You've heard of the term rust belt chic. But the Pittsburgh Potty? It's highlighted in this piece about authentic cities that happen to be in the Rust Belt.
"Take the
Pittsburgh Potty. For recent generations it was about the shame of having a toilet with no walls becoming the pride of having a toilet with no walls. From
Pittsburgh Magazine:
We purchased a house with a stray potty, and we’ve given that potty a warm home. But we simply pretended as if the stray potty didn’t exist, and we certainly didn’t make eye contact with the potty when we walked past it to do laundry.
The Pittsburgh Potty is basically a toilet in the middle of many Pittsburgh basements. No walls and no stalls. It existed so steel workers can get clean and use the bathroom without dragging soot through ma’s linoleum.
Authentic: yes. Cool? A toilet?
Only in the partly backward Rust Belt of Harvey Pekar and friends. From the twitter feed of
@douglasderda who asked “What is a Pittsburgh Potty?” Some responses follow:
“I told my wife I wanted to put ours back in, but she refused. I threatened to use the stationary tubs.”
“In my house, that would be known as my husband’s bathroom.”
“It’s a huge selling feature for PGH natives. I’m not kidding. We weren’t so lucky in our SS home.”
“We’re high class people. Our Pittsburgh Potty has a bidet. Well, it’s a hose mounted on the bottom, but still ….”
Read the full story
here.