In this year of 2016 it is surprising to find fresh payphone installations, even in a type of place where you might actually expect to find them. New York’s Penn Station recently set up new payphone installations throughout the concourse area.
An abandoned payphone in Queens bears an interesting notice which claims that the phone is marked with something called "Tracekit", a permanent tracing system used by law enforcement. Did Tracekit really exist?
Curious photo of a smiling man using a payphone at the Domov Harmonie retirement community in Mirošov, Czech Republic.
A Rockefeller Center payphone customer spotted April 12, 2016; using a PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services) payphone.
Taken at the Masters Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, the photo shows several individuals using what appear to be two banks of public pay telephones.
A long time ago, from a payphone not so far away, I did a radio interview completely forgotten to me until last week. A round of Spring cleaning turned up a copy of the BBC's Alan Dein interviewing me for “Don’t Hang Up”.
This 1967 AP story describes an unnamed woman's surprise encounter with a payphone that could have been nicknamed The Octopus for its ability to spew indelible ink at its perceived enemies.
The best way to be heard and clearly understood when placing a call through a Link is to yell. That appears to be what happened in this audio capture, where a LinkNYC enthusiast encountered one of the devices.
It seemed strange to find a couple of payphones inside the bathrooms of the Oyster Bar Restaurant at Grand Central Terminal. When payphones were commonplace it was typical to find them in the shared space outside the actual latrines.
East Timor payphone -- what's left of it, that is -- by Flickr photographer Stormdog. Photo from March, 2016.
Photographer Barnabé Orange is a cousin of Hugo Massa, director of the short film “Hang Up, a Payphone Documentary“. This photo shows three somewhat overgrown phone booths in a region where cell phone signal is not very reliable.
It's a photo of a man on Third Avenue in Manhattan using a landline payphone. It's not as rare a sight as you might think but it's not something you see too often.
It is illegal to spoof CallerID info “with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongly obtain anything of value.” It is hard to imagine that CityBridge itself has any malicious intentions by spoofing CallerID from its Links, but the shield of anonymity now offered by these devices could make them an attractive resource for those who do.
Payphones make frequent appearances in TMITHC, a fantasy/science fiction series which explores the hypothetical reality of what North America might look like had the Axis powers won World War II.
Despite overblown privacy concerns people really are using these things. If you want to try one yourself it's looking like you might have to wait in line, just like the old days of the payphone hog.
It's a New Yorker with a red white and blue cap and a New York Sports Club sweatshirt using a payphone outside a Best Buy in Long Island City, Queens, NYC.
Links, expected to replace most of New York City's outdoor payphones, are rising fast on Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. Most of them do not work yet but that's OK. They're BETA.
I have used CityBridge’s Link devices a number of times since they went into active service a few weeks ago. My primary interest has been their ability to make phone calls. It turns out the “free phone calls” feature is worth about what I paid to use it.
It would be surprising if no one thought to find a home for this British style red phone box located at the service entrance for 437 Madison Avenue. I bet the folks at Citybridge would have considered putting a real working payphone in this sucker.
It seems inevitable that telephonic conspirators will use Links as back doors into public space, turning them into platforms for propaganda or even malicious pursuits. Links could effectively function as megaphones.
Once in a while in my research a charming cultural relic surfaces, such as this peppy New York Telephone commercial from 1987. This 60-second television spot shows several actors recreating real-world scenes of people using payphones in ways once common in New York.
This payphone was at the center of what was (to me, at least) a very amusing incident which occurred during the last week of December, 2015.
This payphone stood strong throughout the second biggest snowstorm in NYC history.
Photo of a busted out Telstra phone booth, Australia, by Ken Solomon, with link to more photos by the photographer.
This clamshell payphone at the corner of Broadway and St. James Place in Elmhurst, Queens, still bears signage from when it was owned by Van Wagner, the display advertising company that acquired a portion of Verizon’s payphone assets after the telecom company exited the business.Van Wagner was later acquired by Outfront Media, another display advertising company with…
Rogue payphone sightings in New York have become quite rare. I spotted this on in Brooklyn a few weeks ago.
Houston, Texas, boasts the nation's 2nd largest payphone population. A StreetView tour shows areas where they can be found every couple of blocks.