Orange

shocking to see the privacy curtains still intact along with the toilet seats. was there alot of security around ?

Nice to see those curtains and dividers. The stalls are rudimentary, but they'd have afforded some privacy...

I work part time at an elementary school, custodial. It was built in '49, and almost the entire building was built with those same exact cinder blocks, color and all....

My facility was built in the late 1950's, and the cinder blocks are also the same, Some of the buildings at Byberry have also similar blocks.

At the institution where I work, my office is in a building with bathrooms that look exactly like this. That building was built in 1935.

Such impersonality of the toilets - no door to enclose one inside, { well I guess that may be a risk with mental patients ?} the curtains that presumeably have been there since 1984 {!} offer the only sense of comfort and brightness/

Gads, those are the ugliest curtains I've ever seen.

Yeah this shot screams 'Byberry' to me...

I sure hope those brown stains are rust :-O

You've got a sick mind rich. actually i was thinking about that earlier.

I must say that this place seemed to like to give the people privecy unlike alot of the other places.

Yeah it almost seems safe if you get what I mean.

I think there were privacy curtains in front too, I hope...

Some of the bathrooms had full length shower curtains that were identical to those privacy curtains that are still hanging there. Funny how something so typically mundane as a bathroom can be so interesting.

now i really am scared. :(

Why wouldn't they have the tiled walls just go up more? odd. i wouldn't want someone trying to look at me while i pee!

yeah I would have to agree, I really need a door to close me in to be able to handle my business, I would never go, I would just eventually explode!

Privacy curtains and no doors? Oxymorons. (I always thought that phrase meant "airhead")

With solid doors you can lock yourself in and do harm to yourself. Or you can corner someone else and it takes an extra minute to get in to assist them. Finally, if the person has few skills in ambulation, balance, or protective reflexes you can have a nasty fall in there and it takes a while to get in to help pick them up.

Those urine curtains are inovative - pee over the seat and on the floor is one thing, but don't you just hate it when they miss their stall entirely?

That's kind of cute, privacy curtains but no door...

See above comments. As well, assisting people on or off the toilet when they cannot walk and need to use a wheelchair requires more space than your average stall (most of which are too small in the first place), and with the solid doors left on it is VERY difficult to do. Busted Trespasser (also above) noted that in some areas the full length curtains had still been left up. It is very difficult to judge how a place ran when it has been closed for a number of years and only certain items remain.

not a lot of privacy huh?

This bathroom is so pathetic!

What were they trying to do? Save a little money? Did someone get a kick back or something?

Look at the walls. The height of the wall looks like it is about five feet high. And then they installed a cheap rod and crummy curtain.

And where are the doors?

Someone got some dirty money on this cheap back - water, back - woods construction deal.

Mindless governments do not care about the less fortunate.

Signed: An American Soldier in Germany.

Looks lide somebody had an accident on the seat in the middle. OoooPS!!!

The hospital where I work has a building attached to it which is now office space but was once the school of nursing, I believe all of the hallways and bathrooms, etc are made of this type of orange/tan colored brickwork. The brickwork goes up the wall about halfway, sort of like wainscotting.

This made me think of the bathrooms in my elementary school and kids climbing up on the toilet seat in one stall to look over the partition to catch the person in the next stall "in the act." (maybe we were just a strange bunch of kids--we also thought it was cool to sneak into the opposite sex's bathroom after school so that we could say we had been in there).

As for the lack of doors--that's much more understandable after you've had to crawl under a few doors to free a person who was able to lock the door but lacked the manual dexterity to unlock it.

I've known a number of people with autism who had a particular fascination with pipes (turning valves, removing fittings, putting things inside, etc.). The fascination seemed to increase geometrically if the pipes could also gush forth water. Even better was a pipe or fixture that could gush forth water that could then be kept from going down the drain. :-) Without close supervision of bathrooms, a facility could keep a full-time plumber busy just unclogging toilets and sinks.

In housing for people with developmental disabilities, many of the residents need training in personal hygiene/toileting skills. Other residents will "play" with the contents of the toilet if there is not a staff person to keep them from doing so. Sometimes there are medical reasons for needing to monitor a patient's urination/defecation.

Just like with so many other facets of mental health care, one cannot make judgments just based on an isolated picture. There are usually reasons for things being the way they are. And the reasons are not to torture people, violate their rights, or invade their privacy.

loving those curtains! really!

The bathrooms were always crowded. Never any privacy, as it was the only place your were allowed to smoke inside the building. And most patients weren't allowed outside, so, this was was always a beehive of negative neurons......There were the ones with the homosexual persuasion that hung out there, and also the ones that liked to have others burn them with lit cigarettes......oh yeah, nice place to shower and do your business.....

i love it