Sebastian Junger's Toilet

How have I managed to take a picture of a toilet belonging to prominent non-fiction writer Sebastian Junger? (And, according to my color coding, use the thing?)

Junger is half-owner of the Half-King Pub in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, in New York. It's at 505 West 23rd Street, at 10th Avenue.

The nearest subway station is at 23rd and 8th Avenue, but the M11 bus runs right past it, going north on 10th Avenue.

I went to that pub and photographed the toilet. Ergo, Sebastian Junger's toilet.

Or at least a toilet in which Sebastian Junger has 50% ownership.

The Half King is almost underneath the High Line, an abandoned elevated railway line that has been turned into a long, narrow, elevated park.

The High Line runs between 10th and 11th Avenues, from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street. The southern section of the park, from Gansevoort to West 20th Street, is already open. There are access access points about every two blocks, currently at Gansevoort, 16th, 18, and 20th Streets. The park will be 1.5 miles long when it is completed.

The High Line was built in the 1930s, to move freight trains overhead and free up the streets. This was an industrial district at the time. 10th Avenue had come to be known as Death Avenue given the number of collisions between freight trains and street traffic. Switches led to elevated branch lines running directly into buildings. The last trains ran on the High Line in 1980. For close to thirty years it was simply abandoned, with plants and even trees growing out of the elevated structure.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

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