Wildcats, we know one of the most trying endeavors on campus can be finding a decent bathroom in which you can do your business. Accordingly, we sent out arts reporter Shane Holly far and wide to find UA’s best and worst restroom — thusly shortening your quest to locate campus’ ultimate porcelain throne.
BEST
1. Student Union Memorial Center, North Ballroom
The bathrooms outside of the North Ballroom in the Student Union Memorial Center gleam with the elegance of facilities not meant for students. With the ballroom hosting all kinds of meetings and conferences for important members of the community, the bathrooms are always immaculate and actually smell really good. Like, North Ballroom bathroom is probably one of my top 10 favorite scents.
The bathroom is somewhat obscurely located, but the back exit from Cactus Grill leads directly to the North Ballroom. So next time you’re enjoying some campus grub and then have the urge to purge, take the back way and enjoy a peaceful and well-scented setting.
2. Old Main
Using the bathroom on the first floor of Old Main makes you feel extremely regal and important. It may be hard to find if it wasn’t for the sign, because the door is a thick, wooden slab built to blend into the wall that opens automatically after applying a little pressure. The door swings open revealing a fantastic bathroom, not necessarily in design, but in quality.
A long line of sinks and toilets run parallel at the far end, and immediately to the right is a handicap stall with its own sink and mirror inside the stall. Flushing a toilet here feels, I imagine, something like spiking a football in the end zone of Arizona Stadium, or high-fiving John “Button” Salmon in the hallway.
3. Environment and Natural Resources 2 building
This is one of the newest buildings on campus and, therefore, my expectations were fairly high. The bathroom is a little cramped and stuffy, but it certainly delivers aesthetically. New tile and granite make the bathroom fit for the big reveal in an HGTV episode. Considering the fact that this is a bathroom in an environment building, it was nice to see the toilets adorned with an eco-friendly flush system. Overall, it’s a nice, clean bathroom that shouldn’t disappoint.
WORST
1. Cesar E. Chavez building first floor
This is one of those bathrooms that you’re thinking about leaving the second you walk in. Immediately, you’re bombarded with bright, pastel yellow tiled walls and a wave of musty bathroom-ness.
For the men, we are lucky enough to be provided with what Thomas Kidder, a bioinformatics junior calls “pre-WWII urinals” — an odd, tub-like contraption that requires the user to awkwardly straddle the toilet. There’s a mirror at crotch level, the soap dispenser hangs an inch above the trashcan, forcing you to reach into the trash just to wash your hands, and everything looks like it’s about to fall apart.
“It smells like a cave,” Kidder said.
2. Math building fifth floor
On the silent fifth floor of the Math building, a bathroom awaits in forgotten antiquity. Blue tiles from floor to ceiling, the broom-closet bathroom hosts one sink, a urinal and a stall. The sink has two faucets. One of them works.
There’s a door stop in the middle of the floor — because everyone wants to prop the door open while they pee — and the stall is made private by a curtain, rather than a door. Feeling like I’m about to be called on, I make a quick exit and don’t look back.
3. Social Sciences building third floor
The bathrooms in Social Sciences, another old building, are in desperate need of a makeover. The bathroom, approximately the size of Harry Potter’s cupboard, is cramped and unwelcoming, but not all together unbearable. There’s a newspaper on the ground next to the toilet for some light reading and a smell that encourages you to pee as fast as you can. Skyler Marquez, a general studies freshman, describes the bathroom as, simply put, “pretty shitty.”
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