Manhattan’s Last Outdoor Phone Booths: What’s The Deal?
One of the more oddball moves by the CityBridge consortium was its replacement of Manhattan's classic American Airlight style phone booths with Canadian models. Let's look at them.
Temple City Motel Phone Booth. Photo by Thomas Hawk.
The Temple City Motel in Salt Lake City once had a classic Airlight style phone booth out front. Today it is gone.
StreetMessages.com: The Domain Name That Got Away
An abandoned payphone outside the abandoned headquarters for StreetMessages.com provided an amusing antidote to a fresh appearance of that defunct web site address on an NYC payphone.
A Times Square Payphone’s Unique Memorial
Whoever removed the payphone from this wall at the Times Square subway station seems to have done so with a sense of humor.
Down and Out. He Should Have a Telephone of His Own.
This haiku-like New York Telephone advertisement from the New York Times, June 13, 1906, shows that stigmas associated with payphone usage date back to the early 20th century.
Phone Booths at the Met Breuer Museum
My first thought on hearing that the Met Breuer was taking over the old Whitney building was, naturally enough, “What will they do with the phone booths in the basement?” I am sure this was the question all New Yorkers asked when they heard about the Met Breuer opening.
The Bronx Zoo Goes Payphone Free
Signs throughout the Bronx Zoo promise its visitors public telephones in a number of locations. Lies, all of them. There are no payphones anywhere at the Bronx Zoo, contrary to signs like this one which promises a payphone at section B5, aka the Dancing Crane Plaza. I did not have time to case the entire place. On…
Payphone Flashback, 1976: Honesty is the Best Policy
Acting on impulse one day late last summer, young Alfred Higley Jr. proved that honesty still lives. The 12-year-old, who lives on Bell Lane, West Shokan, had spent the day at the town pool, located a mile from his home. Ready to return home for dinner, he decided to call his mother to ask if she could pick him up in the family car.
Abandoned Verizon Payphones at 77 Water Street
Phones like this stay in place for years, not even attracting the interest of thieves. An abandoned Verizon payphone (should a thief possess skills to restore one to working order) could get a couple hundred bucks on eBay. You might even find a few bucks worth of quarters inside these payphones. With no indication that these phones are out of service nothing would stop an unwitting citizen from depositing coins and dialing a number before discovering that the phone has no dial tone.
1987: New York City Payphone Users
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…
Payphones I Used To Know: a.k.a. Vandalism 101
Some time ago I commenced a project in which I intended to capture and perpetuate the memory of payphones in New York City. By mining my collection of hundreds of pictures of phones from years past I would print them out, laminate them, and place adhesive stickers on the back. My plan was to place…
Concord, Vermont. FairPoint Communications Phone Booth.
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…
The Payphone Before and After Shot That Got Away
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.…
Descanso for Sabrina Mangos, and Memories of a Payphone
This old payphone was the site of a descanso in memory of a 10-year-old Australian girl killed at this spot in a ghastly car accident. A friend of mine — an eyewitness to the crash — described it as “the most Godawful thing I ever saw in my life.” Local residents and witnesses to the…
New York City Payphone Locator: Help Edit
New York City’s Payphone Locator takes data from the city’s map of PPT (Public Pay Telephone) Locations and uses it as a starting point for a fuller, more comprehensive overview of where Gotham payphones really are in this year of 2015. I was happy but surprised when New York City first released its PPT dataset…
Payphone of the East River, 11 Years Later
When I spotted this disembodied payphone component in the East River last week I immediately recognized it as the remains of a burned out, illegally discarded payphone I photographed at the same place 11 years ago in August, 2003. This object appears to be the SS Upper Armor, a style of stainless steel body guard…
Pictures Of Places Where Payphones Used To Be
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The Forgotten World of the Payphone Hustler
The days of the "payphone hustler" at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal are long gone, but their memory survives in an interesting essay by Gisela Bichler and Ronald V. Clarke.
1943: WOrth 2-8354, Rotary Dial Payphone
Shorpy.com features a 1943 photo of a young sailor using a rotary-dial payphone marked with a phone number in the old Telephone Exchange Name format.
Rockefeller Center’s “Communications” Portal
A curious bit of signage hovers over a semi-circular staircase at Rockefeller Center. I think it is payphone-related.
Polivio Payphone: Gone, But Not Forgotten
All that remains of the Polivio Payphone that once stood at 31-08 Astoria Boulevard South is a set of 4 metal spikes and a photograph I left as a memento.
Payphone Gone: 32-01 31st Street
There are still payphones at the intersection of Broadway and 31st Street in Astoria. This payphone (seen in a photo from 2008) is no longer among them.
Payphone Gone: Broadway in Astoria
It's another payphone that once was, that is gone gone gone. This is a former payphone. This is a NON-PAYPHONE. This payphone is DECEASED.
Payphones Gone: Soloman Liquors
These Verizon payphones seldom if ever worked, but this did not stop people from sidling up to one of the phones, lifting the receiver, depositing coin(s), dialing a phone number, and waiting for an answer. Well into the phantom ringing of the phone the caller might have realized that the phone did not work. Or maybe not. I do not know. This is a behavior I have seen many times, even with payphones like this one with wiry entrails dangling about.
Payphone Gone, But Not Forgotten: 21st Street, Outside Bel Aire Diner
This payphone seemed to draw the attentions of people who had no intention of using the phone. There is a bus stop next to this former payphone location. People waiting for a bus would sometimes pass the time by fiddling with this payphone. Fiddling means: picking up the phone, needlessly listening for a dial tone, dialing a non-existent phone number, and hanging up. Some folks idly picked up the phone to look busy or distracted, in the way people commonly use cell phones as a crutch, to make themselves seem important and distracted.
The Abandoned Yellow Payphone at the Abandoned Yellow Building
Sometimes, when I look payphones that have been abandoned or disemboweled, I see a mouth, and eyes, as if something is screaming in horrified sadness at the removal of a public telephone. The vacant hull of this former payphone stands at attention, idling in blighted uselessness.
Poof Goes the COCOT
Long since removed, I passed by this payphone location today. I was both chagrined and amused to see the word "POOF" spray-painted on the wall where this payphone once stood. POOF goes the payphone!
Outside the Empire State Building: Payphone Gone
The Empire State Building has no public telephones.