An October, 2017, walk along John F. Kennedy Boulevard in the Journal Square section of Jersey City, NJ, turned up more payphones than might have been expected. Most of them actually worked, with devices owned by NewTel Payphone Operations representing a majority of the area’s population of public phones.
This phone, outside the Boulevard Liquor store, did not work but it cut an evocative profile nestled against the storefront along the building line of the shop. With a little work this picture might be print worthy if not for the lightposts in front of the storefront façade.
Whenever it is present I try to document the fine print on these phones. This is the type of material I suspect absolutely nobody looks at anymore, if they ever did. In the case of NewTel I get a laugh out of how enthusiastically they encourage you to call toll-free numbers. “MAKE AS MANY AS YOU LIKE” but with a “5 MINUTE LIMIT” to encourage to hang up and call another toll-free number. Toll-free calls from payphones cost you nothing but when made through payphones such as these they earn the owner of the payphone about 50¢ per call.
I see a typo on this placard. In the middle right column I see a WANING. Perhaps that is an unintentional reference to the evolving role played by payphones in our society.
There were two NewTel payphones inside the VIP Diner on Journal Square. This phone, by the door to the parking lot, is the one of those two that worked. It’s phone number is 201-420-0368, but it does not accept incoming calls. At one time the gold enclosure might have evoked a diner-esque sense of luxury or class. Today it looks rugged and corroded, all the worse for wear as one might expect for a phone that has likely been stuck in this wall for decades. But hey, the phone still works.
This low-to-the-sidewalk phone is outside the Goodwill Donation Center. Its phone number is (201) 332-9159 but, as usual, no incoming calls are allowed.
This phone was missing its informational placard. Stamped on the surface where that placard should have been is the date July 10, 1986. That date comes from around the time payphones were deregulated, when companies like NewTel could finally get in on what had been Ma Bell’s public telephone monopoly. The date appears to indicate that this phone was first produced and put into service over 31 years ago. It could even indicate how long the phone has stood on this exact spot in Journal Square. With a little bit of luck, and given proper maintenance and replacement of parts, a payphone could without question survive decades in the wild.
On the sidewalk next to this phone is a concrete smear and a cigarette butt where another payphone used to stand. If you keep your eyes open you’ll see a surprising quantity of these concrete smears and vestiges of where payphones once inhabited space on sidewalks and on walls all over the country and (for all I know) the world.
This phone, outside the Sabor Tropical Restaurant, looked like it worked, it sounded like it worked, but that dial tone was deceptive. A call from this phone failed. I put in my 50¢, the call connected, but nothing could be heard on the other end. Calling this payphone’s number as it showed up on CallerID — (201) 795-3011 — got me the internal modem sound.
This phone outside the Sabor Tropical Restaurant is notable for its bludgeoned and massacred coin return door, which looks like some kind of bell that will one day toll again.
The last phone in this set is actually the first one I spotted. I posted these in reverse order of discovery, more or less. This phone, at 2881 John F. Kennedy Boulevard in the Journal Square section of Jersey City, NJ, is owned by FNJ Telecom, a company about which I can find little information except what appears on this phone’s informational placard. For a business address FNJ uses a Long Island PO Box: PO Box 2974, Huntington Station, NY 11746. This phone had no dial tone but, based on its relatively clean appearance, is probably maintained on occasion and should be expected to rise from idleness and be useful again.
I grabbed a lot more detailed photos of these Journal Square Payphones and posted them over in the New Jersey Payphone Photos section. Take a look.