Market & 11th Streets. Philadelphia Payphone user.
Mark Dent at BillyPenn.com penned a nicely done piece on the surprising quantity of payphones actively in service in Philadelphia. I visited Philadelphia some months ago and remember being somewhat surprised at how easy it was to find payphones there. I even spotted a couple of people using payphones. Sightings of people using payphones are something like the 21st century’s equivalent of the unicorn.
It should be noted that the header image of this web site features a revolving selection of photos from my ongoing collection of people using payphones in NYC.
One bit of information in the Billy Penn piece surprised me. I had heard through seemingly reliable sources (a city official via an NPR reporter) that in terms of payphone population Boston was the country’s #2 payphone city, with about 600. That would make it a distant second to New York, which has thousands. It turns out my sources were wrong. The American Public Communications Council‘s stats show that Houston is #2, followed by Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and then Boston at #5. Billy Penn’s infographic stops at San Francisco’s approximately 200 payphones, leaving a surprising number of large cities virtually off the grid in terms of access to a phone in an emergency situation. Dallas, San Diego, Phoenix, and other highly populated U.S. all seem to be payphone deserts according to stats from the APCC:
In cities such as Dallas and San Diego one wonders where the payphones are, or if they even exist at all. I’ve not visited Dallas but as with any large city I would expect to find a payphone or two at transit hubs, larger train stations and bus depots, zoos and parks, stadiums and arenas, and concert halls. Gas stations, hotels, and public libraries are also possibilities.
It may sound crazy but as a last resort you might see if you can find a prison or police station, where a working payphone could be found in the lobby or waiting area.
Stadiums that have been around a while are likely to have payphones but newer ones not so much. New York’s old Yankee Stadium had a number of payphones but the new stadium has none. I would assume the new AT&T Stadium in Dallas has none. No telephone icons appear in any of the AT&T Stadium maps.
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I have a pay phone story if I would ever get on Jeopardy, but haven't been called yet. I talked the telephone operator into getting in the phone booth with me. 48 years ago or so I tried to call a girl to make arrangements for the weekend from a phone booth in downtown Rolla, Mo. The operator said "Put your money in." I said "I did." She said that she didn't hear it go ding. I said it didn't but I put the money in. She asked if I expected her to believe that. I said "I'm right across the street from the phone company, come across and see for yourself." She did and ended up giving me credit for the money I put in. There were a ton of operators peeking out the window watching history made.
I have a friend who lives on Maui. He was complaining once, a few years ago, that he had forgotten his cell phone when he went shopping and couldn't find a pay phone. So I drove around the island of Oahu, taking pictures of pay phones to show him that we had them over here!
Highest number of payphones per capita for any U.S. state, as of about a year ago, and probably still. :)