Steppingstone Park Phone Booth

I made a small pilgrimage out to Steppingstone Park in Great Neck, Long Island, to see up close how the historically nearly-pristine phone booth looked today. It still looks pretty much pristine, though you would get no protection from the rain in this classic Airlight model. This booth has no roof. Otherwise it has survived the waterfront elements quite nicely.

Only upon my arrival at Steppingstone Park did I learn that the general public should not have access to the grounds. A woman sitting in a small booth-like structure at the entrance to the park asked me for my park card. I had no such card.

I don’t know if my appearance gave off some air of despair, or if something else about me made it obvious to her that I had come a relatively long way to get to this place. Whatever the case she generously allowed me access “this one time”, while further allowing that the public could come and go all they wanted in the winter time, when it’s too cold for anyone to man the post at which she was positioned.

I don’t know if I just caught her in a good mood or if Steppingstone Park never enforces its park card requirement. You might have a different experience than I did if you make your way out there yourself.

As I walked around the grounds I felt something like a trespasser. Would others see me and, suspecting I was not a tax-paying resident of this area, ask me to present my park card, then summon law enforcement when I failed to provide proper credentials?

Nothing like that happened. But for the 20 or so minutes I roamed the grounds I lived in FEAR.

I jest.

The grounds looked more like a well-manicured country club than a neighborhood park. A lovely stretch of beach with a couple of parked sailboats and some nautical activity at the pier demonstrated that the park also serves as a small, members-only marina.

But I had only one interest: the phone booth, which stands at the end of the marina’s pier. Its placement resembled that of the old Governors Island phone booths at Yankee Pier, on Buttermilk Channel. Those booths look exotic and even romantic now but their placement served a utilitarian purpose by giving seafarers of yore access to a telephone when they reached land.

Here is some Steppingstone Park phone booth porn:

A big part of my interest in visiting this booth in person was to see if the phone, still branded with TCC Teleplex signage, actually worked. It did not, and I do not know if I should expect any of TCC Teleplex’s phones to work anymore.

I found one working TCC Teleplex-branded phone at a hospital in Manhattan last year. But I suspect in that case the hospital itself connected the device to its in-house phone network and did not bother removing the old branding.

I had been in contact with the folks at TCC Teleplex a couple of years ago. From that correspondence I never arrived at a clear picture as to the status of the company. They have recently issued a series of announcements and press releases touting their “Everything Kiosk” but no evidence exists to suggest these machines actually exist.

Like all the other independent payphone service providers in the 5 boroughs of New York TCC Teleplex had to exit the city’s sidewalks to make way for the CityBridge monopoly. But some of those payphone companies still have phones in Long Island. I just don’t know if TCC Teleplex is one of them. This little excursion did nothing to clarify.