I vividly remember what I think was a short story about archaeologists in the future digging through the ruins of Grand Central Station. They describe what I, the reader who is from New York, know to be a PAY TOILET. I found their speculation about the pay toilet and its contents to be hysterically funny.
55 years later, I would love to find and re-read it AND share it with my daughter and wife, at least.
Could it be Report on "Grand Central Terminal" by Leo Szilard? The article appeared in The University of Chicago Magazine in 1952. It describes pay toilets at Grand Central Station:
Another point, however, was much harder to understand. This problem arose because we found that the door of each and every cubicle in the depository was locked by a rather complicated gadget. Upon investigation of these gadgets it was found that they contained a number of round metal disks. By now we know that these ingenious gadgets barred entrance to the cubicle until an additional disk was introduced into them through a slot; at that very moment the door became unlocked, permitting access to the cubicle.
It goes on to speculate about the significance of the "disks" and the reasons for locking the doors.
Could this be Motel of the Mysteries (1979) by David Macaulay?
The blurb reads as follows;
It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber.
Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization
one of the reviews specifically mentions that one segment concerns the idea that
"that the toilet seat is a sacred collar one must wear before shouting, down the hole, to the gods below"
it could be the short story "History Lesson" from Arthur C. Clarke, from the book Expedition to Earth, which is a collection of short stories from the Author. In the story in question there is a misinterpretation of the working of public toilets as places of worship Where one would put a token (coin) to the gods to enter the sanctuary (bathroom), also a funny confusion about signs that allowed non-smokers to be there, but not smokers, the aliens (if i remember correctly, from venus in the future), related that to pictures they found of paler people (non-smokers) and darker-skinned people as a more smokey look, so, smokers. The same event that ended life on earth make for the conditions for life to develop on venus. The most interesting thing the aliens found was a movie film that they managed to get to work, and try to interpret.
