The Phone Booths at Peter McManus Café

Something strange happened at the Peter McManus Café yesterday. I sat down at the bar and, the moment my butt hit the stool, one of the bar’s two payphones started ringing. No one else at the place seemed concerned, though the faintness of the ringing sound might have let it slip under the aural radar of the couple dozen people in the place.

The phone kept ringing. I stepped up and answered, savoring the possibilities. Would I hear a pre-recorded message? Did the phone ring like this when an unfamiliar customer walked into the bar? Maybe I would hear rules of engagement, such as who not to talk to, what drinks not to order, or magic words that grant me free booze any time I uttered them.

Alas, no such intrigue. I heard a synthetic voice bleat “Error! 41.” Some kind of ghost in the machine, I grumbled. I hung up the phone and returned to the bar, ordering a cup of coffee and feeling a little strange because of it. At 1:45pm it was far too early for me to drink booze, though others at the bar imbibed. I have consumed coffee at a bar many times but it always feels off. My mere presence on a barstool assumes alcohol intake, and I felt competing diuretics of coffee and alcohol wrench my innards at the mere thought of consuming them together.

I didn’t come to McManus for the coffee. I wanted to check in on the phone booths, and maybe make a call from one of the payphones. I had entered McManus probably 5 or 6 times before this. Those visits took place years before the phone booths would have seemed unusual.

Anxiety fills my mind when I enter a place like this with intentions of getting photos of the phone booths. I have trouble following through with getting what I want, not just with phone booths and such but almost anything in life. I feel conspicuous in making my intentions known, and undeserving of getting what I want. Lifting the camera to take these photos was, in my mind, accompanied by thoughts of people yelling at me to never do that, or tackling me, or threatening to make me pay for the photos I took. When that scenario failed to arise I next feared ridicule or being called names for having such a specific interest in these things.

No such rumpus occurred. I took my pictures, paid for the coffee, and went about my busy day, unmolested by the anxiety police. At $2 for the coffee and a $2 tip I guess I paid four bucks for these pictures. I’ll write off the expense.

The phones themselves are now owned by PTS (Pacific Telemanagement Services), the nation’s largest payphone service provider that acquired them from Verizon a number of years ago. As PTS sometimes does they placed a yellow placard on one of the phones inviting you to dial *10 to hear a daily prayer, *12 to find a job, etc.

Both of the payphone numbers are listed on the Payphone Project’s data museum of old payphone numbers: 212-929-9691 on the right, 212-243-9833 on the left. I heard the phone on the right ringing when I entered the bar, so it probably has the ability to take incoming calls. But that “Error! 41” message sounds like an intruder on any attempt to call in. 212-929-9691 also appears to be the official listed phone number for the bar. I tried making calls from both phones yesterday. Neither phone worked. A call today to 212-929-9691 rang until it wouldn’t ring anymore. No one answered.

Affixed to the structures is something you don’t see on too many phone booths: a review of them. I should have asked someone at the bar which publication the review appeared in. It looks like something from Time Out New York or maybe the Village Voice. It is a bit of a paean not just for these booths but for the phone booth itself, a cultural relic that this reviewer wished would come back into vogue so we would not have to be privy to other peoples’ phone conversations. Who would have thought payphones would be replaced by LinkNYC kiosks, machines seemingly designed with the intention of broadcasting peoples’ phone calls.

The review also contains a little bit of lore: Legend says these booths were put in place to cover up a bullet hole in the wall. The Manhattan phone book this reviewer mentions no longer hangs outside the booths, and the overhead fans did not start up when I flipped the switches.