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Texas City Now Features See-Through Bathroom In Town Square

Updated: Tuesday, November 20 2012, 03:45 PM CST

Bizarre.  A public bathroom in a Texas town square with completely see-through walls!  But don't worry... you can only see from the inside out.

The bathroom in Sulphur Springs, about 40 miles north of Tyler and it is being touted as the first of its kind in the United States.  It's modeled after an Italian artist's exhibit that also features a see-through bathroom.

One by one Sulphur Springs residents are giving the all glass bathroom a whirl.  You can pretty much see the crowd hanging outside -- even watching you. But thanks to the finely-engineered craftsmanship, they can't see you. 

"I was excited about it," resident Meredith Caddell says. "I think it's just really unique and I've been standing outside long enough to know that I could not see in.  But it was strange when you had four men standing there looking in the door. But they couldn't see me."

There are a couple of things that had to be changed in order for the restrooms to meet code.

"There's no steel frame holding up the architectural exhibit, and so this has a stainless steel frame inside. And the other one had see-through glass on all four walls, and this one has it on three. We had to have a place to hide all the plumbing and air conditioning and heating. This is heated and cooled, unlike the one that the artist did. So this meets code, for one, and it's a lot more durable, I think, in the long run," Marc Maxwell, Sulphur Springs City Manager, says.

The city says for citizens who may be wondering if these restrooms are safe to have on the square, all you have to do is look up.

"If you take a look around, we've got nine cameras here on this square watching what goes on, and they're all monitored at the police department. And they're all recorded in high-definition color. Trust me. This is the last place a creep wants to hang out," Maxwell says.

But after two cups of coffee and a long drive to Sulphur Springs, it was definitely a place I wanted to hang out.  The city says they have already gotten calls from all over, asking about the restrooms.
Texas City Now Features See-Through Bathroom In Town Square