The last remaining working public pay phone in NYC was removed today, headed for a museum. Where's the last one you saw?
The last public payphone in NYC has been removed from Midtown - Gothamist
Good question.?ÿ We had a company based in my home county that owned thousands of them a few decades back.?ÿ Must of been profitable as they started buying up some really good farm ground in the area to have something to do in their spare time.
They appear to still be in business, with annual revenues in excess of $700,000, with four employees.
I can't remember when I last saw one. My guess is that there might still be some out at the airport.
We have one in our office building, it's a public building.
What does a local call cost now on a pay phone? I am guessing you don't even want to know about non-local.
Landfill.
What does a local call cost now on a pay phone? I am guessing you don't even want to know about non-local.
It used to be that "dropping a dime" was to tattle on someone; now it's that great country song "Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares!"
It used to be that "dropping a dime" was to tattle on someone ....
Going back even further, the expression "it's your nickel", exhorting a person to complete a statement, is from the days when a phone call cost 5 cents.?ÿ
I read about that last pay phone in Manhattan being removed.?ÿ I believe some museum somewhere nabbed it.?ÿ A sign of the times no doubt.
When I was a pup my brothers and I all worked at the corner gas station, Bill's 66.?ÿ The owner (Bill, duh..) was a cheap old penny-pincher.?ÿ Rather than pay the going rate for a business phone he opted to rely on the pay phone on the wall outside for his telecommunications.?ÿ It would ring and we'd answer "Bills".?ÿ It was usually his wife wanting to know his whereabouts.?ÿ We kept a can of dimes in the desk drawer for outgoing calls.?ÿ This caused a wrinkle from time to time because the pop machine also took dimes...
Bill eventually got crossways with the phone company over this arrangement.?ÿ He wanted to get a listing in the phone book using the number for the pay phone.?ÿ The phone company wouldn't let him.?ÿ He eventually caved and had a private line installed.?ÿ For a few years he had a "white pages" listing for "Bill's 66" that listed his home phone number.?ÿ If anyone called his wife would give them the number for the pay phone.
Little-remembered pay phone trivia:?ÿ The last four numbers (after the prefix) of a pay station always started with a nine. I guess this helped the phone company somehow keep track of them.?ÿ The old pay phone number at Bill's was 943-9101.
public pay phone
Mine ain't Public but I'm still paying for it. ?????ÿ
Last one I remember seeing was in San Antonio and that was about 3 years ago...it didn't work.
A gentleman named Babe Howard owned the cable & telephone company in the little town of Millington, TN that hosted the Naval Air Technical Training Center.?ÿ Mr. Howard kept the price for a local call to 10 cents well after the rest of the country raised to twenty-five cents, and held off from raising the price as long as he could.?ÿ I think the price was finally raised to a quarter in the early 90's (prior to cell phones being commonplace), and that was still half of the national average.?ÿ Mr. Howard was always supporting the military in one way or another, from the price of local calls on his public telephones to reduced cable rates for junior enlisted personnel.?ÿ The military & community loved Mr. Howard for his outgoing personality, his generous nature, and his support of the military.?ÿ If I am not mistaken, he had the USA baseball stadium in Millington built from money out of his own pocket, as a contribution to the community.?ÿ Mr. Howard passed in 2008, may he rest in peace.
?ÿThis one is located east of Dolores, Colorado on the side of a County Road. Don't remember the Road number. Was working when the picture was taken 2 years ago.?ÿ
Life changes right before our eyes.?ÿ My Sixth Grade teacher was born in the early 1900's.?ÿ I remember her telling us to be careful as to what we would choose as a profession someday.?ÿ Her example was:?ÿ Don't become a buggy whip salesman.
Everywhere we look we see things that did not exist X number of years ago, but tend not to notice the absence of things we all took for granted.?ÿ Occupations related to those missing things are also missing.?ÿ I remember a buddy from high school who in the 1980's was attempting to make extra money by going door to door attempting to get people to buy the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica set to help their children with their education.
Greenwood Beach Resort, Cat Island, Bahamas.
Don't become a buggy whip salesman.
Radio and TV repairman.
Key punch operator.
Gas station pump attendant (except in a couple states).
Linotype operator. Newspaper delivery.
Photo processing technician
Switchboard operator.
Telephone lineman soon to follow.
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Telephone lineman soon to follow.
I think those guys do more than simple copper lines now. There is all sorts of fiber and such on those poles and under the ground. They will be keeping busy for a long time, I think.
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@dmyhill Nearly all of my work is in support of telecom and very little new copper has gone in over the last decade, it's nearly all fiber in support of broadband. Your phone company is no longer really a phone company but an internet provider now. The older technology utilizing copper had a lot of limitations though it was at the time quite impressive the internet speeds that could be obtained using the old copper workers but those are the real bottle necks in improving broadband speed. For the last five years it's been overbuilding with fiber and shortening loops and with Covid and people working from home the demand has increased dramatically and I've seen our construction budgets for building out fiber reflect that demand. In the old days copper wasn't placed with as much care as fiber is now so it's led to great deal more survey work for us and will most likely continue to for as long I'm working anyway and the demand seems to be fairly recession proof. One of the reasons I gravitated toward utility work.
@norman-oklahoma and the operator would ring in when your time ran out looking for another coin.
Gas station pump attendant (except in a couple states).
I don't know how this continues to be a thing.?ÿ Oregon has this rule but I completely blow it off whenever I'm over there.?ÿ 1.)?ÿ if I have a wex card for my fleet vehicle I'm certainly not giving the password to some stranger, and 2.) even if I use my own credit card the pump will probably ask me for my zip code which I am also not giving to a stranger.
This bogus job needs to go away almost as fast as the emissions testing people.
