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CONEY ISLAND: In Coney Island, ocean a fine alternative to still-closed toilets

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By Will Bredderman

Brooklyn Daily

Come on in! The water is a little bit warmer than it should be!

Some Coney beach-goers say the city may have wasted $5 million on yet-to-open Boardwalk bathrooms for the People’s Playground since no amount of toilets will ever be as convenient as the Atlantic Ocean.

“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” said Albert Navarro, who said he remembered first relieving himself in the water as a youth growing up in Sodom by the Sea. “If you’re all the way out there swimming, and you start feeling like you have to do it, you’re not going to make it all the way back here and then have to stand on line. And, I mean, it’s all nature, right?”

Other visitors to the People’s Playground’s shore agreed that residents are more likely to cut out the middleman when transferring their liquid waste from body to body of water.

“I think people who are going to do that are going to do it regardless of whether there are bathrooms around or not,” said Leonard Glassman, who admitted to warming the water a few times himself over the years.

Even those who would not confess to releasing their own stream into the deep argued that the huge crowds thronging the beach make swimming in other people’s urine inevitable.

“All these people, you have to think, maybe one in 20, one in 30 of them pee in the sea,” said Grigoriy Abramov, who refused to confirm if he was among that number. “How many people is that? Maybe three, four hundred altogether?”

And others said it was impossible to control the bladders of youth filled with excitement — and liters of soda and lemonade from Nathan’s.

“I mean kids, they’ll go right in a swimming pool. You aren’t going to get them to come out of the water to do their business,” said Donna James, who declined to comment on her own excretion habits.

The city continues to forge ahead with its plans to install high-rise pre-fabricated bathrooms on the Boardwalk, despite protests from Brighton Beach residents who fear the elevated toilets will be an eyesore. The Parks Department would not provide an official opening date for the futuristic loos.

Reach reporter Will Bredderman at wbredderman@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4507. Follow him at twitter.com/WillBredderman.

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