public rest rooms in NYC
 

Traveling with a group to NYC for the day and am wondering if anyone knows of public restrooms in the areas of time square, rockefeller ctr, canal street, Macy's etc. Thanks for your help

NYC has practically no public restrooms. Your choices are department stores, large hotels and fast food places/coffee shops (where they will expect you to at least buy a drink). One exception - the major bookstores all have public restrooms that are more or less acceptable. Perhaps take a list of them with you (Barnes and Noble, etc)

On http://www.nyrestroom.com/, if you click the green button that says "Click Here to See Restrooms in Current View", you'll get 247 results.

Agreed with nytraveler -- Barnes and Nobles are often your best bet. Otherwise, the big Gap and Banana Republic stores are decent options.

Toys R Us in Times Square has public restrooms on the second floor.

Rockefeller Center: A door or two closer to Fifth Avenue from the Dean and DeLuca (49th St?) which is opposite the Today Show studio is a Japanese bookstore (Kinkoyuna?) which has small public restrooms--it also has a great selection of origami paper. Another choice is the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Ave at 48th-49th St.

Macy's has many public restrooms inside the building, but not on every floor. Check the store directories.

Canal Street is tough--no big chain stores that might have restrooms. Near the west end, there's the Soho Grand Hotel on West Broadway near Grand. Near Broadway there's a MacDonalds but not all NYC MacDonalds leave the restrroms unlocked.

There are restrooms on the concourse level of Rock Center. There are also restrooms in the major department stores: Saks, the ones one the upper floors at Bloomingdales are nice :) and there are some on the second floor of Crate & Barrel plus at a lot more places.

As already mentioned, all Barnes and Nobles have rest rooms as well as STarbucks, McDOnalds (but cleanliness is questionable), hotels and department stores. Some other good public restrooms can be found at Lincoln Center. The Forbes Gallery in the village area also has restrooms which are only available when the gallery is open (most days around 11-4). Citicorp center and the winter garden has some as well. Some smaller stores do have rest rooms if you ask (I know some of the Daffy's do).

On Canal Street maybe Pearl Paint has restrooms because it's a big and busy store in that area. I am not sure about this, but maybe somebody else here knows.

I just googled around, and yes, Pearl Paint on Canal St, near Broadway, does have a restroom in the back of the store. This is perfect for a Canal St stop.

I always use hotels and no one says anything.

When i was interviewing in NYC years ago I practically resided at the Hyatt on 42nd.

Nice bathrooms there and everyone looks clueless anyway so you don't draw unneeded attention

;)