I spotted this school-age kid using a payphone on Broadway in Astoria earlier this week. He probably has no idea that the orange box next to him is about to gobble up his trusty payphone, replacing it with a 10-foot tall monster called LinkNYC.
LinkNYC is an advertising platform offering loiterers a new place to charge their phones and lounge about on the sidewalk as two 55″ inch screens blink advertisements 24 hours a day. The quantity of thousands of payphones we did not need is being replaced and supplemented by these things, like them or not.
If the particular moment seen in the above photo hits close to home for me it’s because it is close to home. I’ve lived in Astoria for many years, and had hoped the LinkNYC invasion would take its time getting here.
Like most parts of New York, payphones were once found virtually within arms reach almost everywhere in Astoria. Stuffed like mushrooms into parking lot corners and nestled along the walls of commercial and residential buildings there were always too many payphones. Replace that needless quantity of public phones with equally needless Links and you’ve got a whole new eyesore to block your view of the horizon.
Most payphones along Broadway between 21st Street and Steinway Street in Astoria are marked with the orange box, signaling that the payphone’s angel of death will soon arrive. Some phones do not have that box next to them, however, perhaps signaling that certain payphones along Broadway in Astoria will be spared the carnage, at least for now. That would be consistent with the LinkNYC rollout as I’ve observed it in other parts of New York, where many Link devices have been placed but payphones have not been entirely routed.
So if you need to make a call from a public phone that does not entail bending over and screaming as loud as you can then you might still be in luck, at least for a little while. Here is what the call experience using LinkNYC’s free phone service is like, in case you have not had the privilege of seeing this already or using it yourself:
I suspect that a handful of traditional payphones are being kept in service until the next big power outage or other disaster, in case the Links fail and become useless slabs of plastic. We don’t really know how Links will perform in an extended power outage or other calamity. They are, as gleefully described by their creators, “BETA!”, so how can we know? Keeping a few non-beta copper-based landline payphones around might be prudent until we know how Links fare in calamitous situations, since those older phones are (according to the conventional wisdom) expected to work under such circumstances.
As for other things, my gratitude and thanks to all who reached out to me after my brief spot on CBS Sunday Morning. It was only a minute, it was hardly market-moving material, and I am not exaggerating its significance. But it rocked my world for the past week, leaving me almost existentially exhausted. I will soon be posting the photos of phone booths and payphones that have been e-mailed to me from all over the country, and even the world. Feel free to send me yours!