In the past few years, we have seen many crucial changes take place in Archbishop Riordan High School: becoming co-ed, an explosion in enrollment, and the installment of the new Riordan WiFi network. However, these improvements pale in comparison to one of, if not the most important development of the school in all of its history. 

After decades, the bathrooms have been finally renovated and the results are life-changing to the students and faculty of Riordan as a whole.

The infamy of the bathrooms of Riordan was not undeserved. Until this year, the bathrooms were virtually the same as it was in 1949, the first year of Riordan. The graphic details of the bathrooms shall not be mentioned for the sake of decency, but it will be mentioned that multiple generations of hundreds of young men used these bathrooms for seven decades. The results were what you can expect. 

In our new, sleek, modern, and most importantly, sanitary bathrooms, true masterworks of contemporary architecture, we no longer find plenty of examples of “student-led art,” the eternal slight dampness of the tiled floors, or the everlasting buzz of outdated lighting. 

Lest we forget the generous donors, many of them being alumni, who donated enough money to make this change happen. I’d say that many of them, having endured the horrors of the past, compassionately gave some of their wealth so that the current and future generation of Riordan students will never have to endure the pain and torment that they had to undergo. 

Put precisely, “I know it seems ironic, bathrooms with toilets and what those maybe represent, but all the love and effort that went into that is absolutely incredible,” said English teacher Michael Vezzali-Pascual ’88.