Payphone: Archer, Nebraska

Daniel Zubiate shares this July, 2011, picture of a payphone in Archer, Nebraska. Daniel adds: “Not surprisingly, the phone didn’t work when I tested it.” Some years ago I went on a long road trip through Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming and West Virginia, snapping pictures of (among other things) Nebraska payphones and phone booths. I…
Payphone Pictures & Sounds |
NYC Rotary Dial Payphone Revisited

This is one of my favorite things in New York City. There is the Unisphere. I love that thing. I plan to stand under it this week. There used to be the Nissin Cup O’ Noodles soup bucket thing high atop Times Square. I loved that, too. There is the Black Forest Ham and Brie…
Payphone Confidential |

Geoffrey Niswander shares this phone booth photo from Enfield, New Hampshire:   Mr. Niswadner writes: This one is on Route 4 in front of La Sallete, which is the regionally famous “12 Stations of the Cross”, directly across the road from the Enfield Shaker Village. Just two weeks ago I was able to share a…
Payphone Pictures & Sounds |

Trend.AZ reports: Baku Telephone Communications Production Association of the Azerbaijani Communications and IT Ministry began work on updating payphone services, the Ministry Spokesman Mushfig Amirov told Trend on Thursday. Read more at Trend.AZ
Payphone News |

I have been cutting the noise out of my life. The mental noise of interactive distraction, or “interstraction.” I rarely carry a cell phone any more, and I may be ready to give up on the device altogether. At first it made me fidgety. I frequently reached for the multi-distractional smart phone out of habit,…
Payphone Confidential |

A friend sent me this photo of a phone booth in Randolph, New Hampshire: The booth is outside a Lowe’s gas station. Erica Avery says “The proprietress told us the phone company no longer gives them a cut of what they take in, but Lowe’s still didn’t want the phone booth removed.” It seems some…
Payphone Pictures & Sounds |

George Peppard, looking a bit like Joe Buck in this screen grab from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, steps into one of a row of 6 outdoor metal phone booths in Manhattan. This is at about the 1:21 mark of the film, where Paul Varjak (played by Peppard) tries but fails to reach Holly Golightly, played by…
In Movies and on TV |
Donald Duck: The Flying Phone Booth

Superman is not the only cartoon character who steps in to phone booths. “The Flying Phone Booth” follows Donald Duck on an interplanetary adventure in which aliens blast our hero into space in a specially-built rocket-powered phone booth. The story gets going with Donald Duck patrolling his home town of Duckburg. He is on a…
Payphone Confidential |

A couple of weeks ago, prior to the more significant arrival of Hurricane Irene, NYC and other areas experienced a mild earthquake, one which rattled nerves more than anything else, but which caused genuine concern in the early moments following its arrival. I feel a little left out of the incident. I felt nothing. No…
Payphone News |
Empty Garden

My window screens writhe in their strait jackets. Irene sends her periodic blasts of rain matter across this sleeping city. The pelting noise of the rain bands will keep this restless soul wide awake through the day. In my last posting here I promised (within 48 hours of the incident) an accounting of my experiences…
Payphone Confidential |
On the Phone

This is me in about 30 years. This picture shows an elderly man using a payphone in midtown Manhattan. He had a stack of papers in front of him, papers with hand-written notes, phone numbers, and scripts. He looked a bit like an Arthur Miller character, as will we all at certain stages of our…
Payphone Pictures & Sounds |

I spotted this charming short story in the December, 1891, issue of "The Etude" magazine. This is not about payphones, but it comes from a time when the telephone was still considered mysterious and magical, and the lines lightly used.
Payphone Confidential |
“A Relic of the Past!”

“A Relic of the Past!” A woman yelled those words when she saw me taking pictures of these empty hulls of 9th Avenue payphones. Was she referring to the payphone, or to the nuclear family marching past? Maybe I should have asked.
Payphone Pictures & Sounds |
Sanitary Payphone Wrapper

Here is something any payphone user can appreciate. A sanitary wrapper for a public telephone, thoughtfully placed by a fellow payphone user: Of course there is no telling what microbial horrors lie within that shared scrap of napkin. Bed Bugs? West Nile Virus? Anthrax? Fleas and ticks? Certainly a fresh splotch of perspiration would be…
Payphone News |
The Last Payphone at Trump Tower

Someone should change these signs at the Trump Tower: There are no longer pay telephones (plural) at this building. As of July, 2011, there is (as far as I can tell) only one pay telephone at the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. It is in the basement (the Garden Level) at the end…
Then and Now |
Manhattan Phone Booths Revisited. May, 2011.

I did not have much time to get these photos, and on account of the time-constraints I found myself nearly running up West End Avenue from 66th to 101st Street. The rushing around seemed strangely appropriate in light of the rapid decline of payphones. It’s like I was chasing payphone on this hot summer day,…
Payphone News |
The High Line’s Phone Booth Art

Checking in as I occasionally do on the last outdoor, free-standing phone booths of Manhattan, I noticed that one of those old booths has been arted up with images of grasses and greenery. Images of greenery cover most of three sides of this phone booth at 66th Street and West End Avenue. They advertise The…
Payphone News |