The door is marked “MEN” (sometimes “GENTLEMEN”). It is the sign of the men’s bathroom, an essential facility in any restaurant (or any other public area, for that matter). Since HG has become an old guy, the presence of a bathroom has become a matter of necessity. Men’s bathrooms vary in quality from sumptuous to vile. In HG’s younger days, better restaurants had bathrooms staffed by courteous attendants who handed visitors towels and soap. There was a bowl for tips. The Algonquin Hotel had a very distinguished attendant and the luxurious bathroom that served the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel had an attendant with the manners and bearing of a European aristocrat. (HG once shared a visit to the Oak Room bathroom with movie star Cary Grant, a paragon of style and elegance). French bathrooms vary in quality from stylish to serviceable to disgusting (“Turkish” toilets that are holes in the floor). The quality of food served in a restaurant cannot always be judged by the quality of its bathroom. Most New York Chinatown bathrooms are deplorable while the food is splendid. Bathroom attendants maintained anonymity. The exception was the bathroom attendant at New York’s long demolished Polo Grounds, the stadium in north Harlem that once housed the New York football and baseball Giants. The old African-American gent in charge of the men’s room would chant: “No matter how you shake and dance, the last drop always falls in your pants.” He added: “After you’ve had your little pee, don’t forget to remember me. Old Sam”. He was always tipped.
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