Thanks to PTS, and as a result of me posting a video of it to YouTube, the previously busted-up handset on the West 4th Street payphone was restored. That was a cool feeling, to think that I helped get something done like this. That West 4th Street space is one of the coolest places in New York to make a payphone call. In this video I also hit a jackpot on the last working Rockefeller Center pay phone when coins belched out into the coin return chamber, found that one of the finest specimens of a PRAYphone in midtown is gone while another survives, and other payphone notes from Midtown last week. Only problem with the West 4th Street phone being back in service is that its dial tone takes several seconds to start sounding, which would likely discourage a lot of people from using it. I’m told a fix for that problem is scheduled.

The coins charging out of the phone and into the coin return presents a bit of a mystery. Why would somebody pick up the handset, deposit money, then walk away? Maybe there was an overseas or long-distance call in progress and the caller needed more money to continue the call and went off to get more coins? If that’s what happened here I butted in by hanging up the call. Bah.