Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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A friend of mine was distressed by the condition of the men's restroom at the Roanoke City Market Building.

I remembered being appalled by that restroom every time I'd gone into it -- which was not many times for that very reason.

My friend persisted: The City Market will be renovated in anticipation of increased visitors generated by the opening of the new Art Museum of Western Virginia in 2008.

Even now, he said, tourists deserve better than they're getting -- paint peeling from walls, drab colors, sticky floor tiles and the odd bit of obscene graffiti, plus the retro-ugly fluorescent lights.

Something should be done, he said.

Finally, on Thursday, I walked from the newspaper office to the market building and found that my friend had not exaggerated.

The city contracts with a maintenance service to clean the building daily. On Thursday afternoon, a maintenance man worked away on the upper level of the building, not far from the restroom, which exhibited a lack of spit and polish.

Well, maybe not spit.

Brian Brown of the city's planning, building and development staff acknowledged Friday that it's pretty bad up there.

(The original complainant said a woman he knows indicated that the women's restroom, although dated, is not fancy but overall is less off-putting.)

Some of the trouble lies with the building's age -- it's more than a century old.

Some lies with the absence of a major overall renovation in more than two decades.

And some lies with disrespectful patrons who scrawl obscene graffiti, splash water everywhere and in other ways make the space resemble a nightmare of a state Department of Transportation rest stop.

But, to use a cliche, public restrooms are what they are.

All kinds of free public places get abused.

Are parks pristine?

Not usually.

Beaches?

Step carefully.

Streets and alleys?

You jest.

The market building's men's lavatory, as the nuns used to say, is little, if any, worse than restrooms in some fast-food restaurants along the interstates.

If you ride the creepy elevator to it rather than take the soiled stairs, well, no wonder you feel grumpy when you arrive.

Brown noted that the market building is undergoing a $274,000 improvement project. Presumably the restrooms will be included.

The most radical preservationist would want that.

But afterward, saving it from the ravages of our fellow men will be impossible.

It's a guy thing.