The Courtesy Phone

When I first moved to New York in 2002 I did not have a cell phone and I, and maybe that big creepy fat guy that spends all day at the deli, were the only two people in the city who used pay phones. Of course, the blackout of 2003 happened, and there were lines ten people deep at the few free-standing phones left in the city. Many of those same structures have gone the way of the Walkman, the beeper, the giving of directions, and the memorizing of telephone numbers (we can talk about that tragedy another time). But there are a few gleaming bastions of civilized society left in this town, small little squares of real estate where one can stop, close a door and have a (gasp, hand to the heart or throat) private conversation. I have noticed these temples of decorum seem to remain in institutions of higher moral regard, or perhaps they are a sign of those same institutions' pure refusal to move everything along with the times. You can take my card catalog but you can't take my telephone booths. Yes, the local library preserves our stores of knowledge (unless the magnetic poles shift and Jake Gyllenhaal shows up), but also the pay phone, like those found on the ground level of the main branch of the New York Public Library (and on the first floor too, see below).

by Erik S. Lieber

from www.infrastructurist.com

 

But what of those precious oases on the street? The phone booth has traditionally been a place of refuge, both a literal one from the elements, but also a place of safety, a life line, a last hope. This image and the idea it represents has become iconic in our culture. Like Brenda stranded in the Chicago bus station waiting desperately in a phone booth for Elisabeth Shue, or poor Tippi taking shelter from the gulls, or Griffin Dunne emptying his pockets looking for money to make a call, Christian Slater (before he became his Own Worst Enemy, in more ways than one) and Patricia Arquette sanctifying their union, even Clark Kent's alter ego sheltered behind those squeaky accordion doors. (And yes, the phone booth can also be a depository for bodily fluids, graffiti and chewing gum, but lots of great things in this world, like children or your favorite jeans, may at one time be covered in pee, graffiti or spent gum)








Of course our city and state governments have a responsibility to provide public phones, for safety if nothing else, for those moments when cell phones die or networks are overwhelmed. Can you list all the public phones within a few blocks of your house, can you list any? When they are present they are invisible to us, like parking meters to pedestrians, like boyfriends to players ("what's your pay phone got to do with me?"). What we notice is the absence. So, that is my argument for the fully fledged telephone booth, an icon preserved, a civic responsibility fulfilled, and lastly a large and easily identifiable port in a storm. Here is my most recent find at the Brooklyn Public Library.