Shea Stadium’s Toilets To Live On Forever

Everyone’s been covering news about the Yankees transition to their new stadium, but Mets’ fans are also grieving the loss of their illustrious Queens residence after they move on from Shea Stadium in 2009. And even though the stadium wasn’t the brightest apple in the bin, Shea’s faithful loved it because it was theirs to love. Even though we’ve read countless reports that the stadium was in a permanent state of post-Woodstock status all of the time. But don’t worry about forgetting the stadium after it’s demolished. The city plans on salvaging some of the best memories of the stadium. Like, your favorite toilet, or the stall door you tagged up with your best work.

Log after the final out, Shea Stadium will live on in the hearts and memories of Met fans - and in park bathrooms, rec centers and pools citywide.
The Parks Department, which owns both Shea and Yankee stadiums, plans to salvage countless items in the days after the Mets play their final game - stockpiling doors, toilets, sinks, lights and other workaday supplies that will be installed in city parks for years to come.
“Our guys will come up, just unbolt everything, take them right to the skids, ramp them right out to the truck and ship them out to the boroughs,” said Parks Department technical services chief Arthur Rollins from inside a women’s rest room, where just about everything attached to the walls - even soap dispensers - will potentially end up in a park.
“Our stuff is extremely practical,” Rollins said in a recent tour of the stadium’s nuts and bolts. “This is stuff that comes out of our budgets, and our shops’ budgets are really small.”

Shea was built in 1964, which means these toilets have about 44 years of piss-grime caked on them. Nice. We’ll be peeing at Starbucks when we’re out and about in NYC, thank you very much.

Parts of Shea will keep on Flushing [NY Daily News]