I shit you not: john of the John, part 2

I return to you, my fellow loo-natics, with a dive into another john of the John. The john under scrutiny this week is the john of the John Carter Brown library. This library sits at a corner of the Main Green, across the lawn from my beloved Rhode Island Hall, right by the gate that floods immensely every time it rains. On the outside, it looks majestic, looking exactly like an old Ivy League library might look on the outside. It’s got a complicated history*, but of course, we can only rate a building based on its bathrooms.

I climb up the stairs (deduct points for accessibility) and open the ginormous doors to the library and I’m immediately overwhelmed. It’s quiet. It feels like I’m encroaching upon a forbidden space, like I’m not supposed to be there. There’s a literal fence separating the entry section from the actual library, with signs telling you you’re restricted from bringing your bags in. Thankfully, the bathrooms aren’t actually inside the library portion of the building, but right by the entrance. Bless the architects for making it not too difficult to find. 

It’s a pretty library, with a fancy chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle and the walls adorned with tapestries and paintings. I can imagine that it’s the perfect quiet, ambient sort of place to get work done, surrounded only by the scent of old paper instead of the usual teary-eyed, sweaty kids who’ve overstayed their welcome. 

To get to the bathroom, all you need to do is enter and then either turn right or left. Some man walked into the one on the left, and I heard a lock click. Confused, I walked into the other bathroom. 

I walked in through yet another large door. The first glimpse of light told me it was a multi-stall bathroom, but I’d heard the lock click on the other bathroom...so what was going on? Was the lock on the inner bathroom really that loud? I could’ve sworn it was a turning lock, not a sliding lock like that of most multi-stall bathrooms...

Turns out it’s another one of those weird single stall but non-single user bathrooms. I suppose this is useful if someone really needs to use the sink while someone is taking a shit or something, but I would feel so uncomfortable walking in while someone was taking a shit in the stall, especially because there’s only one stall. It’s so intimate, yet so private, so...incorrect for a bathroom. Bathrooms should only exist in two categories: public and obviously multi-user, or single-user. These bathrooms that float in between challenge this and will lead to the collapse of society. What is this in-betweener doing?

As it turns out, you can lock the outer door from the inside. It seems a little overkill, seeing that you can also go into the actual stall and lock it, but I guess it never hurts to be safe. The walls feel a little fancy and so does the flooring. It’s obviously a plastic knock-off marbled material, but y’know, points for effort. The lighting is decent; there’s something slightly wrong with it that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s not too terrible. It doesn’t give any kind of weird...radioactive glow like other bathrooms I know. 

I’m a little put off by the door to the toilet. It’s like a regular door, and kind of makes you feel like you’re going into a separate room, which you kind of are. But if it is, then you’d expect the door to be a lot more firmly closing, with less gaps between the door and the wall, but there’s a huge gap between the top of the door and the wall. It’s almost more uncomfortable than having a completely open top area. If you were sharing this bathroom with someone else, you would totally be able to hear and smell everything anyways. 

The door actually kind of feels like an afterthought more than something that was planned. It feels like it shouldn’t be there at all. The door, when opened, just barely misses the corner of the sink. 

What is this? It leads me to believe that this wall and this door were placed there after the initial construction of the building for some reason. Did someone suddenly think that it would be a good idea for others to be able to use a sink while someone else was taking a shit? The other prominent flaw at hand is the crack between the toilet stall door and the wall that holds it in place. 

It’s such a big crack. You can literally see everything that’s going on. 

Heck, you can see the outer door from the inner crack. 

The toilet itself is functional and fine. It smelled very strongly of the Febreeze right on the windowsill, which is significantly better than smelling fresh shit. It’s a bit of a small stall, though, given the entire rest of the bathroom that’s closed off to you. It’s kinda gross, though, because there’s no explicit place to put your backpack, so you’ll just have to put your backpack down on the ground. 

At least the sink is nice. It’s got a bunch of nice smelling soaps, and got a ton of other supplies underneath the sink in case you’re in need. 

But the adventure does not end there, my dears. I was informed that the bathroom to the left differs every so slightly enough that it’s an entirely different experience altogether. Alas, I returned to the John Carter Brown library and beelined for the left bathroom. 

Upon entry, a blast of warm air enveloped me, inviting me into the bathroom. It was significantly larger than the previous bathroom, but had a lot of the similar flaws. It is the same in-betweener, rejecting the bathroom binary of single-user and multi-stall. The outer door is again lockable, with an inner toilet stall door. A characteristic nipple lamp shines upon you as you stare into the mirror and brush those eye crusties off of your face. There is fortunately a tampon/pad dispenser, though I don’t believe they are functional. 

The “lobby” of the bathroom is quite nicely adorned, though, with a vase with flowers, a coat hanging area, a “table” of sorts, and a map? It’s...welcoming, in a sense. 

But you look up and you spot a really weird trapdoor-esque figure with an outlet. Why is there an outlet on the ceiling? Who in their right mind decides to suspend a cord from a ceiling? I wouldn’t let my phone dangle from up there. 

The toilet stall is much more spacious than that of the other bathroom. There is plenty of leg room for those who have been given a vertical advantage. There’s a strange grate right by your foot, but you’re frankly too busy hoping you locked the outer door and the inner door, staring intently at the door while you’re letting one loose. Another Febreeze spray sits on the windowsill. 

After all’s shit and done, exiting the john and the John leads you to quite an exquisite view of the Main Green. There, you can see the changing colors of the leaves, glimmering in the sunlight (that quickly fades away), and in the background, you spot Rhode Island Hall, a blessed presence. 

They’re not bad bathrooms, but it’s important to note that it’s not open during the weekend. It’s got its own hours, ones that may not align with your own bowel movement schedule, but it’s by no means unshittable. 

*In 1985, approximately 350 Third World students rallied to demand that the University resolve issues raised by students of color in 1968 and 1975. The Third World Coalition occupied the stairs of the John Carter Library to reclaim documents of Brown’s slave-holding family. Students expanded from the 1968 and 1975 demands, demanding the creation of a Brown Center for Students of Color, the establishment of an Ethnic Studies program, and the conducting of reports on Third World student life at Brown. Harold Jordan, student leader of color, demand greater recognition and representation for students of color on behalf of the Third World community. The John Carter Brown library is named for the family who made their fortune off of the slave trade of African people, and it possessed the important books and artifacts documenting early American History, a testament to the validity of their statement. Jordan claimed that the history of black people at Brown is not separate from the history of black people in the US, and that they were simply asking the University for the same recognition. The BCSC was subsequently moved to Partridge Hall, Armando Bengochea was hired and appointed as a dean to address the needs of Latinx students, and the Blue Ribbon Committee conducted a report on Third World life at Brown. This rally increased Asian matriculation, but many of the demands from the 1975 protest are still not met, such as increasing the numbers of black students at Brown to their percentage of the US population. This footnote was adapted from scripts from the Third World Transition Program’s Resistance Tour.

Images via MJ Lee '22.