About Greenwood Avenue: Some people walk on the west side of the street; others walk on the east side.

We bathtakers understand that our penis is FILTHY and VILE. We must be ashamed of our penis like mommy tells.

If we'd just have public bathhouses, the homeless wouldn't have to bathe in the SPL lavatories.

Dominic, c'mon, you even refer to it as a "bathroom" in the headline. It's right there in the name, man.

Y'know, Dom, men of delicate sensibilities might be inclined to avoid the sinks when they see hobos bathing in them.

The cold cowboy.

Thus is balance maintained.

They have bathrooms at the library downtown? I thought that was the Urban Rest Stop charity I gave money to.

there's only two types of men.. men who wash their hands after they pee and men who don't pee on their hands.
i forget who said that.

I know it's been that way for at least thirty-five years- probably longer. Part of the ambiance of going there.

About the Men's Bathroom at the Downtown Library: Some guys are there to take a piss; other guys are there to judge.

This is so sweet! Dan did a public bathroom post, and now all the fellas are tagging along. Dom today, so maybe next it can be Paul, if he can tear himself away whatever tomorrow's exciting rumors concerning e-readers may be. Or Christopher, if he needs a break from glaring in through the window at the liquor store staff.

Should not have put bathrooms in the library of the future. should have moved $10m from the building to a public outhouse next door.

So instead of a multimillion dollar 10 story library, all they needed were some outdoor showers.

Libraries are always de facto social service agencies. Papa Vel-DuRay was on the library board back in dear old Council Bluffs, and even that moldering old tomb in that half-literate Mayberry dealt with more than its share of the impoverished elderly and other destitutes who had no other place to spend their time and take care of hygeine.

Although i thought part of the planning for that garish monument to civil ego was a place for the homeless to wash up. Was that given up for some Chihully, or an ironically placed wall of donors?

The former due to the latter.

no gloryhole spl story? this is boring.

@18

Maybe "taking a full bath" is what the kids are calling it these days.

Have you ever been homeless? It is a very difficult life.

I used to work in the downtown library, back in the old building. My desk was across a wall from what was basically the only public toilet in all of downtown Seattle. I could always tell when 9 a.m. hit, because that toilet would start flushing and not stop until the doors closed at 6 p.m.

I don't know what the solution is. The homeless need a place to get out of the rain and the cold, they need a place to use the toilet (or they'll use your building steps), they need a place to wash. Not all are comfortable going to places like shelters or the Urban Rest Stop, because the weaker among them are preyed upon, and their meager possessions stolen. We tried having fancy public toilets in downtown, and they got used for turning tricks, sleeping, and mainlining.

The public bathrooms at the old library were TERRIFYING. Pretty much no staff member ever used them if we could help it. The new library at least has a few more stalls than the old, but I'm sure there is still a full complement of people staggering in bleeding, people dropping syringes, people who don't seem to understand that waste goes IN the commode, not ON it, etc.

No kidding, Geni. I don't envy you having had your desk so near the old bathrooms, which were an absolute hygiene horror, but it was good that staff were near them, to give that feeling of safety you describe.

During a time I was briefly homeless, finding a public bathroom was a tremendous challenge. I was fairly presentable, so could get into to the Macy's ones or shlep up to one of the hospitals (bless you, Harborview's little-used upper-floor lockable family bathrooms), and sometimes dared the lower-end hotel lobby ones too.

For someone less presentable, there is nowhere to "go" during the day without security pouncing on you but the public buildings whose staff are bound to behave welcomingly, and that's pretty much just the library (warm) and the Pike Place Market (chilly).

if I were homeless downtown perhaps that's where I'd bathe too