As I lined up to take pictures of this payphone enclosure a man walking his dog saw me and asked “When’s the next time you’re gonna see one of these?” We both laughed. I said “I know. Must document!” He then asked “You think that phone even works?” I said “No way am I touching that thing.” We both laughed. Neither of us could have known the phone would disappear soon.

I might have guessed this phone’s days were numbered by the state of its advertising panels. The right ad panel is blank, while the left had an ad for Toggl that I think had been there for about a year. The street-facing panel had an ad for Stance socks, which also looked pretty old. Money made from these advertising panels is the only reason payphones exist in New York in a supply that has always greatly exceeded demand. It didn’t look like anyone was selling ads for this phone anymore.

Despite my comments to the person walking his dog I did pick up the handset: No dial tone, as expected. This long-standing payphone enclosure, outside a laundromat at 25th Avenue and 44th Street in Astoria, disappeared about 2½ weeks after I got these photos. All that remains is this enigmatic yellow mat, the likes of which can now be found all across New York on spots where payphones used to be.

I call these mats “enigmatic” because their meaning is not obvious. For the past couple of years there would be little or no trace of a payphones after its removal. Before that, during the glory days of the LinkNYC rollout, payphones were replaced with big orange plywood pylons announcing free that WiFi was coming soon.

Is this yellow mat the new signal that a LinkNYC kiosk is coming soon? Probably not. Is it simply proof to show a follow-up inspector that the payphone was removed? Maybe. It could simply be a marker to remind someone that the metal poles need to be removed and the square of sidewalk repaved.

I had made a few calls from this phone, usually on my way to or from St. Michael’s Cemetery. I used it infrequently enough that I would forget how it sound quality was poor to such a degree that I could not use the calls I made for the intended purpose of Payphone Radio. A lot of wasted quarters and wasted words went down this phone.

This is hardly the only Astoria phone to succumb to the payphone angel of death in recent weeks. Two nearby, at the relatively obscure location of Astoria Boulevard South off of 44th Street, vanished about a month ago.

As for the rest of Astoria, from 19th Avenue down to Queensboro Plaza, and from Hazen Street to Vernon Boulevard, by my count only 11 CityBridge phones remain on the sidewalks, down from over 2 dozen just a couple of months ago. One non-working phone remains on Ditmars Boulevard at 37th Street. Another one lurks under the subway at 31st Street and 23rd Avenue. Astoria Boulevard has two. Steinway Street has 4 phones near 31st Avenue. 30th Avenue has one remaining at 34th Street. Two others linger near the corner of 36th Avenue and 31st Street. Of these 11 phones I believe only 2 have dial tone. I’m not including a couple of phones on Hoyt Avenue near 31st Street, which are barricaded by a fence erected as part of some road work. If those phones ever rise again or become accessible the count rises to 13.