Two payphones are found at the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. They are on the second floor of the building, next to the women’s bathroom. A sign above the two phones claims that “Additional Telephones” are to be found “on Floors 3, 4 and 5. Lies! Well, there may be house phones on the upper floors but I found no public pay telephones besides these two.
The phone on the right is underlined by a TTY device. These phones actually work. In fact when I first noticed these phones last week I could not even get at the both of them because an individual was glued to one of them. He was holding a cell phone in his right hand punching numbers in to the payphone. I don’t know what he was doing but it seemed rude to stare.
I think all public libraries should have at least one public telephone. These happen to be public pay telephones but I think libraries should consider establishing free telephone rooms.
The phones at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library are owned by PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services), the California-based company that acquired nationwide payphone assets a number of years ago. The numbers for the payphones are 212-684-9516 and 212-684-8529.
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Libraries should absolutely not provide free telephones. The Payphone system works perfect as it is. Bums and ghetto trash people are too self obsessed these days and would just monopolize it even with a call timer.