Phone Booths of NYC

It looks like someone at this web site found my photo series of the Last Phone Booths of Manhattan, a series of pictures I posted many years ago after spotting these rare outdoor booths on Manhattan’s West End Avenue.

There are, in fact, many phone booths in Manhattan and in all the boroughs of New York City. What makes the booths on West End Avenue notable is that they are outdoor booths with doors that close, providing a rare cocoon of privacy on a public city street.

For my money the far more interesting outdoor booths are the ones brooding like ghosts on Yankee Pier, in Buttermilk Channel off Governors Island. I assume the phones in these booths have long since been removed from service, but the booths cut a classy profile against the background of Red Hook, Brooklyn. I have not been out to Yankee Pier lately, though, so it could be that those booths are gone.

Outdoor booths may be rare but phone booths are not extinct. Only yesterday I spotted some wood booths at the main branch of the New York Public Library, and many bars and restaurants with built-in booths have kept the booths even though the payphones inside have been removed.