The Pittsburgh Potty

Having been gone from my home town for many years, and advancing in age, I've succumbed to the usual pangs of nostalgia for the good old days. Of course, the good old days weren't always as good as we like to remember ... as a consummate nerd, I was well and thoroughly bullied back in elementary and high school, but time tends to sand off the edges of the bad memories, and I've since reconnected with many of the old high school crowd (although not the bullies).

But aside from all that, there's an element of Pittsburgh nostalgia that came back when I read this article - What the Heck Is a 'Pittsburgh Potty' and Why Is It in Your Basement?

A "Pittsburgh Potty" is an ordinary toilet, but one that sits in an unusual place - usually right out in the open in the basement of older homes in the Steel City.

Considering that the toilet is usually employed in the service of functions that call for privacy, why does a Pittsburgh Potty sit in the open?

I'd never thought much about it, but the article has an interesting discussion of the history of the eponymous potty, and offers two competing theories. One relates it to the needs of the miners and steelworkers of the Pittsburgh region who would come home from work utterly filthy and enter their homes through basement doors or "mud rooms" where they could clean off the worst of the mess before going into the living areas. The other, which may be the more accurate, suggests that the toilets were placed in basements in order to keep frequent sewage backups at the lowest and easiest-cleaned level of the home.

Regardless of the real reason, I doubt that the old Pittsburgh Potty would be accepted in the wildly overpriced McMansions that we see here in NoVa.

Just plumbing the depths of history for you to start the new week.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo