Payphones Past

Payphone News

Telephonic Ephemera from “Serpico”: TRafalgar-6 and LExington-5

Last night's hunt for PRAY in the 1973 film "Serpico" turned up an unexpected bit of telephonic trivia. A van…

5 years ago

PRAYphones Gone From Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan lost some of its religion during the pandemic, and not just because of church closures. Two of Manhattan's…

5 years ago

Maine’s Public Interest Payphones

Take a tour of Maine's Public Interest Payphones, deployed at locations throughout the state in the interest of public safety.

5 years ago

Payphone Gone. 31st Street and 38th Avenue in Astoria.

An amazing thing about these payphone enclosures is how successfully they cancel out the noise of the above-ground subway, allowing…

5 years ago

Payphone Radio Goes Corona

If anything, the virus has accelerated the inevitable move away from using payphones as the sole microphone for Payphone Radio.

5 years ago

Just a Quarter of New York’s Wi-Fi Kiosks Are Up. Guess Where. – The New York Times

had been thinking about canceling my New York Times subscription. This article almost made me do it.

5 years ago

Social Distancing on the Kosciuszko

A return visit to the new Kosciuszko Bridge revealed good news. Emergency call box telephones have been installed, along with…

5 years ago

Did NYC Ever Have an “OO” Telephone Exchange?

The opening credits from season 5 of "Saturday Night Live" opened a bit of a mystery to me when I…

5 years ago

Queensbridge Payphones: 718-784-8935, 718-729-9638

These back-to-back payphones at the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City have some special meaning to me, on account of…

5 years ago

LinkNYC: How Did We Get Here?

A little bit of history on how and why New York City's phone booths of the past evolved into LinkNYC.

5 years ago