No Dial Tone at Grand Central Terminal
PTS's New York City payphones have been known to not work for months on end before coming back alive. This time it feels different, at least with regard to the company's payphones at Grand Central...
View ArticleLinkNYC’s Loudspeakerphone: A Failure With Precedent
LinkNYC's loudspeaker interface erases some of the most common maintenance headaches of the traditional payphones. But at what cost? The post LinkNYC’s Loudspeakerphone: A Failure With Precedent...
View ArticlePRAY at Beyond the Streets
It may not have been authentic PRAY, but I appreciated seeing one of my all-time New York City heroes get some respect at a Brooklyn street art exhibit. The post PRAY at Beyond the Streets appeared...
View ArticlePhone Booth Hunting in Old School Yearbooks
Phone booth hunting in publicly posted college and high school yearbooks turned up some interesting stuff. Until the mid-2000s, if not beyond, most high school and college campuses had payphones of...
View ArticlePayphones vs. LinkNYC: The N11s Compared.
Access to 211, a community outreach service provided by the United Way, has been hijacked on a significant quantity of CityBridge payphones. Calls to 211 now connect to services promising gift vouchers...
View ArticleUSPS Blue Mailboxes: The Next Vanishment
It's not that mailboxes are vanishing. Instead we are losing distinct stamps of age that showed how some humble little USPS dropboxes had been in place since the Eisenhower administration. The post...
View ArticleThe Apology Line Revisited
Inspired by new contacts with an interest in the subject, I wrote down some reflections on my involvement with the Apology Line in 1993 and 1994. I also dug up some of the paperwork from that project I...
View ArticleFound a Rotary-Dial Payphone From When All of NYC Was Still (212)
I got over my fear of being ridiculed for asking about such things. I staked out an old rotary dial payphone at an NYC eatery, asking permission first of a cashier, then of the store's manager, to...
View ArticleFinally, There is a Crisis Counseling Phone on the RFK Bridge.
My thanks to THE CITY, and Gabriel Sandoval, for amplifying my long-running concerns about the lack of a suicide counselling hotline telephone on the RFK (née) Triborough Bridge. I could hardly believe...
View ArticlePayphones on the Water? Also, the Nicasio Reservoir Payphone Mystery Solved.
A photo of an unusually-located payphone on a Florida lake inspired me to verify its authenticity, and to follow up on another payphone-on-the-water question I raised a few years ago. The post...
View ArticlePayphone To God…?
There is a "Payphone To God" at a bar in Chicago. Also, notes on payphone-centric projects such as Futel, Mind Dial, and Recalling 1993. The post Payphone To God…? appeared first on The Payphone Project.
View ArticleA Response to the “WE NEED MORE PAYPHONES” Vandal
The "WE NEED MORE PAY PHONES" vandal is not alone in feeling the absence of traditional public telephones. Once in a while the vandal gets affirmative feedback, demonstrating that others among us feel...
View ArticlePenn Station Payphones Disappearing
Development work at Penn Station has forced removal of about a ½ dozen working payphones. One of these phones was among my most-used devices to record sounds of nearby subway buskers, like Shobo Kubo...
View ArticlePayphones at the St. George Terminal, Staten Island Ferry
A trip to Staten Island turned up a surprising quantity of working payphones at the St. George Terminal. I found 11 phones in all, and at some point in the past there would have been as many as 24. I...
View ArticleA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bronx
A memorable encounter with the NYPD on the RFK/Triborough Bridge pedestrian path revolved around that crisis prevention/suicide counseling telephone I helped get installed in August. I am still...
View ArticlePhone Numbers
Just some deliberately vague comments about a coveted phone number I recently acquired, with discussion of how to make sense of online phone number lookup resources. The post Phone Numbers appeared...
View ArticleMy Near-Foray Into Digital Vigilantism
An overheard recitation of one woman's phone number inspired a brief attempt at letting her know she left a lot more up for grabs than just that. The post My Near-Foray Into Digital Vigilantism...
View ArticleNo Phones on the New Kosciuszko Bridge Walkway
There are no public telephones of any kind on the new Kosciuszko Bridge. If anything bad happens you should hope your cell phone works. The post No Phones on the New Kosciuszko Bridge Walkway appeared...
View ArticleMy Take on the 1-800-GOLF-TIP Mystery
Is the (800) GOLF-TIP mystery really all that mysterious? I suspect one very likely culprit: The Professional Golfers Association. The post My Take on the 1-800-GOLF-TIP Mystery appeared first on The...
View ArticleHow I Acquired a Coveted Phone Number
Certain phone numbers are iconic in my life. 212-255-2748 is one such number. The post How I Acquired a Coveted Phone Number appeared first on The Payphone Project.
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