Blackout Payphone. Going, going…

The days of the Blackout Payphone appear to be nearing an end, if they are not finished already. Its dial tone is gone, and even if it worked accessibility would be limited since the phone is surrounded by materials of construction-destruction.

This payphone’s number, RAvenswood 9-9832 (or 718-729-9832 in modern parlance), returns only a busy signal, though no one could be using this phone.

As reflected by the blighted carnage behind it, this area is, for some reason, being turned into a park. This park will lie beneath one of the noisiest spots in the 5 boroughs of New York, and which would invite a whirlwind of truck exhaust, bus fumes, and noise from several lanes of vehicular traffic moving to and from the recently (and pointlessly) re-named Ed Koch/Queensboro Bridge.

Payphones are easy casualties in these environments of endless urban “renewal”. Payphones these days, of course, are common casualties even in less volatile environments.

 

This particular payphone starred in the big blackout of August, 2003. Cell phones were useless during the emergency and, contrary to conventional wisdom, many land line telephones did not work either. Working phones like this were rare, and it is fair to assume that lines far longer than the one in this photo formed at other payphones across town.

Blackout Payphone. August, 2003

This payphone still appeared to be pretty actively used when I checked in on it in August, 2009 (Blackout Payphone Revisited). Since the August, 2003, blackout, however, its star has mostly faded, as it stood quietly in this relatively obscure corner of Queens Plaza, waiting to be thrust back into usefulness by some calamity.