Queensbridge Payphones, One Last Time

Because I didn’t think the previous video was all that great, and because I guess I’m on a video kick these days, I went back to Queensbridge to more fully document the two payphones at 12th Street and 40th Avenue in Long Island City. This time I think I got it right, or at least as right as I’ll ever get it.

Formerly Verizon-owned they are today maintained by PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services) which, as you can see, has its work cut out for itself in cleaning up the first one seen here.

In a uniquely Queensbridge moment, at about a minute into this video, one of the dudes sitting across the street from these payphones started blasting the song “Car #85” by Queensbridge’s own Nas. It was a lot louder than this video makes it sound.

As the music started playing I did not know the song or that Nas is a Queensbridge native. That’s respect, and mighty cool, as I try to imagine my suburban childhood neighbors blasting recordings of me playing Alkan’s “Quasi-Faust” or Octavio Pinto’s “Tom Thumb’s March”.

A friend saw this video and texted me: “What the hell are you doing in Queensbridge? Do you want to get shot?”

Queensbridge is the hemisphere’s largest public housing project, and no doubt has a reputation for bullets flying every which way and open air drug dealing going on in broad daylight. I witnessed the latter with my own two eyes, more than a few times, from thr Q102 bus that rolls through the grounds.

Queensbridge has improved a lot in recent years, at least according to news reports that crossed my radar, which say several coördinated police raids snuffed out the more brazen criminals and their flunkies. I for one feel perfectly OK wandering through Queensbridge, so long as I look purposeful and mind my own business.

Still, about 24 hours after being asked if I went to Queensbridge wanting to get shot, word crossed on the Citizen app that a knife attack had occurred right on the spot where these payphones stand. Yugh.