Thursday, March 31, 2011

Rex Theater

1602 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203
Grade: D


While I'm feeling up to visiting painful Super Bowl memories, I might as well get around to reviewing the restroom of the establishment at which I watched the game. The Rex really was a pretty good venue for this event, despite the awful "sports rock" band that for some reason played beforehand and made us miss the pre-game Terry Bradshaw/Ben Roethlisberger  interview (and whose front man then had the gall to walk around shoving their CD in our faces, apparently feeling that their timeless performance warranted a record sale or two). Despite the disappointing outcome, it was an exciting game throughout, during which I of course enjoyed several bottles of IC Light. As a result, I felt compelled to pay multiple visits to the bathroom.


The first thing one sees as approaching the men's room seems to hint at promising, if kitschy, decor:



But alas, there is no such fun to be had within the facilities themselves. The walls are bright read and metallic colors, which is great for displaying the relatively sparse yet uncreative graffiti. The seat of one toilet was still lined with toilet paper from whoever had used it last, and the toilet itself either had not been flushed or was unable to flush. The hand dryer was non-functioning, and while it is clear that the proprietors tried to make up for this by stocking the place with paper towels - I counted five loose rolls, in addition to the one in the wall-mounted holder - the fact that these were placed on the countertop next to the sinks means that the rolls were soaked through and utterly useless in terms of hand-drying capabilities.

Undoubtedly, the most interesting aspect of this restroom was that both urinals were filled with ice cubes.  Chris (author of a recent PTDB guest post about Consol Energy Center) pointed out two things about this strange phenomenon: 1) urinating on the ice cubes at such a close range yielded an immediate misting effect, which patrons may have - though probably would not have - found pleasing, and 2) the presence of said foreign objects caused an undesirable splash back upon being sprayed. Ultimately, we could find no positive side to the ice cubes.






No comments:

Post a Comment