If Donald Trump can’t fix his payphone, how can he fix America?
This payphone, engulfed in the signature caramel-like pattern of the Trump Tower’s interior décor, was at the center of what was (to me, at least) an amusing incident which occurred during the last week of December, 2015.
At the peak of the holiday tourist crush I knew that midtown Manhattan locations such as the Trump Tower would be an utter quagmire of humanity. I had to be in the area, though, so I held my breath and warily plunged into the midtown holiday hellhole.
I had to find a bathroom. When this became the case my best bet for a men’s room happened to be the Trump Tower. The Trump Tower has been a go-to place to relieve myself since I moved to New York in 1990.
I reached the basement of the Trump Tower and encountered a scene that I would think had been eradicated in this 21st century. A lengthy line of women stood in line waiting their turn to use the bathroom while a brisk parade of dudes sauntered in and out of the sparsely occupied men’s room. I wouldn’t say the atmosphere was tense but there was obvious consternation among the women over the fact that the men’s room was a virtual revolving door of peeing customers while the line for the women’s room was practically stagnant.
As I and others squeezed through the crowded space I heard women muttering “Oh, men.” This two-word bit of seemingly withering disdain came from women who realized that the people moving to the head of the line were not actually getting in front of them.
It is a stupid, primitive scenario that seems fixable either by sensibly building more facilities for women or else implementing human-orchestrated crowd control that would allow women to use the men’s room in an organized way that prevented the UNTHINKABLE situation of peeing next to a member of the opposite sex. Something like a traffic cop for the bathrooms. When no men are present in the men’s room (as happened during my visit, I had the john completely to myself) then a gatekeeper could allow a quantity of women to use the men’s room (assuming they did not object). Once that quantity of women is done then men can enter. Or something like that. I don’t know squat about theories of crowd control but the tense scene I encountered at the Trump Tower basement seemed like a boil that needed to be lanced.
The amusing payphone-related incident involved a woman who appeared to butt ahead in the slow-moving line for the women’s room. She was really quite earnest about it, jamming her elbows into people’s sides and making a nuisance of herself. The women she passed made comments to the effect that she should wait her turn like the rest of them, and go to the end of the line.
She responded that she was not looking for the bathroom. She said “I’m looking for the payphone!”
One woman responded “Is there any such a thing as a payphone anymore?” That comment drew extended laughter from the tightly-packed confluence of strangers.
I chuckled, too, but offered no comment. Had I the gumption to be the PAYPHONE EVANGELIST I once was I would have informed this cackling group that there are thousands of payphones in New York City. If you just open your eyes you will see them. Most of us are blind to payphones around here because they are cloaked within display advertising enclosures but thousands of these trusty landline communication vessels line the sidewalks and curbs of New York.
As for the there being “any such thing as a payphone” at the Trump Tower, well, that woman who pushed her way through the line was not making things up. There is one lone payphone in the Trump Tower basement, and there is even a gold-lettered “TELEPHONES” (sic) sign signaling its singular existence.
There used to be 5 payphones downstairs, and a dozen or so upstairs. Today there are essentially none. This lone phone, abandoned by Verizon, has not worked for years. I remember this being a pretty actively used phone when it worked, and I would think globetrotting tourists and Luddite New Yorkers of today would be savvy to keep an eye out for payphones should they need one in their cell-phone-free travels.
This payphone should be restored to service as a courtesy. Otherwise it is an eyesore in a building which I think is unfairly described as, well, an eyesore.
PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services) should acquire this payphone. PTS acquired a quantity of payphones from Verizon, including indoor phones located in tourist meccas, Broadway theaters, the New York Public Library, performance venues, and public spaces. PTS owns all the payphones in the MTA subway system. This payphone location seems like just their speed.
The woman who claimed to need this payphone might have been disappointed to hear no dial tone. Or she might have simply used the excuse that she needed a payphone as a decoy to get ahead in the line for the bathroom. I suspected the latter but did not stick around for ensuing melee should anyone (besides me) have noticed that she did not use the phone. She discretely melted back in to the line of women waiting to get to the bathroom, having advance about a dozen places in that line.
Donald Trump: Fix your payphone. I am not political but how can you fix America if you can’t even fix a payphone? And while you’re at it: Fix your bathrooms. Delegate your people to brainstorm innovative ways to erase those long lines women are forced to wait on when popular tourist destinations such as yours become so crowded. Scenes such as this make men feel like jerks just for being alive, and make women angry.