Hell’s Kitchen Still Has a Lot of Payphones

It looks like Corey Johnson, Council Speaker for the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan, did not get what he asked for when he demanded removal of several payphone enclosures from the clogged and cluttered sidewalks of his district.

In February, as reported by AM New York and other sources, DoITT, the city agency that oversees CityBridge’s monopoly franchise on outdoor payphones, at Speaker Johnson’s request ordered immediate removal of six booths on 9th Avenue, singling out locations at 35th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 43rd and 45th Streets. DoITT further added that the days were numbered for most if not all remaining booths on 9th Avenue from 23rd Street up to 57th.

It seems Speaker Johnson’s request has been ignored. Almost four months later, as these photos show, it looks like all six of those phones remain on 9th Avenue, though I may have unintentionally have skipped getting a photo of one location. About two dozen more phones stubbornly survive on 9th Avenue between 34th and 57th Street.

Hell's Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 35th Street — Hell’s Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 35th Street

Hell's Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 38th Street — Hell’s Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 38th Street

Hell's Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 39th Street — Hell’s Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 39th Street

Hell's Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 40th Street — Hell’s Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 40th Street

Hell's Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 45th Street — Hell’s Kitchen Payphone at Ninth Avenue and 45th Street

The first phone, at 35th Street, is surrounded by barricades. But this appears related to a street closure, and not a signal of this payphone’s imminent doom.
One of the two phones at 38th Street shows the number 718-549-9530. According to my data museum of payphone locations past and present (mostly past) this phone’s former location was probably at the Riverdale Nursing Home up in the Bronx.
There are two PPT locations at 9th Avenue and 39th Street. I wouldn’t know if both are goners according to Speaker Johnson’s request or just one.
I either skipped getting a photo of an enclosure at 43rd Street or else it was in fact removed.
The last one, at 45th Street, is one of countless enclosures throughout New York that has no payphone, existing solely for the purpose of selling display advertisements.

There has been removal of four 9th Avenue phones but those, now memorialized by the tell-tale yellow mats that signal where payphones used to be, appear to have fallen victim to the broader project of chopping down “hundreds” of payphone throughout New York as ordered by DoITT in March.

Speaker Johnson was promised by DoITT and CityBridge that removal of his phones would get priority over others. That does not seem to have happened, as New York’s payphone apocalypse has swallowed dozens of phones from other districts in New York but left most of them in Hell’s Kitchen.

These mats at 9th Avenue and 47th Street remind us that three payphones used to stand here. Another phone, also survived by a yellow mat, was murdered one block up, at 48th Street. Other than these it looks like the payphone population of Hell’s Kitchen has not changed.

The irony of the rationale behind eliminating these payphones is that, had things stuck to the Smart City plan, they would have been replaced by LinkNYC kiosks. Those kiosks attract infinitely more vagrancy abd create more sidewalk congestion than the payphones ever did.

For now, though, the LinkNYC rollout remains stagnated, with no evidence to suggest when or even if it will resume.