for example,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: who did not have access to running water themselves. However,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: wasn't a whole heck of a lot of help for
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: the teeming masses and as you put it, ben asses
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: in these more metropolitan areas, right, So widespread public toilets
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: that were owned by municipalities would however, not survive the
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Great Depression.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And since we're an audio show for now, folks, please
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Note that as Noll nailed the masses and asses pun
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Max and I just nodded somberly. We're like, yep, tem masses,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: tem asses, as we're saying.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Teaming with filth. Oh very much so.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: At least part of this decline was due to a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: massive increase in usage. I tenerant workers shout out to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. They were flocking two
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: population centers for work or for government assistance, and that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: means that more people were trying to use free restrooms.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Another factor was that these same local governments were already
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: strapped for cash, and they did not really prioritize helping
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the needy in this way. Like, if you have x
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: amount of money, right, let's say, for the sake of argument,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you have ten thousand dollars, you can spend that on
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a breadline to feed people, or you can spend that
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: building a place for them to poop. It's one end
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: or the other. And most people chose the breadlines, which
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: meant that again, your local city smelled of trash and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: excrement and aspiration.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean it's not to say that some
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: of them don't still smell that way. At least here
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: in the United States.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Now ole was not lost. The public toilet did not
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: totally flush down the drain of history during the depression.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Now, the last of the progressive era comfort stations did
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: sally forth for a bit longer until around the late
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: sixties early seventies before they two were shut down. During
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: that same period, we started to see closure of the
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: majority of bathroom associated with public transit as well. It
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: was really entering into a pretty gnarly era where you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: there was a growing gap of inequality between the haves
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: and the have nots in terms of where you had
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: access to, you know, a clean restroom.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a gap as wide as the gap between the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: stall door in a US public restroom.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I was glad you mentioned that, Ben.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted to shout out to friend of the show
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Peter Tilden and Jason Alexander on their podcast Really No, Really,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: they explore the origins of the gap underneath the public
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: bathroom stalls specifically or mostly I think, known here in
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: the United States. And I'll just give one possible reason
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: that I think a lot of people will miss is
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: that it was so that they could just, you know,
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: much more easily just dump buckets of water underneath them
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: and have the filth drain into the floor, and also
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: to be able to identify if people have befouled them
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: without having to open every single stall.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: And also to prevent people from creating their own sovereign
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: stall kingdoms. No campers, says the United States, And you
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: nailed this awesome point. Well, this is a return to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the old squatting and equality of the past. The less
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: money you have, the tougher it is for you to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: find a decent place to poop. This is what leads
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Professor Baldwin to say, bodily privacy becomes a purchasable commodity
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: instead of a right conferred by government on all citizens.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, let's think about it this way, where
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Max weinl we're yours truly, We're owning a business. And
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: now in the nineteen sixties and seventies, we are getting
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of people coming to our store and they're saying, hey,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: can I use the restroom? Can I use the facilities?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: And now there's no real law for against it. It
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: becomes a matter of quick ad hoc judgment. So Max
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Noll and yours truly are asking ourselves, does this person
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: look poor. Are they going to buy something? Do I
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: feel like helping them out?
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: Well, And that's why I mentioned the whole like, you know,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: a bathroom code situation at the bottom of the receipt.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: At least it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: Removes the ambiguity and the ability to judge. Right, if
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: you get a receipt, you get to use the bathroom.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: I don't personally have a huge problem with that, especially
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: as we get into the concept of pay toilets.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm with you there, bro, because it is
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: technically private property here in the US, we have this
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: unspoken negotiation occurring in full force every day legality or
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: illegality aside. Modern laws technically require a business to have
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a certain number of restrooms based on occupancy use and
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: applicable building codes, which means that in a lot of places,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: in a lot of cities, if someone tells you you
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: have to buy something to use the restroom, you can
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: tell them they're breaking the law. But who wants to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: be that person.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: But I never really thought about that and the idea
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: that a place absolutely has no public restroom whatsoever, or
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: that they're only reserve for employees. I bet you there's
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: some legal gray areas there too.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Man, and I know all three of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: us and probably all four of us. You listening along
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: at home, you probably run into a place that has
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a no public restroom sign or the slightly less daunting
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: restrooms for customers only. That is alluding to pay toilets.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: So we have this huge poop problem in the States,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and like you tease so well, nol. Up until about
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, the society of the United States arrived
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: at a band aid solution. They said, everybody's got a pee,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: everybody's got a poop. Population is growing more people need
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: somewhere to pee and poop. No one wants to pay
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: for it. It's a lot of work. It's thoroughly underappreciated.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Nobody acknowledges that we're cleaning up their poop. Till something
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: gets wrong they get mad. Our solution, pay toilets.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, there where tens of thousands of these in
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: the United States, overwhelmingly in urban areas.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: It was a pretty simple concept.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: You pay a nominal fee with a coin and you
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: get access to a private stall to do your business.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Race Color and Creed didn't theoretically matter. As long as
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: you had that coin, you were free to go.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: There was, of course, you know, like the idea of
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: poll taxes and things like that, there is an inherent
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: exclusion anytime you have to pay.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: For something that had previously been free.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Well said, yeah, it's a dime, right, Typically, if you
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: have a dime, you theoretically can go. But as you
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: noted NOL, there was still discrimination, not just discrimination against
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the halves via the half notts feminists in particular. We're
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: pissed off about this. Oh, unintentional, got unintentional.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: We'll keep it. We'll keep it.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: But the thing is you could just go to a
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: standing urinal and pee there for free. You had to
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: pay for access to a stall, which means that if
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you were a dude, you don't have to pony up
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a dime to get some relief. But if you are
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a woman, female identifying, it is going to cost you
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: to just just to vacate your bowels. And you know,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: trust me, right right, bladder better, yes, bladder is better
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: than that one. But trust us, folks, the three of
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: us making this show, our dudes, and we can tell
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you from regrettable personal experience all around the world. Most
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: dudes will pee pretty much anywhere if we have to.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Well, if you need to rock a sneaky p it's
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: certainly easier to do it in a low key fashion.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: As a dude than it is as a lady.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: I think we can all acknowledge the truth of that,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: and that that is one of the perks of being
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: a dude, of which there are no other.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: There's no other privileges.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: No, no, this show is over, No more questions. No,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: we're saying, we're saying, the beautiful girl. We're saying that
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: you can make a strong argument on the side of
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: those municipalities that free use standing urinals or key public
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: front line in the battle against making your against your
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: city smelling like rank piss.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: It's from key is keep dudes from just marking their territory.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Basically, you know, I say public service, a public service
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: should be something that benefits everybody. But technically, in the
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: situation it is it is solving a problem, or it
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: is addressing a problem that isn't necessarily intended to be sexist.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is. But it also inherently kind of
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: is right.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, inherently it's leaving a roughly fifty one percent of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the population behind right, the it's no surprise the public
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: hated pay toilets because at this point a lot of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: people we have to remember we're still old enough to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: recall the days when toilets were free, or they be
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: irritated because imagine this. You have a dollar, you have
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: like a dollar bill, or you have a quarter, but
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you don't have a dime, and you need exact change,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm not poor, I need to poop.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Why do I have to specifically have a dime?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Well, and as I was mentioning Ben, I've only specifically
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: seen this in Germany, but pay toilets are still really
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: popular over there, and you can even like swipe your phone,
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: you know, tap pay, and you do find that those
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: public restrooms are much more well maintained because you know,
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: part of that cost goes into paying staff.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: To keep them, you know, more pristine.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, and as you can tell folks, this is
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: an unsustainable, untenable situation in the United States. This is
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: part one of the ridiculously inspiring story of free toilets
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: in our country. We cannot wait to well, we'll have
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to wait, but we cannot wait for you to join
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: us for the second part of this two part series.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: We've given you the background, We've taken you right to
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the edge of the stall. We'll tell a story that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the flush Jedi won't tell you in part two. Big
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: Oh big big thanks to you Ben for doing the
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: research on this series. And also thanks to Jonathan's Trickland
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: the Quiztor. Yeah there you go, Ay to Bahama. That's
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: the sound it makes when you blow raspberry on his
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: bald head. And aj Bahamas Jacob's the Puzzler.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Also Doctor Rachel big Spinach, Lance, world's foremost authority on
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: underwater explosions, the rude Dudes of ridiculous crime. If you
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: dig us, you will dig them. No, big, big thanks
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: to you. I'm really excited for the second part of
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: this series because you and I will be able to
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about pooping around the world.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that's true, but that's what we're gonna do.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: Do.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: That's what we're gonna do do.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is our job. It's weird. Hey, We'll see
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: you next time, folks.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.