Central Connecticut State University is the home of zero parking availability, dorm rooms with no air conditioning and creaky bunk beds, and stereotypical college meals. The abundance of dining halls and fast food chains within a Subway “five dollar footlong” reach leaves a man with the need for readily available and comfortable restrooms. Fortunately, the campus provides plenty of quality and convenient locations to do such business. Following is a go-to list of restrooms for the male members of our student body who are looking for some peace of mind when nature calls.
5. Anything in the Social Sciences Hall
A brand new, $20-something million dollar building means one thing—awesome bathrooms.
On any floor of the Social Sciences Hall, a bathroom can be found. Pressing through the hefty door, men enter a subtly lit atmosphere, with a plethora of shining stainless steel automatic sinks, sensor-equipped soap dispensers (unfortunately plastic), motion activated towel dispensers, no-touch urinals, and almost-always-flushed pearl white toilets. This John is one step away from an attendant with hot towels and Calvin Klein cologne samples.
However, anything innovative draws traffic. The chance of finding an empty restroom here is difficult and nearly out of the question. Also, too much technology has its problems. Sensor toilets flush early and often, automatic sinks allow minimal time, and the paper towels dispense at their leisure, not yours.
4. Student Center, Second Floor
Second floor, adjacent to the Women’s Center, lays a strategically placed bathroom, providing quiet relief with similar almost-new features and amenities as the Social Sciences Hall.
This restroom offers a peculiar layout, set into divided sections, and has that typical men’s room feel: green accents and stalls lined with diamond plate metal. The urinals have beefy dividers, offering the maximum security one can find in a public restroom. And finally, the reflective soap and towel dispensers are manual—features that react on your command, not of their own accord.
Although the bathroom is tucked away, it’s unfortunately placed in a heavily populated building. The bathroom is becoming a new discovery for some with more strenuous business, leaving behind pungent and intolerable odors.
3. Davidson Hall, Down One of Those Hallways
Down an overlooked hallway, perpendicular to the main drag of Davidson, is a bathroom not often encountered and difficult to find. It bears parochial school style faux-marble stalls, two-toned toilets, a rusty and exposed radiator, and short, undivided, “get in close,” built-into-the-wall urinals. Fitting the theme, it appears less traveled and old-school equipped; hand-operated, push, pull, and turn amenities. It’s the perfect place for the elementary school nostalgic.
There are downsides, though; in the winter months, prepare for the sting of cold porcelain. Remember the parochial school look? You’d better crouch. The stalls are constructed for grammar school students. I’m 5’8” and if my head summits the stalls, that’s a problem. To all who ate their green beans, pick elsewhere.
How does this reach number three? Everything’s human controlled. Now we’re getting somewhere.
2. Willard Hall, Bottom Floor
Within the confusing and eerily quiet basement, next to the custodians’ unofficial break room, lays an uncommonly found bathroom. It probably hasn’t been updated since the 1960s, but the chunks of tiles missing, the strange circular cutout in the wall, and it only being useful during daylight hours are what make it beautiful. Everything in there is manual, with the most updated thing being a new trash bag in the bin. Feel free to raise CCSU’s water bill, leaving the faucet on as long as you wish and maybe even rest your belongings on the random, but ever-convenient shelf because you won’t be disturbed. Sure the urinals are about nine inches apart but hey, maybe people were less bashful back when Willard was “state of the art.”
1. DiLoreto Hall? Third Floor? That building hasn’t been knocked down yet?
Beyond the echoing hiss indicative of a gas leak, lies one of the most unknown sanctuaries CCSU has to offer. It is decorated with 1950s-era seafoam green, tacky tile, old and beige stalls penned by bathroom scribes, and it provides manual amenities: standard issue hot/cold knobbed sinks, two paper towel dispensers—one authentic, the other modern—and chipped, black-rimmed, porcelain toilets. Its vintage nature and nostalgic feel give more than a simple bathroom experience, but a chance of reflection, pondering what life might have been like during the Eisenhower administration.
Also, the ultimate privacy to shoot baskets with crumpled towels, beating the faux-buzzers at your leisure makes this bathroom second to none.
Maybe a stall door won’t lock, swinging at will, and a sink is more a squirt gun than a fountain, but hey, no one’s there to catch you with your drawers down.
No mention of the Marcus White 2nd Floor lavs with showers! Remnants when it was the college’s dormitory!