Old and Obscure West Campus Bathrooms

I ambled down the labyrinthine, Jesus-adorned hallways of the Gray building early this semester—a structure that until recently existed in my mind only as a foul-weather shelter for the Refectory route—seeking a bathroom. Up two steep flights lies a thick wooden door I muscled open with puny biceps, turning the lock behind me as I entered. Inside, I was greeted by Shooters-style saloon doors that might make any unreasonable person stride, revolver-slinging, toward the toilet nook. I welcomed its tomb-like privacy.

I, an unlikely Magellan of Main West, hereby launch an endorsement of old and obscure West Campus bathrooms. Circumnavigate the quad with this verbal map I so generously provide, and you, too, may discover what uncharted treasures I’ve seen.

Enter the Languages building, proceeding past the fixed cluster of romance language grad students smoking on the steps. Climbing to the second level and turning left at the glass doors, girls will find a now-deceased potted plant inside their bathroom, vines outstretched pathetically from its small throne near the lattice windows. A heinous and burgundy fainting couch, unskillfully fashioned in plastic/leatherette, begs for your heavy school bags.

Later, bask in the faded aristocracy look of the Faculty Commons bathroom entryway, or according to its own distinguished medieval lettering, “The Faculty Cloak Room.”  Note that its potted plants are neither dead nor alive, merely dust-laden, eliminating the vexing problem of faculty caregivers and/or waterers on sabbatical. Feast your eyes and tired bodies upon its worn brocade furniture, observing that although it may have been selected with the intent of a WaDuke decorator, it was purchased with the wallet of a University administrator. And finally, wander past the glass doors barricading Breedlove and into its nearby restroom, sampling the peculiar collection of dated toiletries and pondering the intent of its large industrial sink.

I’ll confess that I far prefer this real estate to the gleaming, shiny-tiled toilet temples of CIEMAS or Perkins, where little of character awaits you upon your entry. Now go, boldly, on where others have been before you, hopefully having left no trace.