Sometimes I think I see ghosts of phone booths past. Outlines. Shadows. Tracings of where full booths once surrounded and fully enclosed public phones on city streets.
These two payphones in midtown Manhattan are framed by a phantom border, by a seemingly superfluous outline on the sidewalk beneath the phones. Surrounding that outline is another aura which seems to indicate that a grounded, rounded structure once stood here. The rectangle is distinct from the rest of the sidewalk grid, and the presence of payphones here today suggests to me that these half-closed enclosures are descendants of those mostly-vanished outdoor phone booths.
(212) 245-0756 and (212) 245-0877
The base of this payphone on Manhattan's Upper East Side is framed by a caulked-over rectangle, suggesting that a full booth with a closing door, a fan, a light, and a phone book once stood where a modern payphone enclosure stands today.
(212) 650-9483
I have not seen very many pictures of Manhattan's outdoor phone booths of yore. I own one photo which shows part of a New York City phone booth in 1965. The word "Telephone" in green at the top right of this photo sits atop a fully enclosed phone booth which has long since disappeared. After some research I deduced that this phone booth was located at 2nd Avenue and 44th Street.
Phone Booth and Street Scene, NYC, 1965
The booth is gone but there are two payphones at this location today. Their numbers are (212) 697-7757 and (212) 972-5383.
Unfortunately for my research the sidewalk today bears no outline of where this booth once stood.
Other midtown Manhattan payphones seems to show traces of phone booths that once surrounded their space:
