Relief For The Passing Parade
SUNDAY AGE
Saturday August 22, 1992
IT IS 75 years, or as close to it as anyone can recall, since those in dire need were first able to find relief below street level. Time has marched on, but the city's strategically scattered subterranean public lavatories are a going concern.
In other cities, councils, exasperated by the prevalence of deviant behavior, expensive maintenance and a belief that ``when you've got to go, you've got to go" is no longer reason enough, have closed their underground toilets. In Melbourne almost a dozen have survived.
For some, they are sinister no-go areas, more intimidating than the ground-level variety. From the top of the stairs you can never be certain of precisely what lurks below. For others, the subterranean lavatory is a refuge from the hurly-burly above ground.
According to the state historian, Dr Bernard Barrett: ``It's amazing that these underground toilets still exist at all when you consider the aspects of our society which have vanished over the years.
``A ground-level toilet is okay in a park, but on a footpath it can be an eyesore. It is unlikely there will be any more underground toilets built." Some of the underground toilets are known homosexual haunts. Council cleaners jangle their keys at the top of the stairs as a signal that those below should compose themselves.
Mr Rod North, Melbourne City Council's supervisor of cleansing, said that drug use inside the toilets was not a major problem. He agreed with Dr Barrett that the glory days of the subterranean toilet had passed: the expense of excavation and tank construction was too great.
Attendants are still present at the bottom of the stairs beside the GPO in Elizabeth Street, and in Collins Street, just opposite the City Square, but these men and women are a disappearing species. Other underground toilets once had their attendants too, but the toilet staff that remain now cost the city an estimated $500,000 a year in wages, a high price.
At road level, at least, the city's underground toilets are classy places, resplendent with iron fencing and ornate arching entrances. Downstairs some have a dozen or more cubicles. Foreign tourists are impressed that no payment is required. Nowadays, stainless steel urinals are favored over the old porcelain variety, some of which still may be found.
At the GPO and Collins Street the male and female attendants work inside fish-bowl glass booths. They sit for hours with watchful, though discreet eyes, ready replacement toilet rolls and jumbo tins of air freshener at hand. A staff of 30 attendants work at these two locations.
And, yes, officially there are additional ``relieving" staff.
Among the regular attendants is Mrs Ngaire Jones, who works at the ladies' loo in Collins Street which is decorated in pink tiles, with even a row of make-up mirrors and stools down one wall.
``You get to know people, especially old ladies who've been shopping all day," she said. ``For them it's a refuge and a place to rest. People like to come down here because they know they'll be safe. You meet a lot of nice people here. It makes you feel good when they praise the cleanliness of the place." The opening and closing times of the underground lavatories, the first of which Dr Barrett believes were completed in Flinders Street about 1918, have been reduced over the years. Now none stays open beyond 10pm. Once, you used to be able to go until 11.30pm. Twenty-five years ago pubs closed at 6pm; when their doors shut there was literally nowhere to go.
``The user-pays outlook expects people to use toilets in cinemas, hotels and stores," said Dr Barrett. ``I hope that Melbourne's historic underground public loos will still have a place in the economic rationalist future."
© 1992 SUNDAY AGE