A City of Two Tails

Philly is divided into shit and no-shit zones.

by Bruce Schimmel

I got a gutful of insight about cities and civility recently, after finding myself halfway through a box of dried fruit, with no place to, well, go. I had been noshing through a big red box of raisins when some basic digestive functions unexpectedly stirred and insisted on being satisfied. Very, very soon.

At the time, unfortunately, I was behind the wheel, which made it difficult to fend off the Sun-Maid's sudden onslaught. Worse, still, was where I was. Hunting Park West in North Philadelphia offered few prospects. Unless there was a big pot under the trash along the sidewalk.

The beer-and-shot bars were shuttered. Restaurants were almost all takeout. This was a badlands, indeed, for someone with a belligerent bolus.

It was Bonfire of the Vanities meets Trading Places meets Alien.

With my own butt aching, I learned that Philly is a city of two tails. Those with pots, and those without. Philly is divided into shit and no-shit zones.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," I groaned, as I whipped across four lanes and bounced into the parking lot of a Mobil. Gas stations have to have bathrooms, right? Here, though, the usual rules have been suspended. Inside, there were no doors with signs that read "Men," "Women" or just "Toilet." Doors here didn't even have doorknobs.

Thick slabs of Plexiglas separated those within from us outside. Blocked also by a language barrier, I jumped back into my car and jackrabbitted to a Valero station down the street.

There, I found the same Plexi and the same glassy stares from those within. As nature's call jumped an octave, I clutched my gut and bolted out.

In the parking lot, I saw a sweet-looking old lady, lugging some shopping bags. Ah! She'd know where to go. Even on the meanest streets, there's always someone with a measure of pity.

"So where do people go to the bathroom around here?" I squeaked to the lady, as the Sun-Maid took another jab at my innards. She looked up sympathetically. But she cut her pity short with a grimace of contempt, as if to say, "Stupid old white man, don't you know any better?" Lowering her head, she shuffled on.

If I were dragging my tail around Manhattan, they would know better. In that big, bad city, every hotel seems to make its amenities available to everyone. There, civility demands this common decency.

In Philadelphia, by law, every sitdown restaurant must have a public bathroom for its patrons. Though most restaurants, located in Philly's civil areas, will open their doors to just about anyone in need. After all, it's only human.

Independence Mall welcomes America with a tidy palace of potties, just across from the Liberty Bell. And even grimy old City Hall, in addition to bathrooms inside, now boasts a spiffy, cheap and self-sanitizing bathroom pavilion on the north side.

The shit/no-shit rule divides the civil city from the uncivil. It's also a corollary of the busted-window phenomenon. Places without pity are not only broken and dirty; they don't (or can't) acknowledge that human beings have basic human rights — like fresh air, clean streets and a proper place to poop.

Which is why even neighborhoods convulsed by crime still cry out for green spaces and tidy sidewalks. There is a direct correlation between treating people humanely and getting back civil behavior in return. It's known as the golden rule, and it works.

Seems to me that peace in the streets must begin with basic human amenities. That people will take back their neighborhoods faster and easier if City Hall provided a weekly battalion of sanitation workers instead of the occasional invasion of police officers.

As for my own tale of the city's two tails, it came to a happy if somewhat bitter end. After bounding from hoagie shop to pizza place to Chinese takeout joint, I finally found a public bathroom. Though, ironically, not in the shop of a kindly local merchant. But in a KFC/Taco Bell. What a shame that the only store to offer a shred of decency was owned by a faceless corporation. Which says something very sad indeed. That Philadelphia, founded on brotherly love and mutual civility, is floundering for their lack.

(bruce@schimmel.com)