It is entirely possible I have taken more pictures of New York City payphones than anybody. The 722 of them posted to the photo gallery section of this site represent only the tip of the iceberg, since I stopped posting there with any frequency. Many photos never see the light of day, others appear in the Daily Payphone category, which is not updated daily, although it used to be and could be again.

Wandering through my mass of photos I picked out a few for comment. These are not necessarily favorites. I just use them as something like a writing prompt to talk about what some of these payphones have meant to me.

Lincoln Center Phone Booths

These phone booths at Lincoln Center, on the west side of Avery Fisher Hall (now the David Geffen Hall), were complemented by another set of booths on the east side of the hall, and at least two other wall-mounted phones by the back doors.

In 1991, still pretty fresh out of college, I made a momentous call to a temporary employment agency from the booth on the far left in this photo. I had been to employment agency’s office the day before to take a word processing test, but the computer they used for that test had some problem that made it unusable. Someone told me to call back the next day to reschedule.

The next day I did as instructed, and called the agency. The woman I talked to remembered me from earlier phone calls, saying something to suggest that I had come to her office the day before, taken the test, and passed it.

I did not deny it. I let her believe that I had taken the test and done well. I did not exactly lie but I did not tell the truth, either.

She gave me a company name and address to report to the next day for a temporary word processing job, which turned into a 3-year stint and my first significant job in New York. I never took any test, and showed up to a job for which I probably had no real qualifications.

This and other life experiences have led me to believe that the best way to get ahead in life is to lie.

The third booth is, somewhat curiously, the only one without a bench.

The “POOF” Payphone

I used this phone a decent amount, but even in the days of abundant payphones I found its location, on 21st Street and 33rd Avenue in Astoria, right next to someone’s bathroom window, a little strange. I call it the “POOF” payphone because, as I wrote on this website in 2011, its disappearance was followed by the appearance of the word “POOF” spray-painted on the wall.

The above photo dates from 2003, but this phone survived until late 2011. I don’t know for certain what company owned this one, and I regret having not made more of a project of documenting those little information cards located below the handset. The cards are required by the FCC, and should contain contact info for the company or person who owns the phone. Many of those companies, like the ever-mysterious TELVAST, disappeared without a trace. I would like to have salvaged their memory.

From a distance I’m guessing the info card is that of E.H.U.C. (East Harlem Unity Communications), a single-person company which at the time owned a number of phones in this vicinity. In fact E.H.U.C. still owns one phone in this area, across the street at a strip mall. It is on private property and thus not a victim of the CityBridge monopoly.

E.H.U.C.: The Fine Print

This is an info card for an E.H.U.C. phone. As on a lot of independently owned phones, only a P.O. box is given as a business address. I would have thought cards like this derived from noilerpl.ate templates but I now see that the word “OPERATOR” is misspelled near top right, so maybe this card was custom-made.

E.H.U.C. is owned by John Porter, a friend of mine who starred in the payphone documentary “Hang Up”, by the French filmmaker Hugo Massa. That film, from some years ago,  recently experienced discovery by the phone phreak community.

Cemetery Payphone

This phone did not last much longer after I got this photo in 2009. Like everything else here, the line was dead. This was not the only phone located in proximity of a cemetery. There had been one across the street from the Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, and I found one on cemetery property at the St. Mary Cemetery in Queens:

Just about the last thing I expected to find inside a #cemetery. A working #payphone. Thanks, PTS! @AlanRinNY pic.twitter.com/MwYjQBX5Rt

— Payphone Project (@projectpayphone) August 8, 2016

Times Square Payphone User

I got this photo the morning of a memorable stay at the Yotel, a trendy-seeming place on 10th Avenue. My then-girlfriend and I had received a night’s stay at the hotel as a gift for some occasion, either a birthday or some holiday.

The place advertised multiple bars and restaurants but most of them were closed. The only open bar advertised a boss happy hour but they were out of all the beers supposed to be on the happy hour.

Long story short the place sucked. We ended up wandering around the neighborhood and going to an Irish Bar.

The stay at Yotel sucked but the kicker came in the morning. We woke up to the sound of water leaking from the ceiling, into the shower. I got up just in time to save our shared travel bag from getting soaked, as the water slowly but steadily covered the floor. We hurriedly got our stuff together and skedaddled. I phoned the front desk to inform the hotel of the situation. Whoever I talked to seemed blessedly indifferent.

Upon reaching the lobby I demanded a refund on our night’s stay, even though it wasn’t my money. It is the only time I ever demanded a refund for a shitty night’s stay at a hotel, though this was not the only time I might have had occasion to do so.

With this unsettling experience behind us my GF and I made our way toward the Times Square subway station, via 42nd Street. Through the grog and fog of having been so rudely awakened I still took note of this interesting-looking person using one of my go-to payphones for Payphone Radio. I used this phone a lot specifically for recording sounds of subway buskers and musicians that performed nearby.

This phone still exists but has not worked for a long time. All its identifying information got stripped away, but I know that PTS abandoned this phone and left it to rot, along with maybe a dozen more at the Times Square subway station.

This photo is among my collection of over 250 photos of people who still use payphones.

OK, I just crossed 1100 words. That’s enough payphone machinations for one day.