“Hang Up”, a Payphone Documentary, Is Public

“Hang Up”, the New York City payphone documentary to which I contributed, is now viewable on the public Internet for the first time since its premiere last year.

I attended the first public showings of “Hang Up” in NYC theaters. Once I got over the gobsmacked weirdness of seeing my aging face on a gigantic movie screen I settled into the film itself. It is not easy to be objective about a film in which I was involved, and to which I contributed many hours of my time. Nevertheless I think it is fair to say that the director did a beautiful job of chronicling a subject matter most would consider coarse. The highlight of the film, to me, is the sound. Director Ugo Massa elegantly and meticulously captured the humming, monochrome, grey sound of the landline, including one of my subway busker captures of a saxophonist playing “Heart and Soul” as heard through a payphone. Music and city sounds take on a mysterious aural hue when heard through the raspy medium of the landline telephone.

At only 14 minutes I think the film could have been as much as twice that duration, with a little more of John Porter (owner of the now-defunct East Harlem Unity Communications) and perhaps a window into the world of another independent payphone provider.

One of the most striking reactions from the first audience of “Hang Up” was the surprise to learn that people like John Porter existed. Most folks, had they given it any thought at all, assumed payphones were owned by Verizon or other large national telcos. Verizon, AT&T, and other such companies exited the payphone business years ago. Until the city granted a franchise monopoly to Citybridge there were over a dozen independent companies managing New York City’s payphones. Those individuals and companies were pushed out of business by the city with the as-yet unfulfilled promise that their payphones would be replaced by multigigabit WiFi hotspots called Links. LinkNYC devices were promised by year’s end but as December moves along it appears that deadline will not be met. New York City’s payphones, which number in the thousands, endure for the time being.

Ugo Massa has moved on to other projects, as have I, but we remain in contact. We didn’t just make a movie. We made friends. Click to watch.