![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DA9_9823_020625-Irving-Sq.jpg\" "\\"FIRST")
\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Inside the Irving Square restroom in Brooklyn. The stainless-steel bathroom includes a toilet, hand sanitizer, baby changing station, and slatted openings for ventilation and safety.<\/p>\n
Photo by NYC Parks \/ Daniel Avila.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s quasi-governmental Economic Development Corporation<\/a> called on vendors Friday to apply\u00a0to design new modular public restrooms under Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0$4 million pilot program,<\/a> which will place the lavatories throughout the city.<\/p>\n The EDC\u2019s request for proposals (RFP), which it shared exclusively with amNewYork before its Feb. 6 release, lays out criteria for companies bidding to design the public restrooms. It comes after Mayor Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced the pilot, which will test 20 to 30 modular restrooms.<\/p>\n Mamdani, in a statement, said the pilot is an effort to address the city\u2019s widely lamented lack of functioning public restrooms \u2014 a problem many city officials have unsuccessfully sought to address meaningfully over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re taking concrete action to build dozens of new public restrooms across New York City,\u201d Mamdani said.\n<\/p>\n The mayor added that having a place to use the bathroom should not depend on how much one makes, whether one works in a business that charges customers to use its restrooms, or what one does for a living.<\/p>\n \u201cFor delivery workers, street vendors, drivers, and so many others, the workplace is the street,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have an office bathroom to duck into, and they shouldn\u2019t be punished for that. This is about building a city that works for everyone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Vendors interested in participating have until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24, to file their applications.\n<\/p>\n The RFP calls on contractors to submit designs for single-occupancy restrooms that adhere to universal design principles \u2014 making them usable for New Yorkers of \u201call ages and abilities\u201d \u2014 do not require connections to water or electricity, are clearly marked as restrooms, and have contractless amenities. The vendors will also be responsible for installing and maintaining the units.<\/p>\n The Mamdani administration said it is piloting modular bathrooms rather than traditional public lavatories because they are far less expensive and can be installed much faster.<\/p>\n \u201cThese modular public restrooms will serve as a blueprint for high-quality, cost-effective infrastructure that improves quality of life for millions of New Yorkers,\u201d said Jeanny Pak, the EDC\u2019s Interim President & CEO, in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cEDC is proud to work with Mayor Mamdani and our partners across city government to quickly advance this RFP to deliver practical, scalable solutions that will meaningfully enhance daily life for all New Yorkers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The effort is hardly the first time the city has piloted modular public restrooms. Last summer, former Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 administration installed public toilets<\/a> called Portland Loos in five parks across the city.<\/p>\n EDC will work with city agencies, such as the Parks and Transportation Departments, in choosing where to place the modular restrooms. All of the units are expected to be installed by this summer.\n<\/p>\n The city currently has close to 1,000 public restrooms, 70% of which are located in parks, according to the EDC.\n<\/p>\n Many of those facilities received low marks in a City Council report<\/a> released in December, which found many of the city\u2019s public bathrooms were closed during posted hours, dirty, or missing basic amenities. The council released a report<\/a> the previous year that found two-thirds of public restrooms were either locked during operating hours or were unsanitary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inside the Irving Square restroom in Brooklyn. The stainless-steel bathroom includes a toilet, hand sanitizer, baby changing station,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":570700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,208919,204758,89548,89360,221265,248210,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,7620,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-570699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-city-council-speaker-julie-menin","tag-department-of-transporation","tag-economic-development-corporation","tag-edc","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-modular-public-restrooms","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-parks-department","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116024232281152497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}