Ain't the internet wonderful? Here's a site devoted to images of pay phones. I was looking for an image because it occurred to me that with the proliferation of cell phones, the pay phone may be going the way of the dodo or passenger pigeon. For those of us without cell phones, that would be a bad thing. What happens to society if you have to own a piece of technology to be part of it? This is a part of the "digital divide" discussion that I've never seen talked about. All you keen observers, look for pay phones while you're out and about; they can be the clamshell variety, the wall variety, or the standalone booth variety. Are you seeing fewer than you used to? Report back. Prizes will be awarded.
Posted by Linkmeister at May 8, 2003 02:06 PMI can say without a doubt that we have just as many pay phones here as ever. Actually, I have one right across the street from my house.
Of course, it's NYC so that may not be indicative of any general trend.
Posted by: Kim at May 8, 2003 02:12 PMYeah, maybe I should eliminate good walking cities like NY, Boston, Philly and SF.
Posted by: Linkmeister at May 8, 2003 03:00 PMI can't remember the URL, but about a year ago I saw a site devoted to listing pay phones. Anytime someone saw one, they got the number and posted it to the site. It was actually pretty funny, but also poignant.
Posted by: jadedju at May 8, 2003 07:30 PMHmm. That would be this one.
If you're interested, read the FAQ; very self-deprecating, this guy is. He says it's an on-again/off-again project (last updated January 2003).
Posted by: Linkmeister at May 8, 2003 09:01 PMGoing off at a slight tangent a few weeks ago I read someone ranting about unrealistic films. They managed two complaints about Bladerunner:
Firstly at one point Harrison Ford needs to make a call so he uses a phone box!
Secondly when he needed some information he didn't use the Internet to look it up.
Here's to hoping phone booths and old fashioned libraries don't vanish any time soon.
Posted by: Kevin at May 8, 2003 09:57 PMHuzzah for you, Linkmeister. Like you, I've decided that it's not worth being able to be reached at all times, losing the ability to remember phone numbers, worrying about "minutes," etc. In return, I'm punished by the disappearance, or pricing-out-of-usability, of payphones.
Posted by: Seth at May 9, 2003 11:59 AMMay I suggest another link:
http://www.2600.com/phones/
I sometimes read 2600 the Hacker Quarterly and absolutely love their pay phone photos (in every issue, I believe). Alas, the majority of their phone photos are not online, only in the Quarterly.
Posted by: bunny at May 14, 2003 07:58 AM