QUEERWARSAW
Broadway
The “toilet granny” from the Broadway toilet did not have it easy. This is how Mariusz Szczygieł described her in 1986 in Na Przełaj weekly:
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The toilet granny swears more and more. Indeed she got the worst “cottage”, i.e. lavatory. She only opens 3 cubicles out of 9 in the men’s. The buggers wreck everything. She finds bottles and needles. She even found a “stiff ” man. …And so the cottage lady complains that 5 zlotys from everybody entering does not cover her losses. If one could at least kick the faggots off; but for them the toilet is a sanctity. They come and come every minute. There was one that barged in fifty times one night – she counted. And maybe even more. She is not entirely sure, because she had fallen asleep later on. He was pretending to wee. His luck that men do not pay for peeing. They stand there in a line in front of the urinals, and there are many urinals there – fifteen – and they peek above each other’s shoulders… Oh, if only AIDS devoured all those faggots. … They have no flats of their own, the families kicked them out, the police chases them – so where are they supposed to meet others like themselves? Sometimes she feels sorry for them and swears just ostensibly, so they don’t make her work difficult.
29. The Queen of Warsaw Public Convenience
30. Broadway “on the surface”
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Here is how a participant of the toilet activities describes one of the methods of toilet “pulling”: Between the cubicles there were gaps by the floor, so if you didn’t want to stretch one’s neck, you could put a mirror on your shoe and see what was going on next door. One gal pal had an idea to use a dental mirror, which revolutionised pulling.
Nowadays it would be to no avail to look for those wide passages divided by the famous thirteen columns, where the thrill-seekers would linger. The promenade is now full of retail and food booths, pawnshops, newsagents, bars and cafés. On one side there is still a row of storage lockers – this is where the so-called “gallery” used to be – a place to watch visiting “rough trades”. After the renovation, a new toilet, closer to the Palace of Culture, took over the modest baton of cottage No. 2 from the legendary first one.
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