Another Payphone Up Close

While making this little video about one of the last independently-owned payphones in town I had the unusual experience of being asked, by someone who needed to make a phone call, to get out of the way. That was quite choice, proving to any naysayers out there that people still need and use these things.

That payphone user interrupted my comments about the informational placard on the phone, which is supposed to contain contact information for the owner of the phone. This one does not. It’s just boilerplate content.

I could have gone on longer about this particular payphone, and maybe I will another time. It’s a cellular rig owned by someone I’m friendly enough with that he told me it makes a buck or two a day.

It’s an outdoor phone but, unlike most outdoor enclosures in New York, is not owned by CityBridge, the monopoly franchise that basically confiscated most sidewalk payphones from a dozen or so independent companies in 2016. This one is on private property and thus exempt from acquisition by CityBridge, which only has phones on city sidewalks.

An unusual quality of this phone is that it has a three-minute hard limit on call duration. Unlike most payphones you can’t keep feeding it quarters to keep the call going indefinitely.

It also allows incoming calls but only if the person who answers deposits 25¢.