9/11 Memorial Museum planners take notice: people get pissed when there is a barrier to peeing. 31-year-old Brooklyn barber Nicholas Curtis learned this lesson after a group of disgruntled, cross-legged revelers from the West Indian Day Parade descended upon his shop. After allowing folks to pee freely all day, they began instituting a $1 fee to use the bathroom after the toilet became clogged, as a "nuisance tax." But it became more of a nuisance for Curtis and friends when a group of women who refused the tax came back with some male muscle. "We're tussling with them. I was just hitting," Curtis tells the Times. But he was actually hitting a woman with a wig: "My hand tangled in her hair and it fell off." more ›

Our newest member of congress, Bob Turner, had a very busy day yesterday. Beyond getting sworn in and making a tiny procedural gaffe his first time at bat, he had a day full of meetings and congratulations. Also, he found Anthony Weiner's old toothbrush and requested that his office bathroom be sanitized post haste. more ›

The National 9/11 Memorial and Museum is on track to open in time for the tenth anniversary of the attack, but it seems that there's just one little problem: you may have to hold it in while you're there. "Visitors will be provided with information to help plan their visit, including being advised that bathrooms will not be accessible on the site," Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent told the Post. more ›

Man's right to an accessible, respectable bathroom in this city is sacred, as seemingly undeniable as asking for tap water at a restaurant. Back in the winter, the tension over bathroom rights even brought the entire street vendors industry to a halt briefly. So in comparison, the search for the best toilets seems practically quixotic, the luxury of those who already have. Nevertheless, one website has been searching for and awarding the "most unique, impressive" bathrooms in the US for the last eight years. more ›

In an effort to make the campus a friendly place for transgender students and people with small children, the College of Staten Island is reconstructing one bathroom in each building to be gender neutral. "It's common sense, really," said Professor Dr. Syed Rizvi. "It provides people with a safe environment to perform basic human functions." The conversions don't seem too difficult either. Eight men's rooms were changed to unisex with the simple addition of a lock on the main door. more ›

The city's subway bathrooms may be "overflowing with filth," but is it the same case for the bathrooms in the city's parks? Though there are a few websites out there with databases of free public restrooms (including Starbucks: "America's Restroom"), there are only 19 restrooms throughout the sprawling 843 acre Central Park, and not many elsewhere. The Times' Ariel Kaminer set out to see which of all the city's parks were the cleanest. more ›

Will unisex bathrooms on planes soon vanish into thin air? CNN is reporting that Japanese airline All Nippon Airways is introducing women-only lavatories on its international routes starting next week, though they have no plans to designate men-only facilities. The move came after many customers spoke up asking for the separation, but the airline says there are exceptions—such as when a restroom is required for safety reasons or "when there are very few female passengers." A poster at FlyerTalk said, "The lavatories are scarce enough already. The last thing we need is more restriction of choice." more ›

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