Phone Booth Scene From “The Rose” (1979)
What a great film. I did not see the phone booth scene coming but guess I should have.
Payphones of Yore at Steinway Street Near 31st Avenue
Some things changed, others did not at this Astoria intersection. One thing altogether gone is the set of three payphones, gone without a trace.
Mounting Backplate Where a Payphone Used To Be
This mounting backplate, which once held a payphone at a Queens laundromat, is still available for purchase at payphone.com. $23. What a bargain.
Dude Talking on a Midtown Payphone
In the last frame I think he is looking at me…
A Payphone Gem From Getty Images
A brief window into New York's payphone past in a 1-minute piece about a 30-second payphone at Penn Station. At least one remnant of the 30-second payphone survives today, not working, of course, and not at Penn Station.
An Astoria Payphone Near the Library: Gone
This payphone outside a library reminds me that I believe public libraries should have public telephone rooms where anyone could make a call. It would likely serve a very small niche of the public but it seems, to me at least, like a low-impact, low-maintenance service to offer, assuming there are limits on usage.
Payphone Gone From El Gallito Grocery in Astoria
A brief look at the life and times of a 33rd Street TCC Teleplex payphone in Astoria. I don't remember using this one but plenty of other people did, and likely still would, if only they could.
The Snowed-In Phone Booth at New Germany State Park in Grantsville, MD.
Photos by Daniel Hopsicker, shot on Kodak Ektachrome VS 100 Film, expired in 2001. Beautiful images of an old Airlight style booth, with footprints in the snow suggesting the phone actually got some use while being partly snowbound.
A Walgreen’s Payphone, 1999, Then and Now
One of my favorite payphone photos I ever got. A young woman takes a break from her job at Walgreen's to make a call at the payphone outside. Whose phone number is on the scrap of paper she holds in her left hand? Why does she appear to be so antsy?
Grand Central Terminal Payphones Then and Now
Citizens are now required to keep their cell phones charged, healthy, and in their possession at all times, an unfortunate and potentially perilous denouement to the decades-long era of publicly accessible communications devices.
An Astoria Payphone Location, Then and Now
By request, and because I was genuinely preparing to resume this subject, I'm continuing my series of "Payphones Then and Now", starting with this shot of a phone at 36th Avenue and 37th Street in Astoria, Queens.
A Payphone Stramble Through Midtown Last Week
It turns out the great Rockefeller Center payphone is not as reliable as I thought. Recollections of one dirty trick that helped turn "COCOT" into a dirty word among payphone users in the 1980s and 1990s.
Payphone Radio Revisited
I finally tackled the tedious but satisfying task of editing and processing over 1600 payphone calls I made from 2011 to 2020. About 63 hours of that stuff now populates the Shoutcast stream at payphoneradio.com.
West Virginia Payphone Photos By Daniel Hopsicker
Some West Virginia payphone photos shot on black and white film, including a nice old wood phone booth at the Mountaineer Hotel in Williamson.
Payphones of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
A video tour of what's left of payphones in Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. At the end of this I make a rookie mistake in thinking that just because a payphone has dial tone that means it will work. Learn from my mistake, folks: Don't put your coin until after dialing the number.
Payphones of Murray Hill & Auburndale, Queens. January 13, 2021
I walked from Flushing all the way up to Bayside via Northern Boulevard, through Murray Hill and Auburndale, encountering only a small number of payphones in various conditions of disrepair. Here's a short video from an epic long walk.
Payphone Scene From “American Psycho”
I thought I caught a payphone goof in this short scene from the movie “American Psycho”, filmed in 1999. I noticed that the actor dials a number but it’s only 7 digits. I thought mandatory ten-digit dialing had been around a lot longer than it has. Turns out it was not made mandatory in the…
Flip Phone? Or Pay Phone?
Payphones of Northern Boulevard and Woodside. January, 2021.
Closest thing to dial tone in this series is the infamous stuck key payphone at the 74th Street/Roosevelt Avenue/Broadway subway station. That phone has dial tone but its stuck * key makes calls impossible.
Ye Olde Payphone at Queensboro Plaza
This phone always worked. I never knew it to be lacking dial tone. I think this and another PTS phone at the opposite end of the 7/N/W platform disappeared in January, 2018.
Dude Tried to Make a Payphone Call
This incident proves, yet again, that people still need payphones, and would use them if they worked. New York is fast becoming a city where people like the man seen in this video are unable to do something so fundamental that most of us take for granted. He was unable to make a phone call. And also, some ramblings about the old Apology Line and recent activity regarding my acquisition of its original 212-255-2748 number.
Payphones of Chinatown: I Got Them Just In Time.
Only three weeks after I captured these videos of Chinatown's last payphones it appears all or most of them are gone. I got to them just in time.
Death, Life, Mortality, and Payphones. A Walking Tour of Old Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
I spent a couple of hours at Old Calvary Cemetery in Queens with Jessi Highet and Mike Varley, giving them a sort of guided tour of the grounds with discussion of death, mortality and, of course, payphones. Watch the videos. Sometimes I even sound like I know what I'm talking about.
Last Payphones of Flushing, Queens
Without a single LinkNYC kiosk to replace the dozens of removed payphones Flushing residents can only hope for the best that their cell phones are always in their possession and always in working order.
Video: Long Dead Payphones by the Verrazano-Narrows in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
This looks like a cool spot for a filming location should a director need or benefit from an authentic 1990s-era payphone with a dramatic backdrop.
Video: The Payphone at the End of the R. Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
This one's been moldering away in Bay Ridge for many years, and not inconspicuously. It's practically in the middle of the sidewalk.
Payphones of The Bronx and Harlem. January 2, 2021.
I took the 4 to Fordham to check in on some straggler PTS payphones, as well as a couple of failures from the LinkNYC "Smart City" rollout.
Payphones of 125th Street, New Years Day
In which I spotted something I have never seen in the wild before: A payphone TTY keyboard rolled out and, from what I could tell, in full working order.