Chatham University Art & Design Center 2nd Floor

Grade: B
This men's room was a pleasant surprise. Not that I should have expected something crummy - it is the arts building, after all. The restroom is private and, while not exactly glamorous, does sport some impressove faux-marble tile. There's a veritable army of cleaning supplies lined up on the window ledge, which is reflected in the facilities' cleanliness and pleasant (fruity/floral) smell. Nothing to luxurious - everything is manually operated - but nice all the same.

Chatham University JKM Library 3rd Floor

Grade: B

What this restroom lacks in amenities - it's about as basic as you get, with utilitarian tiles, one toilet, one urinal, one sink and manual everything - it makes up for in privacy. In all my time using this bathroom, I have come across one other person while inside. I don't know if it's the out-of-the-way location or the relatively low number of men on Chatham's campus. Either way, it's a great place to get away and relax.

Goldstein Auditorium, Top Floor, Schine Student Center

303 University Pl, Syracuse, NY 13210

Grade: C+

I'm going to do something I generally don't do here - I am going to give the Schine Student Center the benefit of the doubt. This is a generally average men's room, albeit equipped with automatic toilet, urinals and paper towel dispenser. And despite the disarray in the images below - paper towels and toilet paper on the floor, paper towels in one of the urinals - one gets the feeling that there are clean facilities buried beneath it all.

This is where the benefit of the doubt comes in. I viewed the restroom around 9:30pm on a Saturday evening, which is undoubtedly well past the working hours of whoever is responsible for cleaning it. More importantly, though, is that the occasion of my visit to the Goldstein Auditorium was to take in a Diplo DJ set. Possibly as a direct result of said festivities, while approaching the restroom I observed a group of rather intoxicated students huddled around a substantially more intoxicated student, who had taken it upon herself to fall over. Now, I can't blame these kids for partying pretty hard during a live performance by the man who is partially responsible for this album...

...but I certainly can understand why the restrooms would be slightly messier than usual given the circumstances. Given a proper cleaning (which I am assuming it receives regularly, considering the overall great condition of the bathroom), this could be a comfortable, out-of-the-way place to relieve oneself.

Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts (Outside of the Alumni Concert Hall)

5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Grade: A


I'll wrap up my leftover Pittsburgh coverage with this restroom outside of the CMU College of Fine Arts Alumni Concert Hall, where I went to see Sleigh Bells this May. Now, the restroom itself probably does not quite deserve the generous grade above. It is a functional, clean, old university bathroom. There are some nice touches: the brass sink hardware, the strange recessed window, the dorky shadow puppet hand-washing decal that reminds you that, after all, this is CMU.

I will admit to some serious bias here; the grade I've given is more for sentimental value than anything. A sequence of scenes from "Wonder Boys" (one of my favorite movies, and one that will of course always give me nostalgic thoughts about Pittsburgh) takes place in the hall directly outside of this restroom. A perhaps not-so-interesting fact: in the film, Robert Downey, Jr.'s character (Terry Crabtree) drags Tobey Maguire's character (James Leer, who is nearly unconscious on codeine and whiskey) out of the lecture hall and towards the bathroom, where he can vomit in peace. In the film, they move away from the direction of the actual restroom.

The Sleigh Bells shows was actually the first time I had ever visited that building, and it slowly dawned on me as I was standing there that this was where the scenes had been filmed. I knew at the time that I would be leaving Pittsburgh--my home for the past seven years--in a little over a month, and it was a very bittersweet moment.

So there you have it. Bathrooms apparently have the capacity to make me emotional.