A few weeks ago, I did an interview for “What’s the Deal?,” an NBC New York series that investigates various quirky aspects of city life. The topic: the rarity of phone booths. This is one of those pieces that has TONS of zoom-ins, so down a Dramamine and look for me at the beginning and tail end.
Shortly after I posted my original article on Manhattan phone booths, everyone from CNN to the NY Post had similar stories up without a site mention. Thanks to NBC for making the effort!
-SCOUT
PS - Very appropriate Onion headline: “CNBC Cameraman Can’t Believe He’s Filming Another Blog Off A Computer Monitor”
Hmm.. I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it buy you’re right, we have been through a sea change. In the old days, phone calls were private, you stepped into the both and closed the door. Today, I get to share the experience with every random passerby speaking way too loudly on a cell phone. On the whole….I kinda liked the old way better
Ha! Cool, man! Glad you’re getting the cred you deserve.
You’re a cutie, scout.
Wow–at the beginning there, I was wondering if you had some sort of restaurant critic-like aversion to showing your face! Nice to have a visual at the end to but a face to the voice we’ve been reading for a while.
I didn’t expect you to be quite such a young pup, though!
And what’s up with the Verizon guy? He only talked about pay phones, not phone booths–different concept!
Did you notice the ivy growing up the columns? I actually planted that about 10 years ago after interviewing the architect, Philip Johnson – he said he liked having his own ruin, except there was no ivy growing up the columns. I’m glad the parks department hasn’t cut it down.
You weren’t kidding about the zoomfest! Booths or not, I appreciate that there are still a good number of payphones in NYC. Here in Chicago, they’re few and far between. When my daughter lost her cellphone once, she had a hell of a time finding a payphone to let us know what had happened and where she was.
During the blackout in 2004 all cell phone service went down completely. The next morning I lined up with about 40 or 50 other New Yorkers to call home and tell my family about the exciting and strange night we had. It was a true NY moment. Pay phones truly continue to have their place in society. I do miss the old closed booths.