'Desperate' opera singer puts public restrooms on the map of New York

Teddy Siegel outside his favorite place to spend money in Bryant Park, New York

New Yorker outraged The city's lack of public restroom facilities became famous after creating a complex map of hundreds of sites in the five boroughs.

Opera singer Teddy Siegel, 24, began the meticulous mapping two years ago after she desperately needed a toilet at the Times. Square, but couldn’t find where to go.

“I was in tears begging to go to the toilet, and at that point I was completely desperate,” she told The Telegraph.

The then graduate student ended up spending $3 at McDonald's to be able to use their services. But when Ms Siegel rushed upstairs, the toilet was unlocked, meaning she could use it for free.

“I started thinking more about how funny it was that I had just wasted my money to fulfill a basic function of the body and, frankly, a human right,” she said.

Ms Siegel made a short TikTok video about her experience and woke up the next day to find it had 14,000 views. The comments began to fill with people sharing their tips on where to find properties in the city, and Ms. Siegel began plotting them on a map. She made it publicly available and allowed anyone to edit it, so it is now crowdsourced and can be updated in real time.

From public parks to luxury hotels, there are now nearly 1,800 restrooms, offering users a detailed directory of nearby services.

Long Island-based Ms. Siegel and her brand Got2GoNYC now have 370,000 followers on TikTok. and Instagram.

The toilet influencer also makes videos in which she invites followers to “come pee with me” in various locations, which receive up to 5 million views.

She will also rate amenities out of 10, taking into account cleanliness, wheelchair accessibility and quality of toilet paper.

At the same time, she claims that her map is the most widespread and most used on Google Maps . in the world.

“What I like about it is that it is crowd-sourced and updated in real time,” she said.

«It makes it even more accurate because then people go to different places and know, 'Oh, it's a code switch, and then they can go in and update it so everyone else can see it.'

The city has about 1,200 public restrooms in a population of 8.4 million, ranking 93rd in the U.S. in the number of public restrooms per capita.

Blocked Restrooms

Four mayoral administrations have attempted to increase the number of restrooms throughout the city. , but without much success.

In 2006 — Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan to install 20 automatic public toilets. Only five have been installed, with the remaining 15 still in a warehouse in Queens.

Since launching her campaign for toilets, Ms. Siegel has helped Mark Levin, the Manhattan borough president, pass legislation that requires the city to define » «feasible» public restroom locations in every zip code in the city. There is no need to build more toilets.

Brooklyn City Council member Sandy Nurse is also trying to introduce a bill that would require the city to increase the number of toilets from one per 7,700 population to one. /2000, and by 2035 more than 4,200 toilets will be added. everyone,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Siegel says her favorite restroom is in Bryant Park downtown.

“There’s not much to see from the outside.” , but inside, it's literally amazing.

“They have plumbers constantly cleaning. There are fresh flowers. As soon as you enter they play classical music. There are pictures on the walls, but my favorite thing is that the toilet seats have self-changing covers.”