I don’t get nostalgic, at least I don’t think I do, but when a place like Grand Central Terminal gets rid of its lowest common denominator option for something so fundamental as making a phone call it really does feel like a page has turned, once and for all, in the world of public communications. There had been three phones here, then two, at this spot near the Chase ATM room. One of these phones came back to service a few months ago, a signal that seemed to bode well for the future of public phones at the Terminal. Nothing doing. These phones are gone and not coming back, soon to be replaced by far more lucrative LED digital advertising screens.

I used this phone to dial *10. That connected me to a pre-recorded daily prayer. I am not religious but I found something comforting and genuine about that little program, recorded fresh every single day, delivered by seemingly genuine and well-meaning people.

The quantity of phones throughout Grand Central has slowly whittled down, with banks of as many as a dozen phones in a row replaced by digital advertising panels.

A couple of stragglers remain, with a non-working phone in the Station Masters Office, and a more promising phone on the lower level near the Lost and Found. There are also a number of long-dead phones scattered throughout the Passages, but those phones have been defunct for years.

Until recently the phone in the Station Masters Office had an “OUT OF ORDER” sign on it. With that sign missing today I thought that meant the phone had been revived. Nada.

The phone by the Lost and Found actually has dial tone but that doesn’t mean it works. Calls go through but whoever you call hears nothing. The phone is totally muted. It’s been like that for months. Still, the presence of dial tone on that phone leaves some reason to believe Grand Central is not permanently without a working public telephone, if someone from PTS (the company that owns the phone) could just come out and fix it.

The obvious question arises: Why would they remove the phone that actually worked, and leave behind those that do not? I don’t know but the decision is likely based on æsthetics, not functionality.

I know. Things change, and progress comes with compromise. Instead of phone calls for emergency situations at this busy transit hub we can enjoy non-interactive advertising screens that do nothing else but serve ads. Instead of outdoor payphone enclosures that offer a modicum of privacy when making a call in public we now must scream into a LinkNYC loudspeakerphone and hope passers-by enjoy the opportunity to listen in.

OTHER MIDTOWN PAYPHONE WEIRDNESS

Outside of Grand Central Terminal today I had a much harder time than usual finding a dial tone in Midtown. Along Lexington and Madison Avenues between 42nd and 57th Streets lurks a quantity of payphones to which most people are probably blind, but I see them, and have made use of them.

Today every single phone on Madison Avenue exhibited the same characteristics: No dial tone, but the touch-tone buttons worked. Dialing 311 returned an automated “Thank you” message, followed by a non-helpful message “Please dial again.” The behavior was so uniform across as many as 20 phones that I started to think the network had been shut down, rendering these payphone enclosures all they ever really were intended to be: Advertising panels.

I did finally find dial tone on Lexington and 47th Street, and a few other places. It’s of particular interest to me because I want and intend to continue feeding payphone calls into Payphone Radio, but if the entire payphone network is dead then so is my radio project.

I myself did not help the midtown payphone situation any. I unintentionally put the last payphone at Rockefeller Center out of business when my quarter jammed in the coin slot. I think it might have been on account of how a sugar packet opened in my coat pocket and the coins contained in that pocket had a thin coat of sugar on it, perhaps creating enough viscosity to prevent the coin from sliding on in as has so reliably happened at this phone in the past. Whoops. Or it might be that something else caused the jam. Either way, to Rockefeller Center payphone users, please accept my apology for this.

What’s next on the chopping block? Maybe the payphones left at Penn Station, probably the largest quantity of public phones under one roof in NYC, and at the Staten Island Ferry Terminals, which also feature an inordinate quantity of phones. A number of phones were taken out of Penn Station last year to make way for construction of the new “A Hole”, but today about a dozen remain, scattered throughout the LIRR waiting area downstairs and with 4 phones in the Amtrak area upstairs. How much longer do those phones have?