Fort Lee, NJ. I Found a “FATJAY LAYNE” Payphone

I was not on a hunt for payphones in Fort Lee, but I happened to spot this abandoned device outside JD’s Smoke Pit and Boiling Pot, an excellently-named establishment that looked like an inviting place to get a pint if it were not way too early in the day for me to take in an IPA. This was at 124 Main Street, a piece of road that does not look quite as “main” as other stretches of Main Street in Fort Lee. The relative ruggedness of this end of Main Street might account for the payphone’s lingering decades-long presence.

Payphone Outside JD's Smoke Pit and Boiling Pot — Payphone Outside JD’s Smoke Pit and Boiling Pot

The right side of the payphone enclosure is vertically vandalized with the name “FATJAY LAYNE”, or “FLAATYJNAEY” if you choose to read it horizontally. I don’t know what the markings on the left side of the enclosure are meant to convey but it looks like the work of the same artist. I love how the “Y” in “FATJAY” looks like goal posts you’d find on a football field.

FATJAY LAYNE Claimed This Payphone Enclosure

I don't know what the graf artist is saying on this side of the enclosure. — I don’t know what the graf artist is saying on this side of the enclosure.

No coins are left in this rusty old coin box, but it looks as if someone managed to pry this thing open, probably in an attempt to rob the phone of whatever coins might have remained. No riches remain here. Just a crushed and emptied Newport cigarette box and a container (presumably emptied) of Grizzly Wintergreen pouches.

The informational placard, required on public telephones but often not present, reveals that this payphone was abandoned by Jupiter Payphones, Inc., a company based in Perth Amboy, NJ with a PO Box in Edison. According to FCC records the company appears to have skulked out of existence in December, 2002, leaving this and who knows how many more of this company’s abandoned payphones moldering away on city sidewalks around New Jersey. This phone has probably not worked in over 18 years and has likely been standing on this spot over two decades. I could have entered JD’s Smoke Pit to ask if anyone there knew how long this payphone had been on this spot. But I get nervous asking locals about things like payphones.

The tongue is the payphone’s most provocative body part, don’t you think? OK, maybe you don’t, but in an anthropomorphic way I do. To my eyes this payphone’s tongue is sticking out, undepressed by a handset, slowly but surely tiring from being up when it is more comfortable at rest, under the loving bearhug of the payphone handset. Some payphone tongues are forced to stay in this position for eternity, teased only once and again when passers-by idly flick the tongue down and it unwillingly but inevitably bolts back upright.

The coin return door looks pendulous in this still shot but it is not, in fact, swinging back and forth as an eternal invitation to check and see if anyone left coins within. The metal door does look like a it is waiting to complete a gesture, though.

I had not seen an “MCI Worldcom” logo in ages. It’s fun to see such joyful use of smart quotes around the zeroes. It’s like the zeroes are meant to be shaken, not dialed.

This payphone’s touch-tone buttons have definitely seen better days. Imagine how many phone numbers were punched into this device, how many conversation connected through the handset. I’ve seen jewelry made out of touch tone buttons but these might be too worn-out for that.

This payphone abandoned by Jupiter Payphone, Inc.

A plaque nearby, on the other side of Main Street, informs that this area is where George Washington’s Retreat to Victory occurred. It further adds that Washington used this payphone to check in with his wife back home during the darkest hour of the Revolution. The payphone is officially landmarked because of this. Got that?