You Keep Me Hanging On The Telephone

In a momentous milestone in communications history, on May 23 of this year New York City stated that it had retired its last public pay telephone.

Yes, “retired”, the connotation being that pay phones had ceased to be relevant (much like this newsletter) and would no longer be part of our lives. I admit that I am not too crazy about this connotation in my current retired state but have learned quite a bit recently about the pay phone.

The first public pay phone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, on August 13, 1889, the inspiration being that nobody would lend him one of those new-fangled telephones when he needed to call a doctor as his wife went into labor. In a more important contribution to society, Mr. Gray also invented the chest protector used by baseball catchers and umpires. This helped when his wife threw high and tight for his not being able to track down her doctor.

According to the New York Times, NYC once had 30,000 public pay phones but now will keep just four pay phones on the Upper West Side where residents do not own mobile phones.

At one point, only The New York Telephone Company could install public pay phones in NYC but with deregulation in the 1980’s small entrepreneurs put up their own pay phones to get in on the act. Apparently, there was a good deal of money to be made owning pay phones. Who knew? I fondly remember my greedy grade school self hauling what then seemed like enormous amounts of forgotten change out of hotel and train station public pay phones, only later learning that my dad had been surreptitiously supplying those change slots. Maybe the entrepreneurs knew there was cash to be made if they installed pay phones wherever Poppa Katz might show up.

Now, in 2022, the City indicated without a trace of sadness or sentiment that LinkNYC booths allow no-cost phone calls (plus Wi-Fi and device charging) so, apparently, who needs pay phones.

Notwithstanding that the pay phones often did not work and the telephone booths could smell like a Port Authority bathroom, street pay phones have occupied a special place in our culture and I for one mourn their passing. You paid some money and in exchange were able to make a call, all without anybody interrupting with ads, taking your personal information or using algorithms to send you down website rabbit holes.

The pay phone starred in many movie and television cameos. A pay phone saved Tippi Hendren when Hitchcock’s birds went a little nutty. Pay phones were all over many Sesame Street episodes, including when the two-headed monster called itself (I believe this was based on a true story). There was also the movie Goodfellas, where Robert De Niro goes a few rounds with a pay phone in Queens after learning that his buddy Joe Pesci did not get the promotion he was hoping for and was sadly not to be seen again (and I thought law firms could be cruel about not making partners).

I saw the graffiti on the telephone booth wall way back when telephone booths started to be replaced with open air half-booths. Okay, maybe a bit of an olfactory improvement, but remember poor Superman circa 1978 stymied as he tried to find a place to change?

Never understood why Superman needed a costume change in the first place. I was more of a television George Reeves guy than a DC Comics nerd and even more into Batman as a television superhero since in order to be a criminal in Gotham back in the day one needed a signature nickname and style (the Penguin, the Joker, the Riddler, Supreme Court Justice). In any event, all those hot shot Daily Planet reporters were fooled when he put on a pair of glasses? Great Caesar’s Ghost!

Clearly, pay phones were iconic but they were also quite useful, and not just for using the telephone booth for getting in the Guinness Book of Records when there were no Volkswagen Beetles around. It was our connection for business and personal communication as we darted around the City. Yet as time marched on, communities began to sour on pay phones.

For one thing, pay phones were ideal for gamblers, pimps, drug dealers and real estate attorneys conducting their business. Charles “no relation” Katz, a basketball betting handicapper, started pay phones down a long road to their demise when the FBI nailed him by recording his pay phone calls. Eventually, the Supreme Court threw out the evidence and found that the Fourth Amendment provided Mr. Katz with a “reasonable expectation of privacy” even in a public setting and indicated in dicta that it was criminal to allow anyone to bet on the NY Knicks. Many mistakenly thought that this case meant pay phones were exempt from wiretaps when it actually just meant that going forward a search warrant would be required. This led to an increase in crime but also to perhaps the best television series of all time, The Wire, so maybe an even exchange.

Over time, pay phone companies started to go out of business (curiously around the time my dad retired and had a noticeable decrease in pocket change). Soon, the graffiti ridden phones with no working dial tone became the City’s version of an unsightly scar, taking up valuable sidewalk better used for selling stolen sunglasses and various forms of street meat.

Of course, pay phones were not really necessary once everyone had a mobile “smartphone”. Certainly an overall net positive and, I admit, Liam Neeson did delve into his particular set of skills by cellphone. But something appears lost as well as gained. The City is filled with people in an iPhone induced daze, walking down the street like a Game of Thrones White Walker at a zombie pace with their head down, arms close to their side and thumbs working furiously.

I was recently reading the New York Times Book Review “By the Book” section, where authors are asked pretentious questions such as “what books are on your night stand?” (c’mon, Milton?) and “what three people would you invite to a literary dinner party ?” ( Moe, Larry and Curly?). In this issue, Patrick Radden Keefe, a journalist and author, said that in order to achieve his ideal reading experience “my iPhone must be dead, or secure in a lockbox of some sort, so that when I reach for it every five minutes - - robotically, pathetically, as if its a phantom limb, it won’t be there to hijack me.” Just put the phone down Patty- - you don’t need to read and respond to every bleep and beep!

Yeah, yeah, another technology rant from an old guy who cannot get the restaurant menu to pop up on his cellphone, but old is new again. Even the 1980’s are back - - Russia is invading other countries, my NY Mets are in first place, and Top Gun is the highest grossing movie. So why not bring back pay phones? Just in case you forget your cell phone and need to make an emergency call. How could it hurt?

Maybe it is the unceremonious treatment from NYC that bothers me. Retire does not have to mean expire. When iconic athletes retire they often have their jersey or number retired along with them. At least, NYC could show the proper respect for their service and hoist one pay phone up the Empire State Building so its dial tone could be retired. Stringer Bell could be the Master of Ceremonies.

I am thinking of asking my old law firm about retiring my, well, what? My pen? My lunchroom seat? Certainly not my office; NYC real estate is too expensive to lie fallow. Not sure they will buy into the idea. At least I can take comfort knowing that Leasing Illustrated has decided to retire my laptop. No doubt to the relief of many.