Museum Of Fine Arts - Boston, MA (Ladies Room!)

Museum of Fine Arts - 7.2

Boston has a great deal of museums and other educational institutions that are not only fun, but help expand the old noggin. The Museum of Fine Arts, or MFA as it is known, is one of the city’s gems and is a fine place to spend your afternoon. Located at 465 Huntington Ave in Boston, it is accessible by taking the Green Line E train to the MFA stop and is open 7 days a week, although on some days they close at 5pm. They house a massive collection of art and relics from all sorts of periods and locations and have rotating special exhibits and galleries.


Location: If you enter the Museum from the West Entrance on the side of the building (which I believe until renovations to the building are complete this serves as the main entrance), the WC is directly to your left, through the coat/bag check area. The men’s and women’s room are pretty close together, so make sure you end up in the right one!
Grade: 9 out of 10

Accessibility: The ladies room at the MFA scores high here because you can actually access the bathroom without purchasing a ticket and entering the museum! That’s right, by using the West Entrance on the side of the building, the coatroom/restroom area is actually before the ticket kiosk, and therefore, if you were just in the neighborhood and needed to go, you could walk right in. The only downside is that you have to walk through the coat check area, so if there are a lot of people checking coats and bags/paying for parking etc, you’ll have to cut through the masses. If you actually enter the museum, there are plenty of smaller bathrooms hidden in less trafficky areas, but if you’re just coming off the street, this is your only bet.
Grade: 9 out of 10

Number of Stalls: The women’s room has 3 regular stalls and one handicapped, resulting in 4 total. A fair amount, depending on the time of day. When I initially entered the lavatory, I had to wait behind three other women, which, if you are in a dire situation, won’t suffice. But, when I came out, the entire restroom was empty. I guess that whole philosophy that women always go to the can in groves follows suit and that my arrival time was unfortunate. If you need privacy, perhaps not your best bet, place is pretty hopping. However, if you like the business because the hustle and bustle might drown out any embarrassing noises, then you’re pretty safe here.
Grade: 7 out of 10

Stall Quality: Stalls here are pretty typical standard faire, generic in size, color and design. The door worked fine on the unit I was in, so no problems trying to hold the door shut while juggling what to do with my purse, which is always the worst. No one wants to show the entire ladies room a sneak peak of the goods when you try to switch hands holding the door shut trying to get the toilet paper out, so luckily today I was safe from that embarrassment.
Grade: 7 out of 10



Toiler Paper: The toilet paper itself was your typical, industrial rough minimal 2-ply. Not the nice stuff you’d stock at home, but not a small little square of crappy 1-ply. The bonus here comes with the fact that the supply was well stocked, 4 full rolls in this crazy contraption of a dispenser. Not only was it full, but it was functional and none of the TP was dangling on the floor where it could get all gross. Heavily protected and at capacity, just in case you need a little extra.
Grade: 8 out of 10

Cleanliness: There are a lot of pluses and minuses here. The stall area was pretty clean for such a high traffic bathroom, didn’t really see any bits of toilet paper littered all over the floor to worry about getting stuck on the shoe (don’t want to be that girl!). However, I did happen to notice that the stall’s receptacle for the disposal feminine products wasn’t a little metal box attached to the stall wall but a larger garbage can slightly behind/to the right of the toilet. Decent location, but the lid of the garbage can was pretty gross looking, with some sort of film and nastiness all over it. If I had to throw something away there, I’d have to use the toilet paper as a barrier between me and the lid. The sink area could use a good once over as well – the garbages were pretty full with paper towels and the sinks had a lot of excess water. A good amount of paper towel overflow onto the floor as well. Neither of the paper towel dispensers worked, so I was forced to dry off from a roll that was just hanging out on the counter, which makes you second guess whether or not it was even worth washing your hands in the first place.
Grade: 6 out of 10


Scent: From the coat check you got a whiff of all those chemicals they use in bathrooms to prevent them smelling bad that just results in them smelling weird and semi-gross. Once inside, the scent of fresheners wasn’t that obnoxious and I didn’t really notice any odor inside the stall.
Grade: 6 out of 10

Flush: An automatic jobber here, which I’m generally a fan of in such high traffic areas, because who knows how many people have touched that flusher before you got there. Toilet flushed at appropriate times, which means when I got up and started to walk away, and not when I moved slightly to the side to get toilet paper, as some bathrooms do. Not much worse than when the automatic flusher goes off before you are off the pot resulting in a misting of toilet water. It's also worth noting that when a toilet flushes from the men's room, it shakes the toilet, so get ready for a little ride!
Grade: 8 out of 10


Aesthetics: You’d think being the Museum of Fine Arts they’d put up some prints or pictures or something. I mean, even the bathrooms on the mass pike have a little table with flowers on it. The walls and stalls were a boring tan/beige combination, not even any cool tile colors or interesting stall color. Florescent lighting just added to its overall blahness, not a place I’d go and hang that’s for sure.
Grade: 5 out of 10


The Bottom Line: Not only does the MFA provide a fine, cultural, educational experience here in Beantown, but you can also sneak in and use their bathroom if you ever feel the need, no questions asked! Perhaps they’ll open a photography exhibit there one day, featuring all the fine photos on this blog!

contributed by: 2-Ply Pi