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Loo York app icon: a crowned toilet on a yellow background

Loo York

The nearest restroom you can actually get into. New York City.

Download on the App Store

iPhone first. An Android version is in testing.

Loo York's Code Brown screen: “RUN. 2 min. You got this.” A large 2 min, Union Square Park, a yellow Go button, and a backup restroom under “Plan B, just in case”.
Code Brown. One answer, one tap.

Why I made this

It started as a joke. I had recently released a phone app, Spike Tape, and I asked a friend whether there was an app they wanted me to make. They said a restroom finder. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

We both laughed. Then I thought about it, and it was a real problem. When I first moved to New York City, I ran into it myself. I went to the App Store and downloaded one or two restroom apps. Both were maps covered in pins, and that is not what I want when I am in a hurry.

So I decided to try. How do you take a kinda embarrassing emergency and make it easy, maybe even a little fun?

It's not a map

When you are in a hurry, you do not want to browse 30 pins. You want one answer.

So the first screen is one question and three buttons. The 🚨 one is the biggest and the easiest to hit.

The first screen: “How bad is it?” with three buttons, Chill, Kinda urgent, and a very large red Code Brown button. Below them, a pale yellow button: “+ Found a secret throne”, with the line “Know a restroom we missed?”.
The first screen
The Chill screen: filters for open now, free, accessible and baby changing, then a list of nearby restrooms near Union Square with walking times.
Chill
ModeWhat it does
ChillA few good options, with tags and amenities.
Kinda urgentThe nearest ones that are likely open.
Code BrownOne restroom and one backup. Only places we're sure are open. No questions asked.

Choices I made, and why

  1. “Confirmed 2 hours ago” matters more than stars.

    A 4.2-star rating says nothing about whether the door is locked today. Every place shows when someone last got in.

  2. Code Brown only sends you somewhere we're sure is open.

    It would rather send you farther than point you at a door that is shut. Places whose hours are uncertain are marked in orange in the other modes, and left out of Code Brown.

  3. Code Brown ignores your filters and never asks which maps app to use.

    One second matters.

  4. The map is there, but second.

    When you want to look around, the Map tab shows every restroom we know. The color tells you the kind of place: yellow for public restrooms, blue for the city's new Throne restrooms, green for stores and malls you can just walk into, purple for cafés and shops that are for customers only. Tap a color at the top to filter.

    The Map tab around Union Square: colored restroom pins in yellow, blue, green and purple, filters for open now, Throne, public and stores along the top, and a yellow “+ Found a secret throne” button at the bottom right.
    The map, color-coded by kind of place

  5. Knowing how to get in is data too.

    Walk-in, customers only, ask the staff. Google will tell you a café has a restroom, not that you need to buy something first. In New York City that is the real problem.

  6. Hours follow New York City.

    Many park restrooms close in winter. A recent report that a place is locked overrides the posted schedule.

  7. People confirm each other.

    Know a restroom we missed? Add it with the “+ Found a secret throne” button, on the first screen and on the map. You can add one only where you are standing. A new place is greyed out (“Unconfirmed legend”) until other people confirm it on site.

  8. Faster than opening the app.

    On iPhone, Siri, the Action button and a Control Center button open Code Brown directly. The list of restrooms lives on the phone, so it still works without signal.

  9. No account, no ads, no tracking, no photos of restroom interiors.

    Location is used only while the app is open. The exact details are in the privacy policy.

Where the data comes from

The city's public restroom dataset (parks, libraries and other facilities), OpenStreetMap, and a list I curated by hand: stores like Target, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and the new Throne public restrooms.

The data is refreshed regularly. Park restrooms the Parks Department lists as closed for repairs are taken off the map, and park restrooms that shut for winter are hidden in the cold months. New Throne restrooms start as “Not open yet” until people confirm them on site.

OpenStreetMap data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License.

About 1,640 restrooms across the five boroughs.

It is early. The data has gaps, especially in midtown. The app gets better when people confirm and add places.