The Bathrooms of Oberlin College: A Tier-listed Examination
by Max Newman, Features Editor
Illustration by Zoe Stern
The latrine. The powder room. The loo. The bog. The crapper. The shitter. Oh, you mesmeric thing…
I am going to keep this introduction short and sweet, because an opening section of great length belies the quality of attention that I want to bestow on this article’s subject matter. I went to every bathroom on Oberlin’s campus, and put them into a tier list based on how great or not great they are.
Sort of. It’s not quite that simple – before I begin, three details pertaining to my methods must be established:
I did not include dorm buildings, off-campus buildings, or any on-campus building that only certain students are authorized to enter. Entirely public campus buildings only (there are certain structures that occupy a sort of gray area; of those, I chose to include the bathrooms in the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Oberlin Hotel lobby at my own discretion). I aimed to include every bathroom that fit this criteria, but I may have missed some more obscure ones. I tried my best.
I based my list purely on the overall quality of experience for individuals utilizing these facilities.
A large portion of the bathrooms mentioned are all-gender, but many were not; thus, the following list encapsulates my experience in all-gender and male restrooms only.
It also should be elucidated that this list is arranged in order of increasing quality from F to A+, and skipping E – I abided strictly by grading scale. We start, therefore, with those languishing in…
F Tier: Bad, and Not Even Funny
These bathrooms find themselves at this abhorrent level due to not only sucking, but also, even more dishearteningly, being boring. Take the olfactory aberrations that are the Mudd first floor single-stall bathrooms – potentially the most peed and pooped-in bathrooms on campus. Seldom does entering these cubicles of hell not present one with wispy toilet paper strewn around uncomfortably slick tile, or perhaps even an unflushed turd gently circling the misty toilet bowl. There is also an inherent temporal pressure that quickly manifests itself upon entering these bathrooms; there is no doubt that at the point one opens the door to re-enter civilization, they will be met with a queue of varying size, impatience affixed upon its members’ faces.
The Stevenson bathrooms and Warner basement bathrooms are equally unsavory (to experience the latter’s splendor, one must navigate a narrow hallway flanked by zoo-like cages filled to the brim with out-of-use stage equipment). Aside from their generally unsettling, horror movieish atmospheres, they also are both home to wall-to-floor urinals, one of the worst lavatory innovations of recorded modern history. Why would anyone ever want to pee into a trough. Why would anyone ever want to do that.
Then there is my controversial pick for this tier: the Environmental Studies Building bathrooms. I am perfectly aware that these facilities were constructed with sustainability in mind, and that the yellow tint of the toilet water here is not the result of urine but of tannins, chemicals released by the plants that form the AJLC’s living machine. Of course, I support these efforts. I feel less positively, however, about doing my business into already yellow water. Far less, in fact. And this, unfortunately, is a tier list centered around user experience and user experience only. Alas…
Also featured in this tier: Robertson bathrooms, The Cat first floor single-stall bathroom.
D Tier: Unpalatable, But Alluring
These bathrooms may be woeful, but at the very least, they possess a sort of compelling zaniness. Take the Severance basement bathroom, akin to a dungeon, furnished with faux-marbled sinks and a baby changing station, all canopied by a lattice of elephantine vent piping. There is also the dimly-lit Peters basement bathroom, with its mismatched sinks, circular mirrors, and long, unsettling corridor of wooden stalls. The Wright Basement bathroom features here too, thanks to its stall door-style entrance and oddly mood-lit urinals (these hang above a step-up ledge — also of particular interest to me, as they are veneered with what I can only assume to be directive foot markers. Just in case you forget where to stand whilst pissing).
But the champion of the bizarre here is undoubtedly the Hales Gymnasium basement. There are several mysterious offerings in this world of wonder. Of course, many will be familiar with the 0-level bathrooms closest to the Cat – its rusted lockers and retro-style signage feel like relics from a bygone era. But there are other peculiarities in these parts: There are two single stalls with perilously low ceilings on disparate corners of the labyrinth – one (out of service) in a rather unorthodox L-shape, and the other featuring a sophisticated faux-marbled, green-doored internal stall. Deeper into the maze, nestled in a hallway near the fencing club’s headquarters, is my personal favorite of the lot: the bathroom interior is fairly normal (save yet more faux-marbled stalls), but the lavatory’s sinks are located on a lemon-yellow wall neighboring the ruby-red entrance, rather than beyond it. A magical bit of experimental divisory construction.
Also featured in this tier: Warner first floor bathrooms (A lot of furniture and other random shit lying around in there).
C and B Tier: Different Shades of Mid
These tiers are the doldrums, the purgatory in which we find all of Oberlin’s most run of the mill lavatories of average shittiness. The only difference is that while C contains exclusively bathrooms that are stultifying nondescript (Mudd 2nd floor, Mudd 3rd floor, all King bathrooms, Wilder basement, Finney, all Carnegie bathrooms, Bosworth, Phillips 1st floor, Phillips 2nd floor, Services 2nd floor, Con Library), those in B contain one or two features that are positive, if not difference-making. The bathrooms in Bibbins are prime instances of this, with their long, deep-set, hexagonal windows providing beautiful, room-encompassing illumination for otherwise unremarkable spaces.
One notable entry here is the Dome-side, Art Building basement bathroom. It is gorgeously lit, and is adorned with a haunting yet beautiful beige-toned portrait of a world-weary woman on a small shelf in its near corner (a permanent feature of the space? I’m not entirely certain). But the bathroom is also knocked down a few pegs by what my buddy Beck calls “The Sinkpisser’s Dilemma” – indeed, its urinal and sink are directly adjacent to one another at exactly the same level. There is something uncanny about this, as if there is some detached voice willing the absentminded towards disaster. Scary stuff.
Also featured in these tiers: the Warner 1st floor single-use bathroom, Mudd 4th floor, Rice, Kohl 2nd and 3rd floor, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Science Building 1st and 2nd floor, Wilder 1st to 4th floor (less inviting and more uncanny than their cousins in Mudd – they’re pleasant enough, but possess a certain disheartening lifelessness).
A Tier: Quite Nice
Exceedingly pleasant. These are the bathrooms that provide comprehensive comfort – not spectacular, but still notable in their quality. Of course, there is the old faithful – the Mudd basement bathrooms are a little out of the way, but they always provide a clean, solitary bit of respite in the midst of a dull grind session. There are also some department-specific staples: Kohl’s glossy first-floor restroom, with its pristine urinals and aquamarine glass sinktops, only misses out on the top tier due to the tendency of its enormous, translucent windows to render it a sweltering greenhouse on sunny days. And writing and humanities students will be familiar with the second and third-floor bathrooms in Peters Hall — their utilities are nothing special, but the room-basking light let in by their high windows and views of mid-south campus are emphatically grounding.
But there were also a few surprises here. For instance, the first floor, fitness center-adjacent single stalls in Phillips Gym were alluring, with their top heavy lighting painting mysterious shadows on their brilliant, ruby red walls. And the service building’s first floor bathroom, bland at first glance, possessed a spellbinding accessory: a coat rack, complete with multiple hangers, directly next to its entrance. You gotta respect the commitment to convenience.
Also featured in this tier: the Conservatory lockers bathrooms.
A+ Tier: The Cream of the Crop
Oberlin’s four shimmering 10/10s. These were the bathrooms that quite literally stopped me in my tracks within their thresholds, the type of bathrooms that cannot be described as anything but things of beauty. Did I cry with delirious joy upon my entrance to any of these? All of them? I cannot confirm nor deny.
All four entries in this tier achieved perfection in different ways. The Oberlin Hotel lobby bathroom is perhaps the least boundary-pushing of the group, but who needs innovation when you’ve mastered the fundamentals? Its soothing wall textures, mellow lighting, and nearly astonishing cleanliness are put over the edge into the realm of perfection by the soft tendrils of smooth jazz that drift down from ceiling-affixed speakers at all hours of the day.
The Hall Auditorium bathrooms will give you a jolt – not that the bathroom itself is particularly unorthodox, but it isn’t the type of space that you would expect to find easily accessible on Oberlin’s campus. Its interior is a glinting, pristine palace, with crystalline walls that are shiny enough to see your own reflection in. There is also an absolute abundance of both stalls and urinals within this restroom, a trusty barrier against potentially odious wait times. This loo is hypnotically refined.
Smaller in size but no less memory-imprinting are the avant-garde, cinematic, single-use stalls on Severance’s second floor. Their utilization of space is remarkable - rather than succumbing to quadrilateral conventions, they take on idiosyncratic, triangular shapes, fostering a usage experience that is both wonderfully uncanny and cozily cramped. It also features picturesque, makeup room-style light fixtures, and a whimsical door sign that warns occupants to stray away from scrolling (conveyed through two stick figures anxiously clutching their crotches).
In terms of aesthetic prowess, though, it is perhaps fitting that the champs of Oberlin’s campus can be found on the first floor of the Art Building. The light that enters this room through its enormous back windows is nothing short of exquisite, and the complex shadow patterns on the floor resulting from this phenomenon are complemented by a towering, spiky-leaved plant that squats thoroughly against the back wall. The room is otherwise sparse, with lots of open space, which only adds to its minimalist mystique. A contemplative sort of elegance. Entrancing.
