There’s good news for New Yorkers who’ve been holding it in: The first of the city’s much heralded public toilets is finally on the way. When Cemusa won the contract to install 3,300 new ad-friendly stainless-steel-and-glass bus shelters and 330 newsstands around town, the new loos were a part of the deal. Supposedly, everybody wins: Cemusa pays for the right to install the “street furniture,” and the city also gets a cut of the ad revenue. But so far, no bathrooms. Justin Blake, a spokesman for the Spanish company, says that the toilets were scheduled to arrive over the summer, but the manufacturer in Italy has been fussing with the model and ran into production delays. The first one will be located in Madison Square Park, Blake says, and open around New Year’s. What a relief. The toilets will have ads, too, but they won’t be free. “Save your quarters,” Blake says.

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: December 10, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!