Photo by Alan Zilberman
By DCist Contributor Alan Zilberman
The Rock and Roll Hotel is a flagship of the H Street Corridor. Owned by the omnipresent Joe Englert, the music venue is perfect for acts that are too big for DC9 and too small for The Black Cat or The 9:30 Club. Occasionally the Hotel will host a band before they get huge: Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, and Savages all played smaller shows there before they went on to headline big concerts and festivals. But the venue is not just noteworthy for its private rooms and dubious sound system. The bathroom is unique, although it has some fundamental big picture failures.
+6 for a urinal trough: This is the first thing to notice about the bathroom. Instead of individual urinals, there is a long, communal porcelain trough. This is the sort of thing we see in a stadium, not a dark venue where hipsters and bros rub elbows. Sure, this is a mild invasion of privacy, but hold your dick right and it’s no big deal. Also, the bathroom is a narrow space so the trough allows four dudes to stand side by side (two or three would fit with stalls). The drink shelf is an added bonus.
-4 for a velvet curtain instead of a door: The toilet in the men’s room is partially obscured by a purple (burgundy?) velvet curtain. This hypothetically could offer the same amount of privacy as a traditional stall door, yet it does not create the feeling of privacy (I realize that I say privacy is overrated in the preceding paragraph, but peeing and shitting in public are as different as apples and oranges). The curtain is also more difficult to close than a door. Look, I get it, the Hotel is going for a “metal chic” aesthetic or whatever, and the curtain speaks to that, but there is some basic bathroom functionality that no one should fuck with, ever. And, gross, the curtain is harder to clean than a door, meaning… *shudder* gross. I bet velvet is great at holding onto small particles of fecal matter.
+2 for an adorable hygiene bear: Immediately above the sink, there is a picture of a cartoon bear—probably lifted from The Oatmeal—that reminds employees they must wash their hands before returning to work. It’s a goofy little touch that makes me smile before I walk down the stairs and through those large swinging doors.
-4 for an upstairs only bathroom: I already touched upon this problem in my last column, but the topic deserves another examination because an upstairs-only bathroom didn’t use to be the case here. Past the ground floor stage of the Hotel there is a perfectly serviceable bathroom that used to be available to the general public. I don’t know when the switch happened, exactly, but now the Hotel’s staff has people go upstairs when they need to whiz. I know why they do it—the ground floor bathroom corridor is the same space where bands load and unload their gear—but it’s still a major pain, especially when you must fight through a dense, sweaty crowd.
+1 for stickers, stickers, stickers: Along the trough and toilet below there are stickers for bands, record labels, you name it. I, for one, like to read while I pee (I cannot wait to review a bathroom that puts the newspaper above its stalls), and while stickers aren’t exactly informative, I’ll take what I can get. The young men who put their stickers onto the porcelain are the Hotel’s real unsung heroes.
-1 for middling hand drying options: This column always ends with hand-dryers, and the Hotel’s offering are not especially noteworthy. If memory serves, they offer a meager stack of paper towels, which are OK, I guess. I know I should do my due diligence and take photos, but taking photos in a bathroom is much harder than you would think. I have to wait until it’s empty, and what if someone enters? I could get cold-cocked for doing what I consider a public service.
Overall score: Zero. This is a strange score. I guess the merits do not outweigh negatives, and vice versa. This bathroom is neither above average, nor is it shitty, it’s just… adequate. Now if the trough was a foot or two wider, then it’d certainly receive a positive score. I hope future establishments follow suit and embrace efficiency.
