By request, and because I was genuinely preparing to resume this subject, I’m continuing my series of “Payphones Then and Now”, starting with this shot of a phone at 36th Avenue and 37th Street in Astoria, Queens. This phone was unusual in that it allowed incoming calls, but only if the party who answered the phone plunked in 25¢ and kept depositing coins to keep the call going. I do not know who owned this phone and I bet the caller in this photo did not care. This phone disappeared sometime around 2010. The corner could not look more different now. That is not foliage overgrowth or weeds that overtook the corner. It as the landscaping of a hipster restaurant/pub called Studio Nova.
Whenever I find a payphone around Los Angeles or wherever I like to find old pics of the area if I can or go to street view to see how the phones evolved. Most of the ones I come across don’t work of course, but I’ve found about 15 or so with dial tone in the last year. It’s cool you have pics of New York phones from twenty years back because I love seeing side by side pics like this. Also like the Nicolas Pobre Los Angeles pics on this site and have been by those areas many times. I was born in the 90s but I remember making payphone calls in the 2000s because I didn’t have a cell phone at the time. Now days babies are practically born with iPhones in their hands.
Appreciate the comments, and the inspiration. Just posted Grand Central Terminal “Then and Now” photos.
StreetView is interesting but, as I’ve found, not regularly useful for this kind of thing. Too many parked trucks in the way, blurry imagery, blahblah. BUT, once in a while I find a shot of someone actually using a payphone.