In February I noted that about 20 payphones had gone missing all at once from Grand Central Terminal, leaving only 4 working phones in the building. I suggested that a day when zero phones remain at New York’s iconic transit hub might not be far off. From my observation last week it looks like that day might come soon.
Having worked as recently as a few weeks ago none of the 4 remaining payphones at Grand Central have dial tone today, and coins deposited shuffle straight back out to the coin return chamber. That latter flourish suggests that a PTS payphone technician intentionally disabled these phones and set the coin-intake mechanism so that no one’s money would be lost.
The phones’ removal could be part of Metro-North’s Way Ahead program, an initiative intended to modernize the Terminal with changes that already include swapping out the flap-board arrival and departure boards with LED screens.
Or it might reflect Verizon’s move to route out all its copper landline infrastructure in favor of fiber. Unlike most of New York’s outdoor payphones, powered by solar energy and which connect calls via the Verizon cellular network, the phones at Grand Central and in the subway system connect via old-fashioned copper. If any chance remains for keeping public telephones at Grand Central it would probably mean changing how they connect.
Or maybe PTS, the company that owns and maintains these phones, simply wants out. PTS owns all the payphones in the New York City subway system, and in places like Broadway theaters and in the city parks. If the working order of those phones reflects the company’s priorities it would appear that PTS has thrown in the towel with regard to its NYC payphones.
I have known PTS payphones to come back alive after months of downtime. But this time it feels different. The end really does seem nigh once and for all, at least with regard to grand Central. A couple of PTS phones at the Hotel Pennsylvania still work but the others have been dead for months. Three payphones at the Onassis Cultural Center disappeared earlier this year. And the hoary, wretched, massacred phone that had lingered for years in the Grand Central subway station finally disappeared last week, suggesting PTS is on a payphone maintenance binge.
Another sign that PTS might be unwinding its payphone business is that the company’s website went missing a few months ago.
I would miss the top-notch call quality that characterized those old landline payphones. But change is inevitable, and progress comes with compromise. Maybe that compromise will mean inferior call quality when the remaining payphones at Grand Central are wired to connect via cellular networks. More likely it means no phones at all.
Instead of public phones or any ability for cellphone-free commuters to make phone calls we will get (what else?) advertising. Like most of the places where payphones used to be at Grand Central the row of about a dozen phones formerly found near the 45th Street passage today looks like this:
