I remember as the last Gothamist piece made its way through the pipeline I kept expressing apologies to anyone who might have encountered my noise broadcasts in a disruptive way. I thought in particular of dining establishments with outdoor seating, where people sitting right next to these kiosks, pleasantly enjoying their Sunday brunch, all of a sudden got yelled at by this stupid machine they had never even noticed before.

Or maybe the work-at-home writer didn’t appreciate the disruption to her serenity when the howler sound  suddenly erupted from the kiosk located right outside her living room window. (The howler sound is that horrible hacking busy signal type sound that blasts out of a landline telephone left off the hook too long.)

But I thought on it some more and arrived at an obvious conclusion: That’s exactly how these things are designed. I thought of this fellow, and several others I’ve seen around town but did not have the nerve to record on video. This call perfectly illustrates what the phone call feature on LinkNYC looks like, and more importantly how it sounds to people in the vicinity. It is loud. My little shenanigan illustrated this fact in a way less likely to make passers-by look away.