I spotted this gentleman some months ago, performing a job I was not certain existed. A Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Subway Payphone Inspector is seen here punching in a series of test codes to verify the functionality of a public telephone TDD/TTY device at the 14th Street/Union Square subway station. Its number, by the way, is (212) 475-9707.
Payphones have largely vanished from New York City’s subway system since PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services) acquired Verizon’s inventory of phones and TTY/TDD devices in October, 2011. Full walls of payphones that once inhabited transit hubs such as Grand Central Station and Penn Station are mostly gone, with only small numbers of public phones surviving in the busiest MTA subway stations and transit hubs. Most smaller stations — and even some larger ones — have zero public telephones.
As reported by WPIX Channel 11 News in March, 2013, obvious public safety considerations do not seem to have factored in to the MTA’s decision to leave underground subway stations (where cell phone signal is frequently non-existent) with no telephone communication alternative should anyone down there need to contact someone outside the subway. The MTA’s decision appears to make it the passengers’ responsibility to purchase WiFi-capable smartphone devices and to make WiFi phone calls over the subway system’s still-limited WiFi networks. Such policies may violate the Americans With Disabilities Act.
All phone are payphones and the MTA’s public WiFi access points, if they are expected to be used for telephone service, will most likely become a new version of the payphone. It would not surprise this observer if access to subway WiFi becomes a fully paid service, or else one that is completely bludgeoned with advertising.
Until that day arrives the job of the MTA Payphone Inspector is safe. This job could evolve to include locating and identifying for removal the surprising quantity of mangled and dismembered payphones in the subway systems. With wires protruding and sharp metal edges present these abandoned subway payphones present serious safety hazards to subway passengers of all ages.
Having surveyed the depressing state of payphones at the Times Square’s subway station about a year and a half ago it is fair to say that subway payphones’ reliability has improved considerably since then, even as that improved reliability comes at the expense of many stations left completely devoid of phones. Thanks, PTS!