This rugged Verizon payphone worked perfectly after being nearly buried in snow during the great blizzard of 2010, the 6th-largest storm on record for NYC.

With the new year comes change to the payphone landscape of New York City. Prepare to see fewer Verizon payphones on New York City streets, as they will be replaced. Verizon sold its outdoor payphone business to Titan, as mentioned on this web site in September. How long it takes to fully replace all Verizon’s public phones with Titan-branded kiosks and advertisement-cloaked enclosures remains to be seen, but I suspect it could take quite some time. Titan has also promised to explore innovative advertising solutions to monetize its payphone business, which might be an interesting development to watch.

I still see vestiges of the long-gone Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, and even New York Telephone brands on payphones of today. If the staying power of those old brands is any indication than I think the Verizon name might linger for some time on public phones of New York, even as Titan takes over the space.