Sometime about a year ago I had an idea for a website that would help people find publicly accessible bathrooms in New York City. The idea, as I explained to anyone who cared to listen, was that users would submit bathroom locations to the site, which would add them to a database, map them and allow other users to review them and add other pertinent details about the bathroom. I figured, in a city of millions of people and countless hidden spots, there must be a treasure-trove of bathrooms spread throughout the city, fully accessible — but mostly hidden — from unknowing pedestrians with an untimely urge to find them. Ultimately, I imagined users pulling up the site on their web-enabled phones and finding a list of bathrooms closest to their current location. They would immediately know where they could go when they had to go.

Sadly, my idea remained just that, as I was rather busy at the time with working a full time job, teaching at night, and being otherwise occupied with living my life and pursuing other ideas and hobbies. But today the idea popped into my head again. Lately I’ve been deluged with news about GPS devices and the coming web-phone revolution (subjects I keep a watchful eye on as I look for investing opportunities), and with all this technology on the cusp of being mainstream, my idea seemed as relevant as ever. So I took a few minutes to do some searching, and sure enough, I discovered that in the year since it first popped into my head, my idea has been materialized in the form of NYrestrooms.com.

In fact, NYrestrooms is almost exactly as I imagined it. The site seems to be in its infancy and is lacking in user-generated content, but I’m sure that will come in time. I’m admittedly a little bit sad that someone beat me to the idea, but also kind of gratified that the idea has been implemented — especially since the chances that I would have ever fully implemented the idea myself were slim. So there you have it — you snooze you lose. So go check out the site and contribute what you can!