URE, THE NEW YORK CITY PARKS department maintains "comfort stations," and the subway management claims the system has public toilets. And while the wily will always find a way, the fact remains that New York City lacks public street facilities.

In February, Peter Vallone, speaker of the city council, announced he was sick and tired of the city's lack of toilets for the public. He promised to allocate $5 million for 50 or 60 street toilets. "The city has waited long enough," says his spokesman Mike Clendenin.

The city administration has been flirting with the idea of installing public toilets for years. In 1992, one firm, JC Decaux, placed its coin-operated, automatic toilet in three different sites in lower Manhattan. They caused quite a stir.

After three months, the toilets were dismantled. JC Decaux waited for the city to open a call for bids, but the city was dragging its feet. In 1994, another company, Wall City Design, installed an automatic public toilet in City Hall Park for a year. The public greeted it with great acclaim, but still the city stalled.

Finally, the city decided to call for bids from contractors, but the project never got off the ground for political and practical reasons.

The bid proposal called for a range of so-called "street furniture" — toilets, newsstands and bus shelters — which would be free of charge to the city and self-financed through advertising on or near the toilets.

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