Armed Polite Society

Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on May 23, 2022, 09:12:35 PM

Title: The end of an[other] era
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 23, 2022, 09:12:35 PM
The last public pay telephone has been removed from New York City.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/new-york-city-removes-the-last-payphone-from-service.html

I'm trying (with no success) to remember where or when I last saw a public pay telephone.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: WLJ on May 23, 2022, 09:21:17 PM
Where is Superman going to change now?
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: HankB on May 23, 2022, 09:29:39 PM
The last public pay telephone has been removed from New York City.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/new-york-city-removes-the-last-payphone-from-service.html

I'm trying (with no success) to remember where or when I last saw a public pay telephone.
The last place I remember seeing pay telephones was at the airport.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: cordex on May 23, 2022, 10:18:10 PM
A neighborhood by my old house had one by their playground/pool area.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: French G. on May 23, 2022, 11:22:09 PM
Come on out my way, I think I can find at least seven out here. Last couple of years they sadly took out the full booth and left a phone on a post. Cell service is little to zero in my hills. What amazes me is two miles up the road was the last telephone exchange in the continental US to get rid of magneto phones. Doe Hill, VA. The year was 1974. They now have decent DSL. Time flies.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: zxcvbob on May 24, 2022, 02:30:26 AM
Come on out my way, I think I can find at least seven out here. Last couple of years they sadly took out the full booth and left a phone on a post. Cell service is little to zero in my hills. What amazes me is two miles up the road was the last telephone exchange in the continental US to get rid of magneto phones. Doe Hill, VA. The year was 1974. They now have decent DSL. Time flies.

https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/11014   =)
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: Hawkmoon on May 24, 2022, 06:48:59 PM
https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/11014   =)

Maine -- of course.

When I was a lad, we always visited my maternal grandparents in Maine for my father's summer vacation. I don't remember what the population of the town was back then, but it wasn't large. The local telephone exchange in the 1950s was about like the one in that photo. There was one telephone in the grandparent's house, located in a recess off a landing on the stairway from the great room to the second floor. The phone was a hand-crank phone -- nothing remotely resembling a dial to be found. Cranking the phone got you an operator, and you told the operator who you wanted to call. She made the connection.

I can still remember my grandmother asking the operator to "Connect me with Harry Toms, ring one-one." All the lines in town were party lines, so the number of closely-spaced rings told you if the call was for your number or one of the other parties on the same line.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: JN01 on May 24, 2022, 09:20:09 PM
Where is Superman going to change now?

The trans clinic, of course.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: zxcvbob on May 24, 2022, 10:41:15 PM
Maine -- of course.

Where did they get equipment?  It's not still being made, is it?  Not the central office so much as the telephones.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: RoadKingLarry on May 24, 2022, 11:03:15 PM
The phone companies never throw anything away. There are secret warehouses full of antique equipment just in case it might someday be needed again. =D
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: 230RN on May 25, 2022, 12:10:02 AM
The phone companies never throw anything away. There are secret warehouses full of antique equipment just in case it might someday be needed again. =D


Don't know if it's still true, but the old Public Service Valmont Power plant in Boulder CO (now Excel Energy, I guess) back in early 1970s had a large warehouse-type roomful of old equipment including dozens of old 110 volt eddy current house meters which were one-by-one being replaced by modern units.

I went out there on a tip from a friend about it because I wanted one for grins and giggles (actually to measure actual appliance usage --long before the handy all-electronic Kill-O-Watt units
.)  They gave me one for free, and it even had a tag with the house it came from (on Spruce Street in Boulder Colorado.)

The point there is that they also had tons of old equipment, including lots of 1/3 and 1/2 HP fan motors, which they said they would replace routinely on a regular basis to avoid failure in their high temperature environments.

Yes, I got one for something else.

But it would appear that outfits do retain old equipment for JIC (Just In Case) reasons.

Terry
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: K Frame on May 25, 2022, 07:22:08 AM
The phone companies never throw anything away. There are secret warehouses full of antique equipment just in case it might someday be needed again. =D


Oh wow, that explains the room in Oakton filled with telegraph keys and battery jars...

:rofl:
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: Pb on May 25, 2022, 09:44:35 AM

But it would appear that outfits do retain old equipment for JIC (Just In Case) reasons.


That is a good idea.  Sometimes old stuff works when new stuff fails.
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: MechAg94 on May 25, 2022, 10:52:11 AM
There is still at least one pay phone near the downtown of my home town.  Outside a convenience store.  I have seen people use it, but I don't hang out over there much. 
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: 230RN on May 25, 2022, 06:29:36 PM
Oh wow, that explains the room in Oakton filled with telegraph keys and battery jars...

:rofl:

Heh.  They also had piles of those ten-position stepping relays. 

When Wife1 and I moved to Boulder in the early sixties, we still had a party line.  I remember at one World's Fair back in New York they had a display where you could test the efficiency and speed of the new touch-tone dialing system compared to the round dial.  Interesting that we still refer to calling as dialing.  Like "footage" and "taping" for digitalized videos.  Maybe we should call it "bytage."
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: Doggy Daddy on May 25, 2022, 07:59:12 PM
There is still at least one pay phone near the downtown of my home town.  Outside a convenience store.  I have seen people use it, but I don't hang out over there much.

Is it a good place to eat chicken wings while conducting "business" on the pay phones?

(Lookin' at YOU, Stop 'n' Shop)
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: 230RN on May 27, 2022, 03:52:58 AM
Late 1970s I recall noticing that the Rico, Colorado phone book was a single page and had an actual pay phone listed near a prominent building as "Pay Phone," like "John Brewster" or something.

Terry, 230RN

REF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico,_Colorado
Title: Re: The end of an[other] era
Post by: RoadKingLarry on May 27, 2022, 08:30:54 AM
Late 1970s I recall noticing that the Rico, Colorado phone book was a single page and had an actual pay phone listed near a prominent building as "Pay Phone," like "John Brewster" or something.

Terry, 230RN

REF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico,_Colorado

Neat little town, my parents guest hosted at a FS campground just North of there in the early '90s. Beautiful country.