![[VIDEO] Checking in from Yet Another “Last Payphone of New York City”](https://www.payphone-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/vlcsnap-2022-06-22-18h10m53s635-250x180.png)
[VIDEO] Checking in from Yet Another “Last Payphone of New York City”
I have more triggers than I thought. Others to come?
PRAY-Spotting in the Movies.
Thanks to Diggy64 in the comments section of 2020’s article “PRAYphones Gone From Midtown Manhattan” we now know that work of the immortal scratchiti artist PRAY made an appearance in 1984’s Brother From Another Planet and other films as well. Here is PRAY’s appearance from that film, at about 44:38. Look for more discussion of…
![[VIDEO] The Romance of Knowing Your Shit in an Avalanche of Fools](https://www.payphone-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Payphone-Radio-Card-20190306_120138-003-with-number-not-bad-002-250x180.jpg)
[VIDEO] The Romance of Knowing Your Shit in an Avalanche of Fools
I have resumed making Payphone Radio calls from still-working New York City payphones. In this episode I explore the unthinkable possibility that I have character flaws.
Payphones at the Metropolitan Museum
These phones at the Met Museum in New York may not be antiquities by Museum standards, or compared to other items housed at that august institution. But like most of the artists on display at this museum the phones, numbered, 212-650-1305 and 212-650-0682, have been dead for a long time.
Another NYT Plug, and: The Doomsday Payphone Is For Sale!
A true end of an era in New York City payphones seems to be upon us. The last of the "Independents" appears to be finally on its way to history. That is, unless a concerned buyer can buy it with the purpose of keeping at least one more working publicly-accessible alive. We can hope for miracles, right?
Talking It Up On Flushing’s Only Working Public Pay Telephone
Action shot from today. Reliable sources tell me this phone does about $1.50 in business a day. But it shouldn't be about business, or profits, should it? Phones like this should be subsidized in the public interest. People would still use public pay telephones, if only they could.
Romeo & Juliet at Central Park, With a Chorus of Payphones Looking On
The bronze statue, by Milton Hebal, still stands outside the Delacorte Theater. The payphones didn't make it.
VIDEO: What Happens When Trying to Make a Call Through CityBridge’s Last “Official” Street Payphones?
I brought out my boss field recorder to get all the audio of what happens when one tries to make phone calls through CityBridge’s West End Avenue phone booths. I’ve done this before but only with partial audio recorded through my camera’s mic. This time I brought a field recorder and a Radio Shack suction-cup thingy used to record phone calls.
Old Dead Phone at the Penn Station 1/2/3.
This beauty lurks at 7th Avenue at 33rd street, downstairs in the Penn Station 1/2/3 station, outside the Sbarro. No identifying information remains with respect to which of New York’s once-abundant independent payphone service providers left this one behind. What a phone like this needs, of course, is a couple of Payphone Radio cards to…
Those West End Avenue Phone Booths? Their Payphones Don’t Even Work.
If you encounter the West End Avenue phones yourself do not be fooled by the dial tone. Attempts to make calls send you to an automated service that appears to let you complete your call using a calling card, credit card, or by calling collect.
Payphones at Carnegie Hall
I finally got at the payphones in Carnegie Hall for the first time since pandemic. Carnegie has a vax card requirement for entry. This made me think they’d only allow people in if they had tickets for a concert or other legitimate business there. Maybe that was true before but I got through today with…
The SEX Payphones of 42nd Street are Finally Gone
CityBridge, the same consortium responsible for LinkNYC and Link5G, let this filthy payphone totem, reeking of piss/shit/I don’t want to know what else, molder in plain site for years at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. These Smart City’s filthgasms finally disappeared last month, presumably to make way for a Smart City LinkNYC 5G skyscraper or…
![The New Link5G LinkNYC Skyscrapers Close-Up [Video]](https://www.payphone-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/DSC09621-250x180.jpg)
The New Link5G LinkNYC Skyscrapers Close-Up [Video]
The Intersection/Google/CityBridge Smart City monopoly continues to fail up. The future of public communications, the next evolution of the payphone, looks like this. Meet Link5G. Some shoddy workmanship and general ugliness. If the LinkNYC rollout was any indication we can look forward to 7 or 8 of these 5G absolute necessities on every intersection in…
Phone Booths of the New Jersey Turnpike. October, 2005.
Thanks solely to the Simon & Garfunkel song "America" I long maintained a romanticized notion of the New Jersey Turnpike, and the very word "turnpike" itself. Long, dark corridors of travel and imagination, falling in love with strangers, making millions off royalties from songs written about those strangers.
77 Water Payphone Carousel Revisited (VIDEO)
I would swear I found PRAY on one of these payphones some years ago. Finding any photos I captured of it seems impossible now. Also, this domain name might be for sale. The content, I'm told, is worth nothing. Maybe the domain name is?
Peter Skiera Reviews Payphone Radio at RecommendedStations.com
Redittors have not been the only people talking about Payphone Radio. Peter Skiera christened his new blog with a lengthy writeup of that radio stream. It is a good piece of writing. I was happy to have plenty of room to represent myself as not quite the incoherent faux-suicidal Joe Frank-wannabe weirdo some Payphone Radio…
Faith on Fear: An eBay Payphone Connection to a Church in Wisconsin
I found myself watching a church sermon today, live streamed on Facebook from the Faith Church on Fear Street in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I am not religious, despite having attended Catholic schools from the 3rd grade all the way through high school. I attend a church once in a while. My only interest is the…
VIDEO: When a PBX Glitch Landed Me a Hot Date With a Burlesque Stripper
About a month ago a Reddit user posted the phone number that connects to my Payphone Radio (212-255-2748). The Reddit thread was intended to spur discussion about the audio content heard when calling that number. That is what happened, at least at first.
The Old Payphone Graveyard in Astoria. January, 2003.
In this lot today you also might find air machines, countertop video games, internet-connected jukeboxes, tchotchke dispensers, claw machines, change-makers, etc. Any coin- or cash-fed device you encounter today is quite possibly operated by payphone owners of yore.
Hack the Planet? Nah. This TTY Slid Right Open.
I could lie and say I hacked the planet getting this grubby old payphone TTY to open. Really, the thing just opened right up. Any other TTY I’ve found has the keyboard securely locked until, I assume, someone legitimately needs to use it and has connected with another TTY user or someone whose receipt of…
Almost Heaven… West Virginia is Teeming With Working Payphones
A series of photos, shot this month on hand-rolled Arista 400 B&W film, by Daniel Hopsicker in Charleston, West Virginia. All of these payphone work, and one Airlite phone booth even includes a fully functioning door that opens and closes.
The Abandoned Bell Atlantic Phone at 74-21 Queens Boulevard.
The owner at this lot yelled at me to get off his property, even though I never set foot on it. I managed to get a few shots in anyway, after spotting this dead phone at 74-21 Queens Boulevard in November, 2013. It disappeared soon after. Amazingly, I was able to determine this long-dead payphone's number. Now disconnected, its number was 718-429-9710.
Jersey City Payphones? Not So Much. And Also: CityPost Disappoints.
Nothing much on the payphone front in Jersey City but I did take a crack at JC's CityPost totems, which somewhat resemble LinkNYC in form but not in function. Wi-Fi speeds were useless, but unlike LinkNYC there seems to have been thought put into letting advertising and useful information coexist on the advertising screens without the ads disappearing altogether.
A Payphone Surprise at the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal
Next time you make it to the Whitehall Staten Island Ferry Terminal maybe make a couple of calls from the now-working payphones. All but one is back in service. If you are in the company of a younger person who's never encountered a payphone it could be fun to have them make a phone-call the old-fashioned way.
267-691-2424 On Your Caller ID? That’s LinkPHL Calling.
Thanks to a friend from my YouTube Payphone Channel I now know what LinkPHL kiosks, the Philadelphia version of LinkNYC, sends out as its caller ID. If you received a call from (267) 691-2424 that most likely means someone tried to reach you from a LinkPHL Smart City kiosk in Philadelphia. If LinkPHL is set…
The Red Phone on Delancey at Ludlow
I would have bet cash cash money this sucker was gone but here it is, today, red as ever.
988 comes to New York State, but not to New York City’s payphones.
One consequence of making 988 live is that some areas of New York finally had to switch to 10-digit dialing. That's not something I keep track of but I was surprised by how many areas still let you get away with just dialing 7 digits for local calls in this year of 2021. This is a video tour of some old payphone favorites, with tests of LinkNYC's ability to reach 988.
What happens when you try to make a call through a CityBridge payphone?
If you can find a CityBridge payphone with dial tone your attempts to make calls will send you into a confusing series of billing options, including calling card or even collect calls. CityBridge has let its Verizon Wireless account expire, leaving ownership of their payphones up for grabs, it seems.