Every Picture Tells A Story

Seattle's Million Dollar Toilet saga has come to a painful yet ridiculous end. The automatic restrooms have been closed off with tiny little padlocks, and the super-loos are up on EBay. The original minimum bid requirement of $89,000 is gone. Apparently there were no takers.

The New York Times took the opportunity to write on this at length last month. Apparently, we West Coast rubes who think we live in a real city make an irresistible target, especially when we're being stupid and indecisive on such a grand scale.

Not surprisingly, bidders have been scarce. What municipality, during this age of homeless criminalization and urban upscaling, is going to set themselves up by purchasing the Emerald City's cast-off vectors of drug use, criminality, and prostitution? It's a case of bad provenance.

With a little more than eight days to go on EBay, bids on the five toilets now range from $306 to $510.

The photo, taken the night the toilets first closed, is by my friend Revel, who recently became my fiancée. This is French for "person I want to marry." We are of the same clan. It's Alpha-love.

The glass giant that looms behind is the Fifteen Twenty One Second Avenue Building, one of four luxury high-rises going up in the neighborhood. If one wishes to convey exclusivity in a common street address, one method is to spell the numerals. The building bathes the neighborhood in bright reflected light. It's all part of this building's specialness, and the very specialness of those who, sometime between this December and May, will occupy this citadel of excellence. To quote from their website:

If one is lucky, there's a time in life when simplicity takes on new meaning. It becomes less about style and more about the ability to appreciate that which is rare and true.

At Fifteen Twenty-One Second Avenue, the architectural profile is tall and lean, the residential windows floor to ceiling, the water and city views a daily gift. Modestly put, it's a downtown home for the confident few.

Private preview appointments available upon request. Priced from one-million dollars.

Nice. I bet they'll have really beautiful bathrooms.