You have to wonder if the famous phone booth toppling scene from Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” was not partly inspired by stories such as this Associated press piece from 1984. In “Goodfellas” Robert De Niro angrily pounds a payphone handset into the device before knocking over the entire phone booth, which was apparently not very well secured to the ground on which it stood. The difference between that scene from “Goodfellas” and the unfortunate individual in this AP story is that the phone booth didn’t stand a chance against the rage of one Robert De Niro. Mr. Richard A. Anderson of Iowa City, IA, was not evidently so forceful. The headline reads like something from satire. Talk about phone booth fighting…

Pay phone defends itself against irate Iowa City man

IOWA CITY, IA. (AP) – One of Ma Bell’s pay telephones proved here that it can defend itself against irate callers, as an Iowa City man painfully discovered over the weekend when he tangled with a telephone and lost.

Iowa City police received an initial report Saturday night of a stabbing victim lying in the alley between the Old Capitol Center shopping mall and a parking ramp. Instead of a stabbing, police officers found Richard A. Anderson, 20, who suffered cuts on his face, neck and shoulder after a bloody confrontation with a telephone in the downtown mall.

 

According to police, Anderson had tried to call a friend from a pay phone. When the call went unanswered, Anderson angrily tried to jerk the receiver out of the phone. He managed to stretch the wire webbing that covers the telephone cord, but the receiver stayed put.

 

So Anderson again vented his anger — this time by throwing the receiver, police said. But when the receiver reached the end of its cord, it snapped back and the cord wrapped around Anderson’s neck. The sharp edges of the wire webbing dug into Anderson’s skin, cutting him. When Anderson struggled to free himself, the webbing cut deeper.

I visited the diner where this scene was filmed. Formerly named the Clinton Diner the place was renamed Goodfellas Diner a few years ago. It is located at the only truck stop found within the 5 boroughs of New York City. The phone booth De Niro abused in “Goodfellas” probably never existed outside the diner, except as a movie prop. Hanging on a wall inside the diner, however, I found a lone non-working payphone. See more Goodfellas Diner payphone pictures here.