I want to take you somewhere in New York City.

See if you can guess where we are.

Hear that?

It's a 19th century piano composition by Eric Sati.

Now picture a fresh flower arrangement in an antique urn, a full length mirror.

Everything around is sparkling.

There's a pleasant scent, floral and fresh, it's wafting through the air.

Any ideas?

We're in a bathroom, a public bathroom, smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, just a block

and a half from Times Square.

This is the restroom at Bryant Park, open to all, every day, for free.

It's a little New York open secret.

It's almost like Chronicles of Narnia when they open a closet and it's the whole world

waiting for them in the closet.

That's what it's like.

It's nothing like it.

I'm Abigail Keel and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and utilitarian places.

Today we're making a pit stop in New York's finest public bathroom.

What does it take to keep a bathroom in one of America's dirtiest cities clean?

Nice, parkly!

And how did a public park wind up with the nicest lavatory in town?

...