Do city's troubled toilets gotta go?

"The George Michaels collection is fantastic," said Stewart. "It captures the essence of disgustingly filthy conditions of the public restrooms that you forget you're having sex in the safety of your own home. Michaels has an eye for detail right down to the tissue paper plugging the mysterious hole in the stall's wall, homosexual graffiti in eclectic urban graphic novel form, depicting various penises of exaggerated sizes in permanent states of arousal, all individually hand drawn by local artisans. And complete with non-function toilet that you cannot help but feel a cop is about to walk in on you at any minute."

"Disquietingly filthy," said Modern Architecture Magazine. "So much so that you can't help become strangely sexually aroused no matter what your sexual orientation."

Council President Richard Conlin said he voted to install the toilets after seeing their success in Europe, where "everybody uses them."

"They are a middle-class phenomenon," he said. "We thought we could impose that."

As chairman of the utilities committee, he plans to discuss removing the toilets at a meeting this afternoon. After four years, "It is an experiment that ultimately has not been successful," he said.

Councilmember Jan Drago, who for several years championed bringing the toilets to Seattle, did not return calls seeking comment.