Last Payphones of Flushing, Queens

As far as I can tell the 5 payphones in this video are all that is left of Flushing’s once abundant quantity. Only one of them, in the Main Street 7 train subway station, works. Without a single LinkNYC kiosk to replace the dozens of removed payphones one can only hope for the best that their cell phone is always in their possession and always in working order.

The first, with its “NO PEE PEE” bit of graffiti, had no dial tone, no advertising panels, but might have been a target of the ArtInAdPlaces group that overlays advertising with art. In this case the art would be a solid blue sheet.

The phone number shown for the second non-working phone, in the Main Street subway station, is 718-762-9717, listed on this page in the non-useful format of using the street address of MTA’s headquarters as its location. I neglected to record the phone number for the third phone, with an upside-down bottom placard, but I know that its number is 718-762-9767, listed, as with the previous phone, on this page. That is the only dial tone you’ll find in Flushing’s public space.

En route to what I believe is the last payphone at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park I pass the Unisphere, with some memories of another failed romance.

A friend of mine knew someone who grew up in Flushing in the 1970s. That person said it was common for he and his friends to get high and climb to the top of that 140-foot high 700,000 pound globe. I had no reason to doubt the story but maintained a whiff of skepticism until spotting this video, from 1993, in which someone did just that, climbed to the top of the Unisphere.

The phone number printed on the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park payphone, with its barely-readable first digit, is 718-271-9560, and is listed on this page.

For some reason the fourth phone, referenced at the end of this, on Prince Street, did not make it into this video. Production error, I guess. Yeah, I know what I’m doing.