Why Are Public Restrooms So Controversial? The Legal History and Future 

DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 2025

TIME: 4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. ET

PLACE:
New York Law School
Room A10
185 West Broadway
New York, NY 10013

RSVP TO THIS EVENT.

COST:
This CLE event is free of charge. Registration is required.

CLE:
1.0 Credit in Areas of Professional Practice (NY transitional and nontransitional)

If you seek a public restroom in New York City, you will likely end up using a restroom in a private establishment instead. That’s because New York City only has 1000 public restrooms for 8.3 million residents.

In 2025, the New York City Council passed the historic Bathroom Bill, the first law of its kind requiring the city to build over 1000 public restrooms by 2035. 

This CLE program will discuss the history of public restrooms and the many fights they have incited from the 1970s nationwide movement to ban pay toilets to a 1990s lawsuit, Lucas v. Dinkins, brought by four homeless individuals to fix the public restroom shortage. City Planning Commissioner Leah Goodridge and Department of City Planning Housing Director John Mangin will discuss the public restroom shortage and various urban planning strategies — including legal limits on those strategies — to build more in the next decade.