This phone, soon to be the last outdoor working payphone in Astoria, looked serene amid the 11″ of snow that pummeled its environs. This was December 17, in the afternoon whence the snow had stopped.

This picture, from two days later, shows forensic evidence of those intrepid payphone users who made use of this phone after the storm. Footsteps in the snow and the handset hanging from the phone prove that people still use payphones. This one, at least. But we always knew that, didn’t we? Yet we get rid of them anyway.