Closest thing to dial tone in this series is the infamous stuck key payphone at the 74th Street/Roosevelt Avenue/Broadway subway station. That phone has dial tone but its stuck * key makes calls impossible.
The first phone, an abandoned Underdog Communications rig, rests in peace, hidden in the bushes outside a Taco Bell on Northern Boulevard.
2:05 – A pedestal with its phone removed long ago stands at attention on Northern Boulevard near 82nd Street. I have no memory of this one but suspect it was owned by American Payphones, which had a lot of phones along this route.
3:08 – A vestige of a payphone past, or at least I think that’s what this is. StreetView turned up nothing useful as to whether or not a payphone once stood here, at Northern Boulevard near 83rd Street.
4:03 – I revisit the infamous stuck key payphone at the 74th Street/Roosevelt Avenue/Broadway subway station. That phone has dial tone but its stuck * key makes calls impossible. I blame myself for this, since I’m the one who punched the * key. Most payphone users would have no use for the * key.
5:11 – Still standing at 69th Street and 38th Avenue in Woodside. I captured the sound of a penny slipping through the phone from coin slot to coin return chamber. There has never been a payphone that accepts pennies.
7:46 – A phone I’ve already documented, usually surrounded by drunk men blasting loud music but it’s too cold for that kind of thing these days. January, 2021.
9:34 – An empty wall-mounted enclosure I don’t think I posted here until now. Has some KEST GAK and DELK T.S.T. KOMA on it. Broadway at 63rd Street in Woodside.