In his initial days as mayor, Mamdani has wisely concentrated on the practical aspects of governance, often referred to as “sewer socialism.” His efforts include addressing infrastructure issues, like repairing potholes near the Williamsburg Bridge, and envisioning more pedestrian-friendly streets. These initiatives are significant to residents, but Mamdani aims for a broader impact—rekindling public trust and confidence in government.
It was no surprise when, on Saturday, he unveiled a $4 million plan to increase the number of public restrooms throughout the city.
While discussing the need for more restrooms, the mayor indulged in a few puns but soon shifted to a serious tone. He highlighted a well-known issue: New York City lacks sufficient public restrooms. Currently, the city trails behind places like St. Louis and Iceland in terms of toilet availability, with just around 1,000 public facilities for its 8 million residents, not to mention the influx of commuters and tourists.
However, Mamdani’s focus extends beyond mere numbers. More than just managing streets or fixing potholes, he views public restrooms as a crucial component of his vision for a renewed social contract—a fairer, kinder city supported by a robust and compassionate government.
“In the greatest city in the world,” Mamdani declared, “you shouldn’t have to buy a $9 coffee just to find a restroom.”
The mayor emphasized that truly public restrooms, accessible to all and not disguised as cafes requiring purchases, are essential for ensuring equality and addressing everyday inconveniences.
Equality of movement in a city covered by subways where people leave home to go to work, to school, and to eat, requires public bathrooms. Without this critical infrastructure, the comings and goings of many are constrained. More public bathrooms — especially well-maintained, single-stall, rather than sex-segregated, bathrooms open from morning to night — will make the city more accessible to more people.
But public bathrooms can do even more. They can show, not just tell, citizens about government.
Here, Mamdani would do well to look to the past. In 1902, the wealthy philanthropist and reformer, R. Fulton Cutting, wrote a letter to the New York Times calling for $250,000, or roughly $9.6 million today — in municipal funds to build new public restrooms across the city.
“The great public works,” Cutting asserted, “such as bridges, tunnels, concourses, docks, and reservoirs, are accepted as matters of course, and are but vaguely appreciated by the majority of our citizens.” That’s because, he continued, these investments “do not come home to the people.” But public bathrooms “lying at the very doors of the masses, speak eloquently of the concern of officials for those to whom ordinarily the Government is something remote and apart.”
Then, Cutting came to his main point. You have govern small if you want to eventually govern big. Public bathrooms, he said, “citizens can be made to feel the intimate regard for governmental powers.” Public bathrooms, in other words, weren’t just something he and his associates needed when they were away from home. They could make clear to ordinary people, better than any other action, the value of government and the concern of public officials for the well-being of everyone. This goodwill could, in turn, be leveraged down the line for more expansive government action.
That’s what Mamdani needs to do. He needs to “prove,” as he promised in his inaugural address, that “the city belongs to the people.” Public bathrooms can make that case, and the even larger case, that a big government committed to fairness and equality is built on a combination of robust spending and intimate actions. Now Mamdani needs to imitate Cutting in one other way. He needs to double, or maybe, triple his public bathroom spending. It will pay off.
Simon is a history professor at Temple University who has just finished writing a history of public bathrooms in the U.S., “For Customers Only: Public Bathrooms and the Making of American Inequality,” which is being published in September by the University of Chicago Press.
