Main Street Needs Public Restroom, BHS Student Says In December 2024 - Rite Aid's Closure Speeds That Up
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The restrooms in Rite Aid were commonly used by the public on Main Street. Now where will the people go?
Photo Credit: Top 2 slides are from Kekoa Beysa; Photo of Bathrooms by Katie Hellmuth
The public restrooms in Rite Aid on Main Street were an unofficial public restroom for all of Beacon. In addition to the Beacon Public Library, there are very few places to use the bathroom on Main Street. While there is a bathroom at Pohill Park at the Visitor’s Center on the tip of the west end of Main Street, this is not accessible by anyone actively participating on any part of Main Street outside of the first block who is on foot.
The sign at Solstad House saying that people can use their bathroom.
As the need to go to the bathroom increases, the burden continues to fall heavily on the businesses on Main Street, who already had issues with limiting the public’s access to their facilities. Several establishments have new signs up, barring people from coming in to use the bathroom.
One boutique who does allow people in - as well as dogs - is Solstad House, on Beacon’s east end near the mountain.
During last year’s Beacon High School Student Participatory Budget presentation on 12/2/2024, a partnership between the City of Beacon and the Beacon High School that has resulted in significant infrastructure improvements like needed upgrades to the basketball court at Loopers, one student, Kekoa Baysa pressed for public restrooms to be installed on Main Street.
Kekoa acknowledged that there were already permanent restrooms in Memorial Park and Green Street Park, and wanted restrooms installed on Main Street in a spotlit way. For years, the bathrooms at Memorial Park and Green Street Park existed but were closed, citing vandalism. After a muraling project made them more attractive, and a cleaning company contracted to clean them regularly (instead of relying on the Beacon Highway Department to clean them) under the direction of City Administrator Chris White, the bathrooms in the parks have remained open since then.
A new permanent bathroom is being installed now at South Avenue Park, near Loopers Basketball court and the tennis court, as infrastructure improvements received funding and started in spring. This will be a relief to Sal’s Pizza, who serves as the primary public restroom for kids playing down at the basketball court.
However, when discussing the public bathroom on Main Street at the following City Council Workshop (12/9/2025), City Administrator Chris acknowledged that it was useful, but indicated no priority in building one. Instead, he said one could perhaps be built in a future “pocket park” at the DMV property, if a building were to get built there. As there are no active plans moving forward to develop that property, the vision of a restroom there is distant. “We had talked some years ago about converting Veterans Place or somewhere else into pocket parks. We've talked a little bit about a pocket park at the DMV building if we build a new building there. So I I would see it being done in the context of of something like that,” he advised the City Council.
He recollected: “We almost advanced with the Veterans Place when [James] Skoufis was going to get us money, and then our his district didn't end up including Beacon.” Instead, City Administrator White proposed signage to better direct people to the bathroom in the Visitor’s Center, all the way down on Wolcott Avenue and Main Street.
Signage for that has not materialized. Can people hold it long enough for a new building to be built at the DMV parking lot? Or walk the mile or half mile down to the Visitor’s Center?
