I used my patent-pending technique of reverse-engineering public information to locate derelict and decrepit payphones in Flatbush on Sunday. (Just kidding about the patent thing.) I expected three devices but found only two. It turns out one of them had been tweeted to my timeline a couple of months ago. At the start of this video I demonstrate, once again, that I do not know to read a map. Actually I think I don’t want to be good at reading maps because I like getting lost.

I ended up in a part of Flatbush I visited some years ago, with a then-girlfriend who shared my interest in cemeteries. We wandered around the Flatbush Reformed Church Cemetery, to be exact, but I did not make a repeat visit through that yard this time around. It stung to be reminded of that experience with her. You can read the whole sorry story here if that doesn’t sound too tiresome.

It took a few moments but I came to recognize the first payphone from this tweet. A photo of it was posted to Twitter in July with a comment about how New York City didn’t really get rid of its last payphones after all. I thought the OP tagged me in that post but it turns out someone else did in one of the comments. That’s the only reason I saw it. I had no idea I’d be going after that very phone this day.

It looks like NYC forgot to remove this payphone after they boasted about removing all of them pic.twitter.com/qJ1F6ZMQYg

— ariya1 (@ariya1) July 25, 2022

The phone I expected to find on Nostrand Avenue has to have been removed within the last couple of weeks. I just missed it.

Existence of the Tilt-a-Dial® phone was fun to confirm. I was skeptical about that one based on my source but it’s all good. I discovered the name of a New York City payphone service provider that was new to me: Universal Telecommunications. So many names of New York’s former independent PSPs have vanished with time, as their information was seldom documented anywhere except on the payphones themselves.