The Payphone Project caught up with Natalia Paruz, the New York City street musician known as The Saw Lady, as she was performing in the Times Square subway station a couple of months ago. For over a decade Ms. Paruz has championed the revival of the musical saw, an ancient instrument which enjoyed popularity from…
This photo of two random New Yorkers carrying on unrelated conversations within spitting distance of each other using New York Telephone payphones first appeared at the highly addictive NYC NOSTALGIA blog at Tumblr.com. The NYC Nostalgia blog makes me sad for its images of the human New York that I almost missed, but that still…
Sid Tuchman. For 25 years that name haunted me. Sid was at the center of a moment which is, 2½ decades later, the funniest thing I have ever seen on television. It was also a moment (one among many) which inspired me to establish The Payphone Project web site in the early days of the…
I spotted this discussion, which focuses on the question of what shows up on caller ID when one receives a call from a payphone. It got me thinking. Calls from payphones can show up on caller ID in a variety of ways. If I call a cell phone from a New York City payphone it…
Erica Avery checks in again with these shots of a phone booth outside a FairPoint Communications building in Concord, Vermont. FairPoint announced in 2012 that it would exit the payphone business, selling its assets to Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS), the nation’s largest payphone service provider. FairPoint’s branding remains on this particular phone so it’s not…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdmfAdsr1iY
David Letterman’s telephone routines are, in my opinion, among the funniest bits he ever did in his 32 years as a late night television host. He called New York City payphones and engaged whoever answered in some sort of chit-chat, but he also called people he could see sitting at their desks in office buildings,…
I had a camera on me but my hands were full. The moment passed before I could get coördinated enough to put down 3 shopping bags and draw the camera from my coat pocket. The missed opportunity involves the gentleman in the photo below, who I caught using a Telebeam payphone about 4 years ago.…
Listen to an electric guitarist at the Times Square subway station, recorded using a nearby payphone.
Thanks to Sarah Theeboom at Details.com for giving a shoutout to The Payphone Project’s “Heard Through a Payphone” series: How Artists Are Reinventing the Pay Phone. Listen in to my latest capture of musicians at Grand Central subway station.
Listen in as a drummer and electric violinist (or possibly violist) perform a cover of Led Zepplin's "Kashmir", with an interlude of what sounds like a rhapsody on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama".
Even if you actually wanted to make a call from this payphone it would be very difficult to communicate with another human. Audio coming through the earpiece of this landline payphone (718-424-2798) at 82nd Place & 63rd Avenue in Queens was completely subsumed by the sound of Radio Disney. These unintended analogue overlaps, reminiscent of…
Earlier this year John Porter (of East Harlem Unity Communications) and I appeared in “Hang Up” – a payphone documentary directed by French film maker Ugo Massa. The short film premiered at “The Auditorium” on May 27, opening the “Truth Be Told Festival” at The New School. The film is not yet available to the…
Two nights in Atlantic City, New Jersey, turned up a few payphone sightings along the way. This was a vacation, so I did not commit substantial energies to payphone hunting. These are the payphones I spotted en route to Resorts, Taj Mahal, Caesars, and the fewer and fewer surviving casinii of Atlantic City, New Jersey.…
Famous among fans of Martin Scorsese’s film “GoodFellas” this relatively isolated outpost is home to the one and only truck stop in the five boroughs of New York City. Located on a triangle at the 3-way intersection of Rust Street, Maspeth Avenue, and 57th Place, the diner appears to have changed its name recently from…
An abandoned payphone in Boston, the city that is home to America's second largest payphone population. Most of Boston's public phones are owned by PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services). PTS obfuscates caller ID from its payphones, causing confusion across this land.
UPDATE, OCTOBER, 2014: The trailer for “Hang Up” has been released. Click here to watch. The photo below was taken following the premiere of “Hang Up,” a documentary about New York City payphones by French film maker Ugo Massa. Seen in this photo are myself, Mr. Massa, and John Porter. Mr. Porter owns East Harlem…
The hottest band playing in the New York City subway system these days has got to be TOO MANY ZOOZ. ZOOZ has become a fixture at the 14th Street/Union Square subway station, where I first caught them through a payphone back in February. I also spotted TOO MANY ZOOZ at the Grand Central subway station,…
MEMBER OF THE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY OF SOUTH BEACH, 06/1973. ARC Identifier 548611 / Local Identifier 412-DA-6124. Item from Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 – 2006
About a decade ago satellite-powered community payphones exploded in popularity throughout Africa. The continent’s virtually non-existent civilian landline infrastructure cried out for wireless- and satellite-powered innovation to bring telephony to huge populations that lacked such service. Companies like Tellumat, MTN, and Remkor Technologies brought GSM-powered mobile phone booths to countries like Benin, Uganda, Rwanda, and Senegal. Tellumat had…
Val Vashon writes again with this payphone discovery in Jersey City, New Jersey. While walking to the laundromat in Jersey City during my recent visit for the Super Bowl, I noticed this sign above Henderson Lumber Mills: I had assumed that this was above a long missing phone booth. But the roll up door was open,…
Subway musicians sound different when heard through a payphone. Heck, everything sounds different when heard through the raspy, rugged, monochrome sound of the landline. I caught this brass band at the Times Square station and picked up the nearest payphone to call it in.