Pay Phone Event #1, Atlantic City, 1977
Chuck Singleton

Reading of your site (New York Times) reminded me of a payphone event I produced with friends over 20 years ago.

I grew up in Atlantic City-- the old, decrepit and poetic Atlantic City before casinos. A small cadre of artsy-minded friends and I would go about town creating chaos and weird happenings, inspired by the beat poets and 1960's Fluxus artists.

Until last year, the bus station was housed in lovely old deco train station with a tall central hall. Off to the side, near the men's room and shoe shine stands, was a line of 14 phone booths-- seven and seven, separated by a phonebook stand. Once a friend asked me what it would take to make all 14 ring at once. Immediately I set about organizing 14 callers, assigned numbers and scheduled an event. One night at 11 PM, synchronized to the 11 o'clock news, our callers began dialing. Each caller was to dial the assigned payphone 28 times. Their instructions-- dial once and let it ring once, dial a second time and let it ring twice, and so forth, on up to the 14th call when it rang 15 times. Then on the 16th it rang 13 times, and so forth, down to the 28th call with just one ring.

They were further instructed that if someone answered, they were to read names and numbers at random from the white pages to them.

Just before 11 o'clock, we placed a tip-off call to the bartender at a favorite local haunt, the Quaker Cafe. (Great old bar run by an elderly German couple. There was a trough below the bar stools. Every so often, triggered by pressure from the taps, a stream of water would rush through it beneath your feet.) He was told that "in five minutes all the payphones in the bus terminal will start ringing, and they won't stop for half an hour." I guess the guy knew too much-- he died two weeks later.

Simultaneously, just before 11:00, one of our participants paraded through the bus terminal playing an alto sax, and dressed like a local bagman (who rather resembled Alfred Jarry's King Ubu from "Ubu Roi").

Indeed, the phones did ring for half an hour straight, echoing off the terminal's marble and stone. The ticket counter staff tried to answer them at first, but was soon overwhelmed. They thought there was a serious problem with New Jersey Bell, and called the company for repairs.

I wish I had a tape of this event. Sometimes I don't believe it ever happened. We talked about orchestrating other payphone events, including one that would make all the groups of phones (3 each) at *every* corner of the boardwalk in the entire city ring at once. We all moved away before we could produce a sequel to the bus terminal event.

Today, the terminal is gone, cleared for the 'new' Atlantic City. Not many remember what's been lost.

Originally posted to the Payphone Project BBS. Click here for more.