These are the public phones in the lobby of the Parc Lincoln, at 166 West 75th Street in New York City. The Parc is a transient residence. I lived there from sometime in November, 1990 (when this photo was taken) through the summer of 1991. I had no phone in my room and nothing much to do at night except read the magazines and books I found in the garbage dumpsters and recycling bins in the basement of the building.

I once used the phone on the far right to call a national radio show. I was drunk as a lord and full of blustery nonsense, but they let me on the air anyway. It was the Bruce Williams Show. I remember leaping from the ground when I heard my voice go on the air, and I pressed the phone to my ear like an addict holds the syringe to his arm as the host of the show commented on my call and took more calls from people who talked about my call, about my life, about me. I had to listen to this show this way, I explained to the person who screened the call, because I had no radio.

I was in the middle of listening to a recorded program produced by a mysterious artist who called himself Mr. Apology when I decided to step out of the phone booth and photograph the place where I would spend so many late nights and mornings during my first year of living in New York. The voices I heard and the communications made through these phones are the only things that kept me alive in those days even if they almost killed me, and I could never think of those days without thinking of this row of rotary-dial payphones.

I could talk your ears off with tales of the nights I spent sitting in and standing around these phone booths. I only wish I had a better photograph. Perhaps I should return to the Parc Lincoln and feel the dirt again. I should also get the numbers.

Photograph and story by Mark A. Thomas. See more pictures of the Parc Lincoln NYC hotel at sorabji.com.