An Effort to Maintain Civil Discourse, on the Walls of a Bathroom

James Estrin/The New York Times The Hungarian Pastry Shop in Morningside Heights is a favorite haunt of students at Columbia University. The bathroom walls have become a forum for high-minded graffiti, but the owner recently repainted the walls after virulent messages appeared touching on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

By some standards, a repainting of the Hungarian Pastry Shop’s bathroom may have been long overdue anyway.

The tiny lavatory in a back corner of this half-century-old coffee shop in Morningside Heights had become a local legend for being so graffiti-strewn that there was barely room to add any more.

But this was not your average sophomoric scribbling. There was little in the way of silly profanities or potty humor at this intellectual haven on Amsterdam Avenue near 111th Street, across from the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

High-minded scrawl â€" from sociopolitical credos to wiseguy retoolings of Nietzsche to Middle East politics - has always been the graffiti of choice here, written and read by the intellectuals pouring out their angst in journals at the shop’s crowded tables, or graduate students slogging through master’s theses or doctoral dissertations at this longtime haunt for students of nearby Columbia University.

But students returning this semester have found whitewashed walls, or nearly so â€" already new writings have begun to appear. But a screed has also been posted across from the toilet in bold black letters calling for something unheard-of in “this strangely located forum” - order and decorum.

“Over the years, you have transformed this private space into a very public and eccentric one, a tradition we would like to see continued,” reads this message, noting that “recently the conversation has taken on a tone that we cannot encourage.”

The message was written by the shop’s owner, Philip Binioris, 27, who urged customers to help keep the bathroom “a nonbiased and nonjudgmental space,” so that “the conversation can proceed more sensitively, respectfully and with an intention toward constructive exchange.”

In an interview, Mr. Binioris said that a hostile back-and-forth had escalated on the walls, largely over Israeli-Palestinian relations. Then provocative scrawlings began appearing - a swastika-Star of David hybrid â€" prompting many complaints from customers.

While a scrawled swastika at many establishments would immediately call for a cleaning crew, the reaction at this coffee shop, where free speech and a wide latitude of expression is venerated, was more measured. There were no calls to the police or the Anti-Defamation League, but rather a series of intense discussions and philosophical introspection.

“I had many conversations with customers, and a lot wanted me to do something about it immediately, but others understood that it was part of the debate, and that that’s what’s in the world, so you have to deal with it,” said Mr. Binioris, whose parents, Peter and Wendy Binioris, bought the shop in 1976 from a Hungarian couple who had opened it around 1960.

Even as Starbucks branches have cropped up nearby, and similar coffee shops have become overrun with laptop users, the Hungarian Pastry Shop has kept an Old World style by remaining cash only, dimly lighted and offering no Wi-Fi or electrical outlets, even while offering free self-serve refills of coffee.

Mr. Binioris said that while the bathroom has had periodic paint jobs, this one - done in July during a weeklong renovation of the shop â€" was the first time it was necessitated by the discourse, and it was not a step he took lightly.

James Estrin/The New York Times A sign posted in the bathroom encouraged patrons to maintain a sense of decorum when scribbling on the walls.

“I talked to family and friends about it,” said Mr. Binioris, whose mother is Jewish, though he did not grow up religious.

“I wish they’d have expressed it in a more healthy way for themselves and the community,” he said of the swastika writer, whose identity he never learned. “People are capable of much more enlightened debate.”

He ultimately decided to repaint because, he said, “I cannot encourage that kind of offensive language and tension represented by that drawing.”

After a couple weeks since classes began at Columbia, the bathroom walls are already well-covered with new messages, some of them strong sentiments about the situation in Syria, but nothing warranting intervention, said Mr. Binioris.

At a place that attracts loners and where couples and groups speak in hushed tones, the bathroom has become a forum for patrons to be heard.

“That’s part of why I like coming here,” said one customer, Rose Hackman, 27, who wrote much of her thesis for a master’s degree in human rights at these tables.

“There are always interesting points being made,” she said. “It kind of connects you to what other people in here are thinking.”

Sitting nearby was Josh Armstrong, 30, a doctoral student at Rutgers University who was reading a book called “Principles of Linguistic Change.”

Mr. Armstrong, who lives in the neighborhood, said he noticed the Israeli-Palestinian argument on the walls heating up in recent months, and guessed that perhaps some of the scribbling was from political science students “getting intellectually interested in politics for the first time, and having a chance to express themselves.”

He agreed with the repainting, as “a restart button” to convene a new discussion and to encourage customers to “show some humanity and sensitivity with what you’re writing.”

“Even when it gets aggressive, it’s fairly informed political discussion,” said Mr. Armstrong, who studies the philosophy of language and completed much of his doctoral dissertation - on meaning in modern language â€" in the shop.

The bathroom discussions, he said, evolve slowly, unlike many Internet discussions and forums.

“It’s like sending a letter,” he said. “You have to wait a day or two for responses.”