The Linksters Are Coming

Links, expected to replace most of New York City’s outdoor payphones, are rising fast on Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. Most of them do not work yet but that’s OK. They’re BETA.

Monday I posted the first picture from The Payphone Project of someone using a Link. It showed a traveler using Google Maps at 48th Street and Third Avenue, outside the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse.

Today I spotted this gentleman at that same location, charging his cell phone:

I came by 45 minutes later and found the same person standing there, still charging his phone. I this the new loiterer? In the past loitering around a traditional payphone could land you on a 311 complaint. For now loitering around a Link is BETA, so it’s all good.

This particular Link at 48th Street seems popular. A little later I spotted this young man fiddling with the Link (huh huh):

A little later the Link was occupied by this homeless woman. Her cardboard sign said she got a job and will be starting soon, but that she needed $13 for a motel room that night. I don’t think New Yorkers like this are getting Gigabit Wi-Fi through their aluminum soda cans but what do I know of miracles, or of what high-end smartphone she has in her backpack:

Elsewhere in midtown I saw this individual using a public telephone at Grand Central Terminal. This payphone’s copper landline provided call quality allowing two humans to communicate more or less normally. Hail the landline. The landline is dead: