Tokyo’s Public Toilets Will Leave New Yorkers Sobbing

A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines. [Curbed]( MONDAY, APRIL 15 STREET VIEW [Tokyo’s Public Toilets Will Leave New Yorkers Sobbing]( With civic envy and political fury. [JAPAN-ARCHITECTURE-CULTURE-LIFESTYLE-TOILETS]( [JAPAN-ARCHITECTURE-CULTURE-LIFESTYLE-TOILETS]( Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty Images Movies are machines for generating envy, but you can keep your mauve sunsets and cinematic peaks, your luscious gowns and roast birds shellacked to implausible perfection. Wim Wenders’s tender and lovely film [Perfect Days]( has fired me up with a new object of desire: public bathrooms as clean and beautiful as those in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo. In the film, Koji Yakusho plays Hirayama, a gently taciturn man who nourishes his craving for order and poise through his profession as a toilet cleaner. Equipped with an arsenal of specialized tools, he performs a daily ritual of precise movements to maintain the gleam of 17 branded Tokyo Toilets scattered around Shibuya. And they exist in real life! They are neighborhood beacons, functional sculptures, mini-resorts for five-minute vacations, and shots of urban color created by an august array of designers and architects (including two Pritzker Prize winners). To a New Yorker who sees these gemlike installations pop up onscreen, and watches them get polished to a mirrored gloss, they seem like science fiction. [Continue reading »]( [Anniversary Sale: Celebrate with $20 off unlimited access, plus get a free anniversary tote.]( [Anniversary Sale: Celebrate with $20 off unlimited access, plus get a free anniversary tote.]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( The Latest [Ron Chernow Bought at the Dakota The new apartment feels very appropriate for the Hamilton biographer.]( By Adriane Quinlan [Eva Alt Is Selling Downtown The dancer turned broker has managed the impossible: making it cool to be a real-estate agent.]( By Bridget Read [‘Please Don’t Hang Out Here’ The West Village is wary but ready for Gen-Z fans of Sex and the City to discover Magnolia Bakery and 66 Perry.]( By Clio Chang [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Read More From Curbed]( [Sign up to get The Listings Edit](, a weekly digest of the most worth-it apartments in New York. [GET THE NEWSLETTER]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe]( | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1701 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2024, All rights reserved