The Missing Links: What Will They Really Look Like?

Links, the blandly named multi-purpose devices expected to replace New York’s outdoor payphones, are yet to make their premiere on city sidewalks despite promises of their arrival by year’s end. Announced with a decent amount of fanfare about a year ago the devices were mostly presented to the public in glamourized sketches of idyllic streetscape scenarios such as this image, depicting a Link device which may or may not ever exist across from the Barclay’s Center (image credit CITYBRIDGE):

While New York City visitors and residents are not exactly chomping at the bit waiting for their chance to take a crack at one of these devices it is worth looking at an actual Link device in a realistic context, given the opportunity.

This uncredited photo from LightReading.com shows a Link device in a context unlike the sleek, artsy looking representations seen in materials provided by Citybridge, the consortium of technology and advertising companies producing the Link devices. I do not know where this photo was taken but it appears to be at a trade show.

Let me be the first to say it: This thing looks pretty flippin’ ugly. Thousands of these hulkish, intrusive slabs of advertising, should they actually invade city streets in such quantities as promised, would make today’s payphone enclosures look inconspicuous and even charming by comparison.

Most New Yorkers are blind to the fact that thousands of payphones still line the streets of the most densely populated portions of the 5 boroughs. That blindness should go away if Links actually replace payphones in the same quantity as payphones exist today.

These Link devices have been described by their creators and strangely fawning press as “sleek” and “iconic”. I suspect public reaction will not be so fawning, nor will critics be too quick to grant these monster platters “iconic” stature.