It’s in Brighton Beach, a few block down from the Brighton 6th St. entrance to the boardwalk.

The music is audible from fifteen feet away– on our first visit, it was an extra-bombastic instrumental version of  “My Heart Will Go On (Theme From ‘Titanic’), which seemed appropriate to the seaside setting.   The smell is also smellable from this distance.

Visitors to the best/worst bathroom are greeted by an affable, seen-everything attendant outfitted in Parks Department blue.  Her job is to sit at the mouth of the best/worst bathroom with an industrial-size roll of toilet paper and hold it out to you as you enter so you can tear off however much you think you’ll need.   Someone — maybe the affable attendant — has taken the time to adorn the bathroom with garlands of fake pink roses.  Each stall has a few fake blossoms twisted around its doorframe.  And between the stalls there are laser-printed,  laminated signs that say things like “If you sprinkle while you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat!”

Of course, because this is a public bathroom in Brooklyn, there are no ’seats’ per se on the stainless-steel prison-style commodes, which look and smell as if they have never been cleaned at all, much less wiped by scrupulous recent visitors.  On the sticky, urine-drenched floor of my stall was a little red puddle just a little too opaque and viscous to pass for melted snowcone.

The last thing a visitor sees as she leaves the best/worst bathroom is a laser-printed, laminated shrine dedicated to the memory of someone named John, featuring photographs of John in his blue Parks Department t-shirt.  “Who was John?” I wondered aloud as T. and I left the best/worst bathroom.

“Maybe he was the guy who cleaned the bathroom,” she said.   She paused. “It seems like he’s been dead for a while.”