Laurel Hill Boulevard Payphone Gone

I thought this was a strange location for a payphone. Located in the shadow of the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, I-278) this Verizon payphone stood outside of a tombstone manufacturer on Laurel Hill Boulevard near 48th Street as recently as March, 2010, when I got these two pictures.

The payphone was near a Q39 bus stop, which might have accounted for some foot traffic to the location, but all in all this seemed to my untamed eye like an unlikely spot for a payphone in this year of 2010.

Sure enough, only 2 months later this payphone is gone, gone, gone:

Like a tombstone for the payphone era this Verizon phone stood outside the O’Loughlin Florist and the Riley Brothers Monuments company. The latter business has, since 1883, manufactured tombstones, mausoleums, and funerary art for the nearby New Calvary Cemetery and other New York City cemeteries. This company pre-dates payphones! And speaking of phones, both O’Loughlin and Riley Brothers still show their old-style telephone exchange name phone numbers commonly used up until the mid-1960s. Their signs show STillwell-4 phone numbers.

I spotted this randomly located payphone in March whilst at New Calvary. I was helping some genealogical friends from far away by getting photos of their ancestors’ tombstones. On a cross-Queens bus journey last week I noticed the payphone was gone, proving that tombstones are forever but payphones are not.