Last week, as I ended a payphone call by hanging up the handset, an elderly woman approached me, asking “Do you need a phone? Do you need to talk to someone?”
I laughed, saying “No, thank you.” We engaged in no further conversation.
This was the third time something like that has happened to me in the last year or so. I cannot seem to remember details of the second incident but the first occurred at Central Park, when a woman saw me pick up a payphone handset and offered me use of her cell phone.
That woman’s demeanor smacked of sardonic disbelief, tinged with a drop of pity. The older woman last week approached me with pure pity, it seemed, and the sound of her voice has haunted me a little since the encounter.
Both these people seemed to think that no one should be using payphones in this first quarter of the 21st century.
I make a lot of payphone calls. I see the looks I sometimes get, and I know what people think. They think “He’s poor”, or “He’s a criminal”, or “He’s insane and crazy and lost.” I would think the most charitable thought people have is that I must be a tourist.
Others simply get a chuckle, commenting on how surprising it is that anyone still uses those dirty old phones, or that they even exist. Either way, I know I get looks and overhear comments from people who think something is off about anyone actually using a public pay telephone in this year of 2020.
You could find it surprising people even approach me at all, given the payphone’s association with crime and the seedier elements of society. It’s like they’re asking if I want to complete my drug deal with their personal cell phone.
I get similar looks of curiosity mixed with disdain, especially from younger people, when I use those LinkNYC kiosks, the so-called “payphone of the future” that has already replaced as many as a few thousand payphones.
The reason you might see me using a payphone is not because I am trying to contact another person. My calls feed into PayphoneRadio.com, an audio project I’ve tinkered with since 2010. Now it is a Shoutcast stream but I have published it in other forms. Content on payphoneradio.com contains audio recorded almost entirely through New York City payphones. Virtually all calls there came through payphones but very rarely I have broken protocol and used a cell to call in.
At present there are 619 voice calls and 143 busker recordings on the Payphone Radio Shoutcast stream. The voice calls go back as far as April, 2018. I’ve thought about filling in recordings going back to 2010 but don’t see a need at this point.
There are, of course, innumerable calls I either never used or that were unusable for one reason or other, typically for being inaudible or poor quality. Needless to say, any endeavor that relies on a functional public telephone network is imperiled from the get-go. As a result there are many gaps in the narratives due to calls that were inaudible, did not record at all, etc. Welcome to the wonderful world of payphones.
Most calls cost 25¢ but others cost 50¢, depending which company owns the phone. I have no idea how many 50¢ voice calls I made versus 25¢ but if we average the cost of the voice calls at 30¢ each I think that adds up to $185.70. The busker calls are virtually all 50¢, so that adds up to $71.50. The estimated grand total for programming currently on the Payphone Radio Shoutcast stream would be $257.20. Donations accepted!
The inevitable reality is that I’ll not be able to do this forever by sticking to the payphone-only conduit. I’ve broken protocol by making a small number of cellphone calls, probably less than 10 total all these years, but as payphones continue to dwindle I expect to evolve into just using a home studio format. I will never use those stupid LinkNYC kiosks for this. Call quality is garbage and, while I’m happy to let people tune in to my sometimes confessional-like ramblings through this medium, I would not want to burden people who happen to be within earshot of a LinkNYC machine with my ramblings, which must be shouted to be adequately heard and recorded.