The 9/11 Payphone (as I called it) actually had nothing to do with 9/11. Located in Long Island City, this phone happened to be next to a 9/11 mural which was among the first of its vintage to rise up from the hands New York City graf artists after the events of that day. I…
This payphone picture was originally posted to my New York City Payphones gallery in the late 1990s. This payphone virtually never worked and was removed many years ago. I did use it, though, when it worked. The last time I tried to use it may have been during the blackout of 2003. I was surprised…
Sometimes I think I see ghosts of phone booths past. Outlines. Shadows. Tracings of where full booths once surrounded and fully enclosed public phones on city streets. Free-standing outdoor phone booths are rare. There are only four phone booths in Manhattan, and when last I looked there were a couple of abandoned booths hulking like…
I call these the Letterman Payphones. The first picture shows a group of payphones as they looked circa 1999. The next photo, from roughly 10 years later, shows that those 3 payphones were replaced by 2, with an advertising-laced enclosure placed over them. I call these the Letterman Payphones because Dave Letterman used to call…
Tomorrow is the anniversary date of the Northeast Blackout of 2003. That was a memorable day for me in many ways but a memory I recall best is this shot of several people lined up to use a payphone at Queensboro Plaza in Queens. This is near the Queensboro/59th Street Bridge, which was the entry…
These payphones at 1271 6th Avenue are long gone. The first picture shows a cluster of three payphones in either 1999 or 2000. The next two photos show what remains of these phones today, including the spikes in the sidewalk where the base of the payphones used to be.
These pictures show a payphone at 33rd Street and 34th Avenue in Astoria. The first picture is from 1999, the next was taken 10 years later in August, 2009. The payphone location survives, though the phone itself has been swapped. The payphone handset is now bright yellow, replacing the earlier black handset. What I find…
Here is a midtown Manhattan public telephone location that has survived the payphone meltdown of the last 15 years. It is located on 6th Avenue near 55th Street. The first picture was taken sometime around 1999, and shows this phone with Bell Atlantic branding. Bell Atlantic swallowed up GTE in June, 2000, and the combined…
The first photo is from May, 2003, and shows a payphone outside of Tiffany Insurance on 36th Avenue and 32nd Street in Astoria. The next two photos are from August, 2009. Tiffany Insurance is still in business but has since moved to another location in Astoria. This payphone disappeared years ago. Only 4 holes and…
I was reminded last week of a project that I have meant to pursue for some time: Then and Now: Payphones of New York. This will, simply, be a series of photos I took over the last 12 or 13 years of public phones in New York with follow-up photos of what those phones look…
Two of my life’s loves meet in this alley near New Calvary Cemetery on Queens Boulevard. It is a payphone at a cemetery. My interest in payphones dates to grade school but in more recent years I have developed an interest in some of the cemeteries and graveyards of New York City — with particular…