This is one of my favorite payphone photos I ever captured. A young woman taking a break from her job at Walgreen’s stepped outside to use the payphone. This is a film photo from 1999. She looked to me like she was clinging to life itself talking on this payphone. The scrap of paper she holds in her left hand probably has written on it the phone number she called. Maybe she was looking for another job? I remember having a little crushy-wushy on this woman. Something about the heels and the texture of her voice. I got over it.

The phone was on the wall of a Walgreen’s store at Crescent Street and 34th Avenue in Astoria. I don’t remember anything about this phone in terms of who owned it, if I ever used it, or when it was removed. I also find nothing in my databases regarding a payphone at this location.

Now that I think of it, a foggy memory of using this phone as a backdrop in the photoshoot for the 1998 New York Times piece makes sense. The photographer and I used over a dozen payphones in this area as settings for a photo to accompany the story. The photo used in the Times piece was from the 36th Avenue subway station but we shot what must have been hundreds of photos at payphones all around the 11106 zip code. I am reasonably certain this phone was among them.

p.s.: I cannot believe I ever used to look like that.

Today some evidence of this wall’s payphone past remains in the form of mount holes and small spikes in the wall where the clamshell enclosure once hung.