At the dermatologist’s office today I could not decide what to like more: The doctors or the phone booth.
The latter, of course, was found in the waiting area of The Dermatology Specialists, at 10-41 47th Ave in Long Island City. One should naturally expect to find, at a dermatologist’s office, an authentic old wood phone booth next to a row of snow skis and a couple of musical instrument cases. Right?
It felt like I had entered a ski resort more than a doctor’s office. Snow skis lined the wall leading to a single phone booth, beckoning me with its opened door and sound-trapping space in which visiting patients were encouraged to conduct their cell phone conversations, so as not to annoy others.
After filling out the first-time patient paperwork I further absorbed the surroundings, reveling in a cross between a ski lodge and a library with an old school tonsorium thrown in as a perfectly expected aside. Was any of this calculated? I did not ask. It was too cool for answers.
On a center table sat what might look, from this picture at least, like a pizza delivery box. It is an authentic Russian Melodiya LP box set of Wagner’s “Valkyrie”. Why? Hey, I don’t know. I did not see an LP player.
The phone booth had me sticking around for a few minutes after my appointment ended. The booth looked authentic, with an overhead blower (non-working), an overhead light (non-working ), a wood seat, and a Munchian screaming emptiness where a payphone used to be. A sign with the word “DOUCHE” and an illustration of a showerhead hung over the coffin-like space. “Douche” derives from French and Italian words for “shower”. That explains why this sign is found in a phone booth, right?. Most expected of all within the booth was a Japanese painting of a mountain — a commonly found feature of all American phone booths. Yeah, right. Click through the slide show below to explore my unexpected find for the day.
Next to the leopard-skin barber’s chair, an object found at any dermatologist’s office, I envisioned a honky-tonk piano and maybe an old-style jukebox. Maybe next time. The décor of this place did not make a lot of sense, but why should it? And also, yes, that is a statue of a bull outside the Hook and Ladder across the street.
No question, a bit of surrealism inhabited this place. But most importantly all the doctors here were first-rate. On account of that, the phone booth, and the LP set of “Valkyrie” The Dermatology Specialists in Long Island City is my go-to dermatologist from now on. It makes me wish I had more skin problems! If the office had a coffee shop I might hang out in that phone every day.