These pictures date from October, 2018, when I journeyed to Newark only half expecting to find payphones. My real mission was to check in on the recently activated LinkNWK kiosks, a product of the same company that brought LinkNYC to New York. As I reported back then, LinkNWK already looked a lot like LinkNYC. With only two machines activated just days earlier already one did not work, while the other was monopolized by a homeless dude.

But Newark’s Penn Station and Market Street had a good number of payphones in working order. All the Penn Station phones come from PTS, the nation’s largest payphone service provider. The Market Street phones came from a number of other payphone companies.

Here are the Penn Station payphones. I’ll get to the Market Street phones another day.

973-364-9390, still works as of this posting.

A sign promising “text phones is found to the right of this phones. Text phones, better known as TTY or TDD devices, allow the deaf, hard of hearing, and mute to make phone calls through an intermediary. We shall see if the promised TTY exists.

Curious that “Amtrak” is misspelled. I looked it up thinking maybe at one time “Amtrak” was spelled “Amtrac” but find no evidence. This sign has probably been here for 20 years.

973-596-9704, 973-596-9703, 973-642-7535, 973-596-9706, 973-596-9712

These phones all had dial tone when I checked in October, 2018. Today three of them still work, the other two I cannot say for sure. Calling a payphone should return a modem sound, but calls to two of these phones emitted either a humming noise or silence when I called.

Look for the promised TTY device on the far right, underneath the payphone.

I simply love the fact that Marlboro Man stepped in to use one of these phones to make a call as I documented their existence. Believe me when I say it: People Still Use Payphones.

I don’t remember now nor do I know if I ever ascertained the purpose of the non-working LED screen. If it was some kind of “payphone of the future” sort of thing it obviously failed miserably, while the old payphones worked.

973-596-9701, works as of this writing.

This phone stands in an indoor portion of one of the New Jersey-bound platforms. I forget precisely where this one stands, and lack enough familiarity with Newark Penn Station to gander a guess.

973-242-9185, still works as of this writing.

I put MAX!, my buddy who backs me up in defense of saving payphones from extinction, on top of this phone. I do this as a voodoo way of keeping the Payphone Angel of Death away. So far it seems to have worked. This phone, at the Greyhound bus terminal at Newark Penn Station, answers as of today.

I’m a bit proud of my forensic research skills in determining this payphone’s number. Two numbers are printed on the phone, neither one correct. I did not check ANI. In 2018 I did not make ANI checks much of a habit.

I found the correct number by searching through my Payphone Radio recordings for the call I made from this phone. CallerID from that call showed the correct number.

Numbers printed on the phone were 973-422-9185 and 973-429-1560. I guess the first of those two numbers should have been correct but whoever typed it in got two of the first two digits of the exchange reversed.

Listen in on the call I made from this phone: