Just a few selections from my ongoing collection of New York City payphone videos. I found one dead and done phone in the Bronx, a few at Macy's, a working phone in Flushing, and I checked on the Penn Station phones, which sources say will be "downsized" soon.
A website visitor directed me to this phone booth scene from the 1985 film Witness, starring Harrison Ford. Ford is seen using a payphone in a phone booth at WL Zimmerman’s store (now Lestz Wholesale) in Lancaster County, PA. https://youtu.be/kiKTfMoNAOs What makes this scene different from most is that the phone booth was not a…
Do any payphones remain in the Grand Central Terminal passages, closed since the pandemic struck? A map of the Terminal on the main level says there are. Let's see what remains of GCT's once abundant payphone population.
Remembering my AI New York Times appearance. Even my mother was impressed.
Chasing down what is left of Lower Manhattan's payphones since I last toured the area in January. Spoiler alert: There are not many left, but a few should survive.
Found 2 or 3 dozen payphones in Hoboken before finding them became kind of monotonous. I was looking for surviving specimen's of TCC Teleplex's "Payphone of the Future", aka the "Internet Phone", but I came up empty. They were still out there a few years ago. Then I headed back to Manhattan for more payphone detail. Time is running out on NYC's payphones and I am out there every day, scooping up what I can of their legacy.
Looks like most of the payphones formerly found on the side streets of Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center down to 42nd Street are gone. I found a few stragglers but don't expect them to last much longer. Also visited a couple of Third Avenue phones.
The vestige of a payphone past lingers on at this spot, as much as 25 years after its removal. I don't know who owned this phone but it looks like it was dead as long ago as the 1990s.
Nice to see the Queensbridge payphones, among last working public telephones in Western Queens, get some screentime in this short video from @PiifJones. Look for them. The phones, that is.
There are not many payphones left in Manhattan Valley, but highlights from this weekend's tour of that area's telephonic detritus include an actual working phone from which a friend dialed up Payphone Radio. The sound of Payphone Radio coming out of a payphone is a beautiful thing to hear.
Do people still use payphones? They would if they could.
The exact spots where payphones used to stand around the Ravenswood Houses are today all occupied by "DOG WASTE STATION" structures.
Unlike most phones from my "Payphones Then and Now" series I found one that not only physically survives in this year of 2021 but is fully functional and sounds great. I've used this phone many times for Payphone Radio calls.
Of the three PTS phones at St. John Cemetery in Middle Village one of them wants to work but the other two are as dead as everything else at out there. I did, however, find a working CityBridge payphone on Woodhaven Boulevard outside Bridie's Bar. I did not expect to find a working CityBridge payphone ever again.
PTS, the nation's largest payphone service provider, is keeping the dial tone humming, at least at the Flushing Main Street 7 train station in Queens. I reported a couple of issues with the device and what do you know, they dispatched a field tech to fix that sucker.
Where is he now? This payphone user, that is. Probably talking on a cell phone. I never see anyone use this LinkNYC kiosk today but it used to be a pretty popular spot from which to place a phone call when you didn't have to scream at the device just to be heard.
All I remember about this one was that it had a Bell South logo on it. Bell South was the first big telco to exit payphones, but never had holdings in this part of the country. Bell South exited payphones by 2003. This photo is from 2011. It was not uncommon to see brands of…
How is CityBridge doing on delivering free local phone calls from its Upper West Side phone booths? And what of the festering beauties, the rotting, decaying old green phone booths at the 79th Street Boat Basin? Let's find out in this 42-minute chase after phone booths and payphones yesterday.
Some things changed, others did not at this Astoria intersection. One thing altogether gone is the set of three payphones, gone without a trace.
This mounting backplate, which once held a payphone at a Queens laundromat, is still available for purchase at payphone.com. $23. What a bargain.
In the last frame I think he is looking at me…
A brief window into New York's payphone past in a 1-minute piece about a 30-second payphone at Penn Station. At least one remnant of the 30-second payphone survives today, not working, of course, and not at Penn Station.
This payphone outside a library reminds me that I believe public libraries should have public telephone rooms where anyone could make a call. It would likely serve a very small niche of the public but it seems, to me at least, like a low-impact, low-maintenance service to offer, assuming there are limits on usage.
A brief look at the life and times of a 33rd Street TCC Teleplex payphone in Astoria. I don't remember using this one but plenty of other people did, and likely still would, if only they could.
One of my favorite payphone photos I ever got. A young woman takes a break from her job at Walgreen's to make a call at the payphone outside. Whose phone number is on the scrap of paper she holds in her left hand? Why does she appear to be so antsy?
Citizens are now required to keep their cell phones charged, healthy, and in their possession at all times, an unfortunate and potentially perilous denouement to the decades-long era of publicly accessible communications devices.
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.
It turns out the great Rockefeller Center payphone is not as reliable as I thought. Recollections of one dirty trick that helped turn "COCOT" into a dirty word among payphone users in the 1980s and 1990s.