A short video of my discovery that a trusted, fully functional payphone had been chopped, with some pictures of how it looked just a month ago. It had those cool Arial font "TELEPHONE" signages, yellowed with age, from the olden days of NYNEX and New York Telephone.
Rummaging through old photos, found this one today. It's a Midtown Manhattan payphone user, with an arrow for emphasis, from September, 1999. I remember that phone, near the Time & Life Building where I used to work.
This payphone, which does not work and contains no display advertising to subsidize its existence, serves no purpose whatsoever, and might even pose safety hazards.
What the title says. CityBridge has a monopoly franchise on NYC's outdoor payphones. With no competition they can get away with stuff like this.
One payphone carcass stuffed into the hedges, and another hunk of nothing with no advertising panels or dial tone help round out what's left of the payphones on Northern Boulevard between Long Island City and Corona.
I think this is the first time I've seen a payphone in a movie or on television that I recognized and had actually used. Vestiges of this payphone still remain on Broadway near Crescent Street in Astoria, Queens.
New York City payphones make a couple of appearances in this violent, obscenity-filled movie.
If you want to reach out and touch someone, a total stranger, most likely, here's your chance. Bill Carew, from Carolina Beach, North Carolina, sends up this working payphone, a restored 1980’s DTMF AT&T/Western Electric rig, that makes and receives calls.
PPTs (Public Pay Telephones) have complicated digestive systems. This is from 6th Avenue around 50th Street last week. Wishing the last shot coulda been clearer.
This payphone disappeared not long after I got this shot, in August, 2010. I remember the hoarsely glottal loudness of his voice but wish I had some memory of what this dude was yelling about, into a payphone, clutching a print copy of a newspaper with his left pit.
The greater Sacramento, CA, area still has a good number of working payphones. Here are four of them on I Street, all in a row. Thanks to Sarah Steffens and Brian Louderback.
The person who brought New York its first outdoor "payphone of the future" died earlier this year.
This phone is among the last outdoor phones in New York not owned or confiscated by CityBridge, the consortium of media, tech, and advertising companies awarded a monopoly franchise on virtually all of New York's outdoor payphones.
I don't know who did this, at a payphone in Long Island City, but going forward, whenever possible, I will do the same, as a tribute to whatever inspired someone to hang up a payphone handset on the roof of its enclosure. Was it frustration? Art? Heaven-reaching ennui? Who the hell knows?
Now we know. The phone number of the working (yes! working) payphone in the old wood phone booth at New York Presbyterian Hospital is 212-650-1338. No incoming calls accepted but now you would at least know *where* someone is calling from if 212-650-1338 shows up on your caller ID.
Explore the inner workings of the payphone world in what was the industry's last official trade journal, Perspectives, published by the American public Communications Council.
Thanks to Flickr user Shari Dayton we now know that a payphone in an old phone booth at 1st Street and A Street in Milford, Nebraska, is alive and well and takes incoming calls. I called and got an answer after I don’t remember how many calls, or how many rings. Here is Shari’s picture,…
Did this payphone simply give up? Did it fall in love with and start making out with the sidewalk? Was a taco involved?
An interesting scene which must be among the most recently-released films showing payphones as real-world present day objects. And also, a payphone movie fail near the end of the film, when a "New York Telephone" branded phone appears in a way that would not have happened in 2013, when the film was made.
I put on my "Franchise Inspector" hat again, putting LinkNYC's "Super Fast Wi-Fi" to the test. Results, as per the last time I did this, were all over the place.
You never used to see this kind of thing in Astoria. Now you do. Thanks, LinkNYC!
A couple of working payphones, one found inside a fully intact phone booth, from the National Radio Quiet Zone, in Virginia. Photos by Daniel Hopsicker.
New York's payphones are still hanging in there, with signs that dial tone may yet return to those neglected pieces of street furniture. I've canvassed large parts of Manhattan and Queens, and a little bit of Brooklyn, to check on the payphone carnage.
Payphone hunting along Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn today didn't turn up much. In fact, it didn't turn up anything but this, and a single yellow mat where a payphone used to be at 4th Avenue and Bergen Street.
Spotted this man today taking advantage of some of the last dial tone you'll find find in Long Island City, Queens.
Dude reading a book and enjoying the 90° weather next to a couple of non-working CityBridge payphones in Midtown Manhattan today.
Gothamist reports that an ice cream truck company, Good Humor, discontinued use of “Turkey in the Straw” as its jingle on account of the song’s racist history. A new jingle, written by RZA, of the Wu-Tang Clan, replaced the old one. What does this have to do with payphones? Not much.
It's not what it once was, and maybe it never will be again, but I still love Midtown Manhattan. Found this earnest bit of graffiti inside a payphone enclosure today. Apparently someone is "Targeting whole American society with Permanent death Murder Technology extreme weapons."