New Public Telephones. Bell Telephone System, 1960

This 1960 advertisement, directed at city planners, promotes three models of public telephone offered by Bell Telephone System at the time.

Amazingly, all three styles of public telephone seen in this advertisement can still be found today.

This “Phone from car” payphone on Northern Boulevard worked the last time I tried it.

The curbside “Walk-Up” payphone (my favorite style of public telephone) is still a common site. Models of this variety will probably disappear soon in favor of bulkier but more lucrative advertising-subsidized payphone enclosures:

Outdoor versions of the fabled “Airlight Booth” can still be found on Manhattan’s West Side, home of Manhattan’s last outdoor phone booths.

Upon my quest to prove that people still use payphones I spotted this woman talking under the light of a midtown Manhattan old-style wooden phone booth:

In earlier times the telephone company could legitimately claim that “More and more city officials are enthusiastically welcoming outdoor telephones on public property.” Today the pendulum seems to have swung to the opposite extreme, though independent payphone providers like Van Wagner and Titan have added WiFi antennæ to selected public telephone locations as a possible way to further subsidize the phones.