Features
Into the bowels of Hamilton College
By Grant Hamilton '18
September 1, 2016
Tags features
When tasked with finding the best public restrooms on campus, I faced a surprisingly complex question: what qualities make bathrooms good?
I first thought privacy was the most important quality, but foot traffic depends so much on the time of day. For instance, the Bundy dining hall bathroom is dead 99 percent of the time unless there is a party going on in the next room. Also, a bathroom can be as private as possible but still be awful. Case in point, the Bristol Center’s restrooms (the basement ones, not the one attached to the Hub) are cramped with blah colors and painfully inconsistent placement of stalls and sinks.
I myself only end up visiting my favorite bathroom on campus in its peak hours during Pub lunch. The Pub bathroom’s wood-paneling gives off a sort of NESCAC-ski-lodge-with-lots-of-graffiti-vibe. Despite how busy it can get, this is my favorite bathroom because the words “Toy Story 2 was okay” are carved into the the stall’s interior. Who thinks of that?
Despite the fact that privacy isn’t the most important factor, I went ahead and found the most private bathroom I could— buried in a far corner of the List Art Center (the one attached to McEwen). For an abandoned academic building, it has a surprisingly homey washroom. It is a personal bathroom containing a small side table with a tablecloth and fresh potpourri. If it were not for the sub-par ventilation and non-existent temperature control, this would be a contender for top toilet.
I asked students where their favorite bathrooms are, and Continentals love the ones in the Kennedy Art Center. As attractive and well-lit as they may be, I have to be honest— they leave something to be desired. Then it hit me. A great bathroom needs to have an X-factor—a little something special that makes me go, “Wow.” The Taylor Science Center has new and entirely satisfactory bathrooms, but they are just too wwgeneric (even with roomy stalls). On the other hand, the Christian A. Johnson Hall has all-around bland bathrooms, but their high ceilings bring a lot to the table. It is an X-factor that diminishes as you walk upstairs—each level has a lower bathroom ceiling than the last. It’s kind of like how the library toilets are progressively taller on each floor.
I think the Chaplaincy comes close to having the best bathroom on campus (the one on the right, that is, not the left one that consistently smells weird). It is spacious and makes me feel right at home, but the view is wasted by poor potty placement.
While surveying these two unisex bathrooms and trying my best to not look like I was surveying bathrooms, I realized that I was only experiencing all-gender and men’s rooms and thus only getting half the story. Although I did not feel comfortable strolling into each of the women’s bathrooms with my notepad, I did dare to peek into Root Hall’s women’s lounge during after hours. It is located in the vaguely haunted-looking basement and blends nicely with the floor’s nightmare aesthetic. I hope the school puts more effort into the rest of the women’s facilities on campus, because even though this bathroom was well stocked with toilet paper, it had clearly been missing a toilet for at least five years. It also lost some points due to spiders and a lack of functionality, but, wow, was it private.
I decided to save what is probably the most important bathroom, the one in the Admissions Office, for last. I say that this bathroom is important because this building serves as the face of the College for visiting families. This bathroom should reflect our high standards on the Hill and offer prospective students unforgettable experiences.
When I stepped inside, the magazine rack attached to the toilet paper dispenser immediately stood out to me. Brilliant. They had a crisp Hamilton magazine waiting for visitors.
Despite the presence of this innovation, I could not help but be distracted by the variety and, dare I say, even incoherence of materials used by the room’s designer: a wooden door, white ceiling, one kind of stone flooring, a different type of stone on one wall, and grey wallpaper on the other three.
Simply put, this bathroom has a lot going on, and no amount of mood lighting can change that. I approached the sink at my journey’s end with a feeling of disillusionment. The automatic faucet poured a continuous stream with the best water pressure I have experienced on campus. I can only compare the sensation of that water hitting my palms to the pride you feel when the Alexander Hamilton mascot low-fives you repeatedly. That faucet could be the perfectly subtle bit of pizazz that elevates the restroom—maybe even our school itself—to the big leagues.