I’ve had some fun on my newly active YouTube Channel the past several weeks, posting documentary footage of New York’s payphones that caught the attention not just of some payphone fans but of a field tech worker at PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services), the nation’s largest independent payphone service provider. In response to this video PTS says it will fix a lingering problem on a phone at the West 4th Street subway station for which they had replaced a busted handset, this in response to a repair request sent in by YouTube viewer Pizza Guy. Feels like we got something done here.
It looks like PTS should also be able to fix the Jackson Heights subway station payphone with a stuck touchtone key, and maybe even a couple of payphones at Grand Central Terminal, a central transit hub which, in my humble opinion, has no excuse for failing to provide a lowest common denominator means of public communication.
Whatever the future holds for Grand Central’s phones it is fun to see PTS getting stuff done in response to some of what’s going on here.
In the above video I also did a quick tour of some midtown payphones, including the trusty Rockefeller Center phone, which for some reason spit out a little jackpot into its coin return chamber when I hung up the handset someone had left off the hook.
A genuine PRAYphone remains at 57th and Lexington, though another went missing from Madison and 49th Street. I believe that at least one of the PRAYphones belong in a museum, but they will all almost certainly end up as scrap.
“PRAY”, as she is known, was an elderly white woman, described as vagrant, who etched messages like “PRAY”, “LOVE GOD”, “GO TO CHURCH READ BIBLE”, etc., onto, the legend goes, every single payphone in New York, as well as other surfaces. Active during the 1970s and 1980s her work is generally thought to have disappeared from the streets but once I keyed into what types of phones she used as surfaces it felt like I was finding her everywhere.
Soon enough, though, she will be gone.
Former PTS employee. They’ve been laying off techs for years as the number of phones dwindle. Consolidating service areas meaning one tech may cover phones for the entire state or in my case four or five states. As a result longer wait times for repairs till a tech moves back through the area.
That makes sense, and yeah, I’d kinda gathered as much over these past few months. It’s not like they have dozens of techs or contractors to mobilize. Always happy when something does get fixed, though, as happened here. Haven’t had as much luck since but it’s all good. Happy to hear from you!