[HN Gopher] Last public payphone removed from Manhattan streets
___________________________________________________________________
Last public payphone removed from Manhattan streets
Author : elsewhen
Score : 152 points
Date : 2022-05-25 23:58 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (pix11.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pix11.com)
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| Not true. There's a couple around the corner from me on the UWS,
| including one that someone wrote a children's book about:
| https://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Phonebooth-Peter-Ackerman/dp/1...
|
| EDIT: I was curious if they removed it in the last few days so I
| went out and took a picture: https://imgur.com/a/dQdSEzQ
|
| Has a dial tone and everything. But maybe this is one of the
| private ones the article mentions?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| For those in Europe ("this content is not available in your
| region" bullshit): https://archive.ph/XZ6rW
|
| Not that we're missing much. The title says it all.
| busterarm wrote:
| I used to drunkenly urinate in those...
|
| ...No love for honesty, I guess.
| izzydata wrote:
| Hopefully you use your personal cellphone now.
| ls15 wrote:
| And now all of them needed to be removed!
| HeckFeck wrote:
| So that joke in Futurama was true after all.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Lol, I love that you were honest.
|
| It doesn't mean you should get praised for the other effects
| your actions had, but I do appreciate the honesty. Hopefully
| you now understand why people don't like others urinating in
| spaces where they possibly have to also occupy.
| rand0m4r wrote:
| > This content is not available in your country/region.
|
| Not cool
| rob_c wrote:
| yes, but call it out and you typically get critizied as being
| some sort of horrible person calling for the US-centric forum
| to burn down.
|
| https://archive.today/XZ6rW
| shrx wrote:
| The archived page is unusable (article text is blurred).
| jakzurr wrote:
| Maybe not worth your trouble, but adding NoScript to Chrome
| works for me.
| [deleted]
| ascar wrote:
| It's one "valid" way of complying with GDPR.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Here (Finland's 3rd biggest city) this happened on 29-Sep-2007,
| nearly 15 years ago.
|
| Just for comparison. Most Finn's are very proud of being digital
| leaders, but I don't say it's really a good thing. Children,
| tourists, homeless etc. should be able to use a phone. Everybody
| should be able to communicate without leaving digital tracks.
| Surveillance capitalism is a sick model.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Everybody should have access to the Network. It's weird to
| prioritise a previous (and of course much less capable)
| iteration of the Network, in this case the Public Switched
| Telephone Network over the current one, the Internet.
|
| Ambient Network Access is to be encouraged, I am disappointed
| when I see friends endeavouring to keep their young children
| from accessing the Network out of a misplaced fear it will
| stunt their intellectual development somehow. To be sure
| children need to be given boundaries and supervision, but
| preventing access is no sort of way to achieve that. For
| tourists and the homeless there's even less excuse.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Well, then you would need to advocate public internet
| terminals that can be accessed at reasonable cost.
|
| Some countries have internet cafes, but Finland has never
| really had them to any extent because "too many" have
| internet at home (in the earlier days) or in their pocket
| (nowadays). Libraries do offer decent access, but sometimes
| you might have to wait 48 hours or more until it opens next
| time. And the density of libraries is of course nowhere close
| to what payphones once were. And you cannot have a
| confidential phone call in a library.
|
| So in some aspects what you call the current iteration of the
| network is not much more capable for everyone, quite the
| opposite. At least 10% of the population (mostly elder
| people) are completely locked out here. Many more in other
| countries, but there often more alternative channels still
| exist.
| [deleted]
| gwbas1c wrote:
| When I was in high school, the payphone (in the school) ate my
| quarter.
|
| I called the operator and told them. I didn't care about the
| money, I just wanted a working phone.
|
| A few weeks later I got a check in the mail for $0.25. It was on
| old letterhead from the telephone company's old name.
| easton wrote:
| https://archive.ph/XZ6rW
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Oops sorry I was also posting this, hadn't seen yours
| kebman wrote:
| Quick! Get hold of a few! Save it for a film set in the 90's!
| atmosx wrote:
| My father, now 70 years old, got stuck in Sicily with a broken
| car earlier this year. He had forgot his mobile phone home. He
| wasn't able to find a landline phone that he could use.
| Exasperated after trying several locations (bars, fast foods, etc
| asking for a phone call only to be denied) for 45 minutes, he
| decided to enter a vodafone store. They would not let him use
| _any_ phone because it was against the _policy_ (???). He asked
| if he could buy a phone and charge it, but was pretty complex (at
| least for him - mind you he had money and credit card with him).
| Maybe the fact that his accent betrays the fact that he's a
| foreigner had something to do with it...
|
| Long story short, in 1970 you could get a phone call at the bar
| down the street and ring home if you were in trouble. People in
| the neighbourhoods were eager to help. In 2022, in Sicily, if you
| lose your mobile phone you're effectively _done_.
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Did he offer to pay strangers on the street or business staff
| for the phone calls he was intending to make from their mobile
| phone?
| balaji1 wrote:
| no more hardline exits...
| grecy wrote:
| In Australia they just made all payphones free for all calls to
| anywhere in Australia (inc to cell phones). It's great.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| They are replacing the payphones with LinkNYC kiosks that
| include a phone that makes free US calls
| tstrimple wrote:
| Interesting. I hadn't seen these before (not a NY resident
| and very rarely a visitor).
|
| https://www.link.nyc/
| jck wrote:
| Former NYC resident. Those things are everywhere in
| Manhattan and in surprisingly good condition most of the
| times.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| That is sad. I don't carry my cell phone with me everywhere,
| and I have never had a problem finding some one willing to lend
| me their phone if I needed to make a call. I have never been to
| Sicily before though :)
| steelframe wrote:
| Having lived a couple of years in Italy, I can attest that
| Italians are hard on the outside and chewy on the inside.
| They have built a hard outer shell to deal with all of the
| constant bullshit that they're awash in day-in and day-out.
| But once you're "in," you are *in*. The degree of mutual
| trust and goodwill among their in-groups would put most North
| American social groups, including and perhaps especially
| families, to shame.
| golemiprague wrote:
| gxs wrote:
| I traveled through Europe all through 2018.
|
| The only bit of trouble I had throughout the entire trip was me
| trying to be a good Samaritan.
|
| Someone approached me, lost, asking me for directions because
| they didn't have a phone. In my American naivete, I pulled out
| my phone and help them look for this fictitious restaurant they
| were supposedly looking for.
|
| During the conversation, the person got close to me and before
| I knew it had pick pocketed 50 euros out of my pocket.
|
| I'd still do my best to help in the future, but I can
| definitely understand why people are reluctant to help others
| in foreign countries.
| steelframe wrote:
| I used to live in Italy. The first thing other Americans in
| my group taught me was to automatically assume that anyone
| and everyone around you is trying to scam or pickpocket you.
|
| Did some 11-year-old kid just get on the bus? Is he wearing a
| fluffy jacket? That little shit is gonna try to pickpocket
| you, guaranteed. He likely has a razor blade and will slice
| open the bottom of your backpack while people are jostling
| each other around on the bus. Have nothing in your pockets,
| keep your back to the wall, and hold your backpack in your
| hands in front of you. Did a well-dressed stranger smile and
| strike up a conversation? They're a Jehovah's Witness, and
| they're going to try to manipulate you into letting them come
| into your house and indoctrinate you. Don't acknowledge their
| existence. Don't smile back, don't make eye contact. Zero
| engagement. Is some friendly guy at the Trevi Fountain offer
| you a fun-looking squishy balloon? It's the cheapest possible
| thing you can imagine, and he's going to start demanding 50x
| the value of the thing once you were naive enough to actually
| grab it when he shoved it at you. Is there a transient woman
| in the train station with a young child lurching at you while
| shoving the kid into your arms? She's going to start
| screaming that you're a kidnapper and then demand 50 euros
| from you to make your new "problem" go away. Did the ticket
| checker claim that your bus ticket wasn't stamped correctly?
| Nothing a 20-euro "fine," paid in cash directly to the
| ticket-checker, won't fix.
|
| By the way, any and all of the above happened to an American
| in my group at one point or another -- sometimes several
| times -- in our years there.
| robocat wrote:
| One weird trick: try not to appear American. American
| tourists are targeted because they tend to have valuables,
| also many cultures have a low opinion of the USA (anyone
| from the USA deserves behaviour X in response). I wish it
| weren't like that, but it is hard to change stereotypes.
|
| When travelling I might make out I am a hippy traveller
| type (low value target), or act like I'm from another
| country (e.g. Spanish tourists are known to be tight/tacano
| in Morocco), and I try to avoid carrying or wearing
| anything that makes me stand out as a target (bumbag,
| camera, expensive accessories, high value branded clothes).
|
| As a broad rule, you need to be most safety conscious in
| high density tourist areas. The only places I have been
| where I really knew I was unsafe were Rio (dangerous to
| locals too), and Nha Trang. In areas with very few
| tourists, I have usually been able to be fairly trusting,
| which leads to better experiences. Travelling as a
| hypersensitive victim is not fun: people sense your
| distrust and react poorly to it.
|
| I am a New Zealander, and we tend to have a reputation for
| friendliness, which I try to project and maintain our
| reputation.
|
| I have been obnoxiously drunk a few times when I have
| pretended to be Australian or American, sorry guys.
| spqr0a1 wrote:
| I had someone try the same grift to me in NYC but they went
| for my decoy pocket that only had used tissues.
| gxs wrote:
| Yes, luckily I only had a small amount in my pocket and the
| rest in a money belt.
| corrral wrote:
| Another case of an optional thing that enhanced experiences and
| made you more free becoming something you _must_ have to do
| _anything_ , so, removing some freedom after all.
|
| See also: the automobile, at least as experienced in the US and
| similar countries.
|
| [EDIT] and in both cases, the problem is the effect the new
| thing had on the environment around it. When tech- and
| progress-focused people can't figure out why some
| cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's
| protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often
| part of why they do that.
| bananapear wrote:
| When it comes to automobiles and the US... are there any
| similar countries?
| yaomtc wrote:
| Canada
| doubled112 wrote:
| Definitely the suburbs around the major cities. 40 minute
| walk to the nearest store does seem unreasonable.
|
| 2 hours to bus to work or 15 minutes to drive.
| [deleted]
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Most of Europe outside of large metros is the same as well.
| bonzini wrote:
| It depends. For example there are many places that are
| too small to live without a car, but where you can do
| basic grocery shopping or kids can still go to school on
| foot or by bike. The spread is rarely comparable to the
| US.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| There's a difference between "it's rural so things are
| spread out" and what we have in places like LA and
| Houston where major metro centers that could have been
| dense with good transit were purposely designed to be
| spread out and only able to be gotten around in in an
| automobile
| Lammy wrote:
| There are plenty of non-US places which used to have
| transit and now do not. Britain's 1960s "Beeching Axe"
| comes to mind:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
| barrkel wrote:
| Europe is not like the west coast of the US. Even urban
| areas are practically unnavigable by foot; everything is
| too spread out and only accessible by walking along
| heavily trafficked roads.
|
| You'll want at least a bicycle in rural Europe, but you
| don't normally _need_ a whole lot more.
| pinko wrote:
| > When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why
| some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's
| protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often
| part of why they do that.
|
| This is an enormously under-appreciated perspective here,
| thanks for pointing it out. What appears to be a foolish
| luddite is often someone with a thoughtful, long-term
| perspective based on hard-won experience.
| RobRivera wrote:
| i lived without a cell phone due to poverty sometime in the
| not too distant past and it made me develop certain new
| perspectives on tech and society
| kisero wrote:
| I was literally listening to a podcast about this trade-off
| today by Andy Crouch, he's the author of The Life We're
| Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
| mwest217 wrote:
| What was the podcast?
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > When tech- and progress-focused people can't figure out why
| some cultures/countries have "anti-progress" laws (France's
| protection of book stores, for instance), well, this is often
| part of why they do that.
|
| Chesterton's Fence, yet again.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_.
| ..
| corrral wrote:
| Kind of, but a bit different. Both are cases of unintended
| consequences, but one involves something that was
| deliberately made or set up a certain way, and the other
| involves a state of affairs that existed essentially by
| accident. This is how people get away with arguing that
| changes to the status quo, under shifting technology or the
| demands of business, are "natural", so efforts to preserve
| the status quo are "unnatural"--because the prior state
| wasn't made that way deliberately, and absent coordinated
| action it may be demolished by changes, _even if_ most
| people would prefer to retain some or all of the prior
| state, at some shared cost.
| subpixel wrote:
| This is an interesting social breakdown for me.
|
| I got lost running in a not-fancy and exclusive but quite nice
| area in an outer borough of NYC a couple years ago. I didn't
| have my phone.
|
| Dressed like I was going to run a marathon, I asked people who
| I saw had phones if they would be so kind as to look up the
| directions to where I had come from.
|
| Several different people, including one in a city agency truck,
| refused to open Google Maps for me. One claimed their smart
| phone didn't have a maps app and the others said things about
| data or they were in a rush.
|
| I couldn't believe it and I wound up getting help from an old
| man who gave me audible directions that included so many steps
| I only found my way back by going in the right direction and
| slowly getting less lost.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Did you ask them more like "Can you pull up Google maps?" Or
| "Do you know the way to 5th Street?"
|
| The first one would make me question if you are trying to
| steal my phone or something, but I might pull out my phone to
| help you with the second.
| vasco wrote:
| You didn't mention it but I'm guessing he got back and told you
| the story so you aren't effectively done, it's just more of a
| hassle if you're unwilling to ask a passing stranger.
| okamiueru wrote:
| My immediate thought was "surely, if you talked to any police
| officer, if not at the station, they would help out? And if
| not, any library or other public service?"
| cpitman wrote:
| This also assumes you feel safe talking to police in the
| first place.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I have literally tried exactly this before, and apparently my
| not having a phone to contact anyone wasn't actually the
| officers problem.
| s5300 wrote:
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| When I feel that dramatic I usually need to get lunch,
| but you might have other reasons.
| georgyo wrote:
| If you don't have your phone, how do you know where the
| nearest public service is, especially in a foreign land.
| koolba wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember asking people for directions.
| Teever wrote:
| And I'm old enough to remember this clip on TV:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXlpVz9rnx4
|
| If you're not aware, many people are assholes, and the
| story that you're reading is about an instance where
| someone was finding that everyone around them was being
| an asshole, that means it's less than likely that they
| would have stopped to give them directions.
| exhilaration wrote:
| _If you 're not aware, many people are assholes_
|
| Oh come on, most people are awesome. People LOVE to help,
| it empowers them, makes them feel good. When you look at
| books with advice about building relationships and
| friendships, you'll almost always find suggestions to ASK
| people you want to get closer to for help.
| Teever wrote:
| I don't feel like having a semantic argument over the
| different between many and most.
|
| The world is full of many lovely, caring people, but that
| does little to help a person when they happen to run into
| a bunch of assholes.
|
| It is very feasible that a person travelling to another
| country could have a negative experience with everyone
| they meet due to racism or xenophobia, or whatever and
| that this would lead to a situation where even people on
| the street show them nothing but scorn.
|
| Imagine a Ukrainian asking for the nearest police station
| in Russia right now.
|
| Or someone wearing a thin blue line asking for directions
| at a stereotypical leftist college campus.
| rc_mob wrote:
| Not just Sicily, a similar scenario happened to me in Salt Lake
| City UT. People are strangely asshole about letting someone in
| need use their cell phone.
| bagels wrote:
| There's too much risk to hand a stranger your cell phone,
| unfortunately. They can steal the phone, call some high cost
| number, venmo themselves money, who knows what else.
| sophacles wrote:
| Its not at all strange that you cannot use my device that has
| access to some really important personal info on it. It's
| rude for me to hover over you while you are talking on the
| phone so I can make sure you aren't snooping through my
| messages, email, etc, and I'm not about to let you use a
| device that has access to those unsupervised.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| Exactly my thought as well. If the phone only was just
| that, a phone, I would happily lend it out to strangers all
| the time (at least if it looked like they didn't have the
| stamina to outrun me :P).
| smelendez wrote:
| I'm very reluctant when people ask me for the reasons others
| have said.
|
| Not saying you didn't do this but I'm much more likely to
| help when someone comes up with a clear and concise statement
| of the problem and a minimally intrusive solution ("hey, my
| phone is dead and my wife has the charger, could you call the
| Hilton on speaker and ask for Room 123?" or even "could I log
| in to my Facebook for a second and send a message to my
| friend saying I don't have my phone but I'll be at Starbucks,
| you can hold the phone?")
| zippergz wrote:
| It's much more strange to me that people WOULD let strangers
| use their cell phone. Back when it was just a phone, sure.
| But now it's my wallet with all of my credit cards and
| banking loaded on it, it has all of my passwords and all of
| my OTP apps and codes, it has the ability to unlock doors in
| my house (and for some people to open and start their car) it
| contains all of the contact information for everyone I know,
| it effectively has every email I've ever sent or received and
| every picture I have ever taken or been sent, it has access
| to publish content as me on trusted social media profiles.
| Yes, obviously all of this should be protected by much more
| than just physical security. But we all know that software
| locks can almost always be broken if you're in possession of
| the physical device.
|
| I happily help strangers when I can, but I'm not going to
| hand over the keys to my entire life, on the most fragile and
| expensive object I probably have on my person.
| swader999 wrote:
| I would just call for them and let them use speaker phone.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I think it depends on how you phrase it, there's a big
| difference to me between asking somebody to place a call on
| behalf of you on speakerphone, versus asking them to
| physically handover an unlocked smart phone.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Unless there's a kind stranger/public service avaliable, you're
| stuck if your phone fails for whatever reason. You could argue
| that there's no excuse to not go out with a spare charger and
| all, but I've had my handset just stop working while on the
| road. I have friends who have had their phone pickpocketed.
|
| This also adds on an additional concern as places begin to
| forego say physical credit cards and IDs in favor of electronic
| ones that again live on your phone. If that phone is dead, you
| can't even buy a new one or get money from an ATM. Likely in
| such a future I'll need to have a redundant phone on me at all
| times just incase this happens.
| isatty wrote:
| Did he ask a stranger? When I got locked out of my house even
| the fedex driver who happened to be there let me use his phone
| to call someone.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| I would think that this is neighborhood-dependent.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Unless you look like a crackhead or beggar, anyone would
| lend his phone for a few seconds/minutes.
| californical wrote:
| I definitely wouldn't, at least not without lots of
| convincing. Probably I'd call someone for you though.
|
| Access to all of my personal info, my password manager,
| etc. If someone turned and ran with my phone, it would
| give me days worth of hassle to replace and recover
| things like canceling my SIM card, buying a new one,
| changing 2FA, trying to remotely wipe it, maybe provide
| info to police.
|
| I hate how dependent I am on this little rectangle but
| it's kind of just reality these days to have so much of
| our lives closely tied to it
| boplicity wrote:
| That's a huge problem. Payphones don't have biases. As
| long as you have enough money, they just work.
|
| People have many, many biases. (For example, against
| homeless, and those who are often in most need of help.)
|
| The reality of depending on other people is that you're
| dependent on their flaws. This works out for most people,
| but certainly does not for many of those who are
| marginalized.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > As long as you have enough money, they just work.
|
| Even if you didn't you would just call collect.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Tbh I've let alcoholics on the street use my phone,
| they're usually too wasted to make a run with it.
|
| People think I'm crazy for it though.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| I assume it's a global thing but in London there is a
| category of beggar that doesn't really look like a
| beggar. They usually have a story about their car running
| out of petrol or losing their train ticket. I've been
| approached by the same guy two days running telling me
| that he just lost his train ticket a few minutes before
| (what an unlucky guy).
|
| My point is that in cities you evolve an attitude that
| pretty much anyone who walks up to you with a sob story
| is likely to be at best a beggar and at worst a
| thief/scammer. I think you could get someone to make a
| call on your behalf but actually handing you their phone
| (even for a moment) - that might be less common than you
| think.
| llanowarelves wrote:
| Also our phones are >= $1000 devices. How are we supposed
| to trust handing that to just anyone?
| prmoustache wrote:
| Not true.
|
| Most people aren't using and can't afford the flagship
| models. I personnally have never bought a smartphone more
| than 180EUR and I know a lot of people doing the same
| thing.
| balaji1 wrote:
| I have faced this before - A stranger dialed the number I
| wanted to call, put it on speaker and let me speak to my
| friend.
| smelendez wrote:
| It's true and it's almost a vicious cycle: Because the cost of
| being without a phone is so high, people are unwilling to let
| strangers use their phones in case they run off with it (or
| drop it in a puddle).
| e1g wrote:
| For anyone else who might get stuck like this: hit up any
| public service place. Libraries, police/fire station, civic
| office, tourist info kiosk etc.
| california2077 wrote:
| If you both loose your cellphone and lack social skills to ask
| literally anyone else to lend you theirs, then I guess you're
| in trouble. But it works out for the rest of us, so the cost to
| some rare individuals is worth the benefit to the rest of the
| society. I for one never lost a cell phone in my life.
| SN76477 wrote:
| Escaping the matrix becomes harder every year.
| semitones wrote:
| My first thought exactly when seeing this news!
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Nah, you can still do it via the LinkNYC terminals which let
| you place calls.
|
| That said, it's vanishingly rare that I actually see anyone
| using them to make calls, and it looks kind of silly when you
| do use them because you need to plug headphones into the jack.
| Their primary utility is for device charging and free Wi-Fi.
| rob74 wrote:
| - Use your personal device to connect to LinkNYC's super
| fast, free Wi-Fi
|
| - Access city services, maps and directions from the tablet
|
| - Make free phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. using the
| tablet or the tactile keypad and microphone. Plug in your
| personal headphones for more privacy.
|
| - Use the dedicated red 911 button in the event of an
| emergency
|
| - Charge your device in a power-only USB port
|
| [...]
|
| Sounds cool! Wish we had terminals like these in Germany.
| Here, they just remove the pay phones, period.
| itisit wrote:
| In reality, they're:
|
| - monolithic eyesores that take up precious sidewalk space
|
| - yet another bright display running advertisements 24/7
|
| - charging stations for the homeless to use and loiter
| around
|
| Poor execution of a good idea. I smile whenever I walk by
| one that has been vandalized.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > monolithic eyesores that take up precious sidewalk
| space
|
| To be fair, so were the pay phones they replaced. NYC
| just doesn't have enough sidewalk space in a lot of
| areas.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| > - charging stations for the homeless to use
|
| Isn't that a good thing?
| bogomipz wrote:
| But this limited utility comes at a cost of being inundated
| by billboards. In NYC there is often 4 per single block - 2
| on each side of the street. I don't believe there was a 1
| for 1 replacement with the old kiosks, they seem to be far
| more pervasive than pay phones ever were. There's also a 5G
| version being introduced that is far more obtrusive than
| the original design. See pages 15, 16 and and 37 here:
|
| https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/designcommission/downloads/pdf/
| 1...
| actionablefiber wrote:
| I imagine that these could be useful to tourists who don't
| have a local phone plan, and the free Wi-Fi / USB charging
| / scrolling information bulletins are definitely useful,
| but I feel like this program came about 5-10 years too late
| for them to really shine now that a lot of people have
| smartphones with generous/unlimited data plans and don't
| necessarily need a kiosk for points 1-4.
|
| From 2010-2017 or so, unlimited data plans were some
| combination of rare/slow/expensive, and especially in the
| early 2010s smartphones had a lot less penetration. I
| imagine these terminals would have been life-savers back
| then.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It seems like a pretty false equivalence to me. Who wants to
| talk to someone on speaker in the middle of a public street?
| Or remember to bring headphones with them in case they need
| to make a call? I would be very surprised if they were ever
| used to make calls outside of very rare emergency situations.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Well, it's not a "false equivalence" per se - the city
| literally installed the LinkNYC terminals right where the
| payphones used to be and considers them to be a successor
| to them - but I agree that the user experience of placing a
| call with the terminals is pretty bad. You don't get
| privacy, you (usually) have nowhere to sit, and if you're
| standing right in front of the terminal then you've got
| people constantly walking past you.
|
| Frankly, I wasn't making any calls on the old payphones
| either, and it's been over a decade since I bothered
| memorizing a phone number, so I don't really feel qualified
| to pass judgment on whether they're that much better or
| worse. But I appreciate that the LinkNYC Wi-Fi access
| points are often easier and faster than those of the
| stores/cafes around them, and I appreciate being able to
| stop and charge up my phone a bit if it dies while I'm out
| and about. (Did this a lot during the Pokemon Go craze!)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem is that those are ultimately devices whose
| purpose is to feed the cancer that is called advertising,
| while old payphones merely wanted a quarter.
|
| From their privacy policy (https://www.link.nyc/privacy-
| policy.html):
|
| > We may share Technical Information that is unassociated
| with you and your device:
|
| > With analytics, search engine, or other service providers
| that help us improve the Services; > To advertisers and
| advertising networks to select and serve relevant
| advertisements.
|
| They're useless for anything besides 911 functionality. I
| would definitely not recommend connecting to its Wi-Fi
| service without a VPN and spoofed, one-time MAC address.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > whose purpose is to feed the cancer that is called
| advertising
|
| Pay phones were the same way. The quarter payment was just
| on top of the money from advertisements.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| That was just generic display advertising targeted by
| location and market research.
|
| This one _collects_ data about _your_ usage of the device
| (and the mere fact that you were there at a certain time)
| and then shares it with lots of "partners" so they can
| refine the profile they have on you even further.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Well, when the phones were still operated by the regional
| Bells there was no advertising except for the logo of the
| phone company. The promotional advertising came only
| after the incumbents sold the kiosk business to Titan et
| al.
| rustybelt wrote:
| This was a fun 2002 movie that would make no sense to zoomers:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/
| duluca wrote:
| Mirrors are still an option, presuming people are still keeping
| those around post pandemic.
| codegeek wrote:
| I never understood that part about Matrix. They already had
| cellphones where they would discuss how to get to the nearest
| pay phone. Why not just use the cell phone to transmit ? Ah
| well, it wouldn't be as fun though especially that iconic scene
| where Trinity almost gets hit by a vehicle.
| anon_123g987 wrote:
| From an interview with the directors:
|
| _Sinclair:_ Why were they only able to jack in through hard-
| lines, but still able to communicate over cell?
|
| _WachowskiBros:_ Sinclair, good question! Mostly we felt
| that the amount of information that was being sent into the
| Matrix required a significant portal. Those portals, we felt,
| were better described with the hard lines rather than cell
| lines. We also felt that the rebels tried to be invisible
| when they hacked that's why all the entrances and exits were
| sort of through decrepit and low traffic areas of the Matrix.
|
| The full interview: https://www.matrixfans.net/movies/the-
| matrix/wachowski-broth...
|
| More speculation by a fan about this:
| https://screenrant.com/matrix-phone-hard-line-enter-exit-
| exp...
| mlindner wrote:
| It'll be interesting that in a few years that will become the
| most poorly aged portion of the movie.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Nope. The movie takes place in a recreation of 1999.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| Yep. And Resurrections, which takes place in a recreation
| of 2021 (or thereabouts), allows for using cellphones to
| exit. They even make a point of pointing that out in the
| film. I think within the context of the movies, they made
| it very difficult for anything to "age poorly" like that
| because it's all meant to be a representation of a very
| specific point in time.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Superman would have something to say about this, too.
| uptown wrote:
| Stu Shepard is fine with it.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/
| Rockjodd wrote:
| > This content is not available in your country/region.
|
| Sad Internet.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Manhattan phonebooth memories- my father hoisting me up to stand
| on top of one to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, early
| 1980s. Where is Superman gonna change into his tights now?
| tommywiseausmom wrote:
| I talked to a guy who used to have hundreds of them across
| Florida in the 90s and made bank. He said he's down to six. Know
| where they are? In-patient drug rehab facilities. They take away
| your phone, and people are wary to try to make drug deals on
| landlines. The places where most of them still exist, however,
| are prisons and jails.
| drawfloat wrote:
| I can imagine an incredibly rare situation where I need to use a
| payphone, it once happened to me.
|
| I also know that I don't know any phone numbers but my own from
| memory.
| unionemployee wrote:
| The characters signing in with their unique splash screens at NYC
| pay phones in the movie Hackers was quite cool to 12 year old me.
| [deleted]
| takk309 wrote:
| I spent a stupid amount of time figuring out how to make a
| custom splash screen for Windows XP. And then a service pack
| reverted all my efforts. Good times.
| a-dub wrote:
| that's right i forgot all about service packs. in the days
| before continuous patch delivery.
|
| windows nt 4.0 sp #3 64mb installed
|
| ooohlala
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I remember back in my phreaking days, you were considered a rock
| star if you were able to steal a pay phone. I also remember
| writing down several payphone numbers and calling them at all
| hours to see who would pick up.
|
| Its interesting in the article they don't address what the
| maintenance costs of these were, only they were "obsolete".
|
| I do remember being in DT Minneapolis on a first date. Car broke
| down, cell phone was dead and we had to walk around for about an
| hour before finding a pay phone and being able to call a cab. It
| occurred to me at that point that payphones are largely ignored
| until you need them and you're thankful they're there.
| krallja wrote:
| We would call the pay phone at the front of Steak 'n Shake and
| talk to whichever drunk person picked up. Very amusing in the
| 90s. Then, some of us got cell phones, and we could call from
| the parking lot and see who we were talking to, without them
| knowing who they were talking to.
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| "This content is not available in your country/region."
| jwilk wrote:
| https://archive.today/XZ6rW
| LordOmlette wrote:
| Supposedly this is not the case: https://www.hellgatenyc.com/the-
| death-of-nyc-payphones-lies/
|
| If you live in the NYC area, I guess you could hop on down and
| verify this yourself.
|
| Via 2600 (which if you ever read you'd know would be on the case)
| https://twitter.com/2600/status/1529174328054620162
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Well yeah, there are tons of empty "booths" just without
| phones. They're commonly used by drug dealers as stash points /
| occupied by homeless. Admittedly, while living in NYC I'd use
| them to duck out of the rain on occasion :)
| kempbellt wrote:
| When I lived in NYC, I frequently saw these things being used
| as urinals by homeless people.
|
| I'd rather just walk in the rain.
| yupper32 wrote:
| I like the word "admittedly" there because I read it as it's
| a dirty little secret of yours, haha.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| There are payphones in the stations still. They were talking
| about on the surface sidewalks.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > There are payphones in the stations still. They were
| talking about on the surface sidewalks.
|
| There are at least four other payphones on sidewalks in the
| UWS.
| 1wheel wrote:
| https://www.westsiderag.com/2022/05/24/rumors-of-the-
| phone-b...
| [deleted]
| andjd wrote:
| Is should also be noted that the Link kiosks they've been
| replacing them with have phone functionality ... it's free
| even. I've used them once when my cellphone died. They don't
| have handsets, so everyone around can hear both sides of the
| conversation, but in a pinch they're useful. And let's be
| honest, free > private in this situation. I don't know the last
| time I was walking around with enough quarters to use a
| payphone.
|
| Now, the Link kiosks are 99.9% about advertising, with just
| enough of a public service to justify this base monetization of
| the commons. On the whole, I'm not a fan. I went to a tech talk
| at the company behind them (in a swanky new tower in the Hudson
| yards) and their sizzle/promo reel running on a loop really
| made me sick.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| They were doing something similar in London for a while.
| They'd install a large advert screen with a phone attached
| and say it was a payphone because the local planning rules
| made it difficult to oppose installation of a payphone. The
| calls were actually free.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| "LinkNYC kiosks also provide a social services directory, free
| phone calls within the U.S., ..."
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| > The removal of public street payphones began in 2015 after the
| city acknowledged that advances in technology made them virtually
| obsolete.
|
| Hey, congratulations on Manhattan for finally solving poverty and
| homelessness. I wonder which technology they used for that.
| sylware wrote:
| next, cash.
| midasuni wrote:
| Thoughts and prayers for Clark Kent
| [deleted]
| jppope wrote:
| I'm actually shocked that they knew where all the pay phones
| were. I feel like they're going to announce in like a year that
| they messed up and found another one in like queens or something.
| busterarm wrote:
| They're a platform for advertising that's all owned by the same
| company (Titan, which merged into the company that owns
| LinkNYC).
|
| Advertisers keep good records.
| bogomipz wrote:
| The folks behind this advertising platform is much more of a
| Matryoshka doll though. Briefly, the history is that the
| contract to replace the pay phone kiosks was awarded to a
| consortium called CityBridge which consisted of Titan,
| Qualcomm, Comark and Control Group. Control Group and Titan
| then merged to form a company called Intersection. The lead
| investor in Intersection was Sidewalk Labs aka Alphabet aka
| Google. The CEO of of Sidewalk Labs is Daniel Doctoroff who
| was the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding
| under NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg. As always follow the money.
| astura wrote:
| Well someone has to empty them, right? So they must know where
| they are.
|
| Per the article, there's some private payphones around still,
| so you might still see them.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The nation that sent men to the moon is only just now removing
| payphones from the most important part of its most important
| city?
|
| The world is weird.
| gtirloni wrote:
| Big nations move slowly. The future is not evenly
| distributed... yadda, yadda, yadda. Like in IT, nobody is
| interested in dealing with technical debt.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Payphones have been mostly gone for ages in NYC, there were
| just a few stragglers.
|
| I don't see any connection between the moon and payphones,
| anyways.
| yabones wrote:
| Are there any situations where it would be desirable to keep some
| payphones around? Potentially in some sort of natural disaster
| where cell towers get knocked down, or at least reduced in
| capacity to the point where it's no longer possible to reliably
| make calls?
|
| There was a situation in Canada a year or two ago where one of
| our two main wireless providers rolled out a bad firmware update
| to all of their transmitters at the same time and had a system
| wide outage for nearly nine hours, I could imagine a need for
| payphones if something like that were to happen in NYC.
| V__ wrote:
| How else are you supposed to get the next numbers from the
| machine?
| JaggerJo wrote:
| yup - we definitely need to keep them. Otherwise Samaritan
| might win.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| pay phones can be useful (or be misused) for anonymous
| communication. Say as a whistleblower.
|
| They also can be helpful when your mobile's battery runs out.
| coding123 wrote:
| Wow I must be ancient. I remember a time when you could ask a
| fellow citizen if you can borrow their phone for a minute. I
| guess that's called a mugging now.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| That's now called "I'd say no because of the scam where
| they use a premium number and bill you for a very expensive
| phone call." If somebody's phone is dead they can borrow my
| battery pack.
| Swizec wrote:
| I did this recently after a marathon! It took me 10 minutes
| to remember my girlfriend's phone number
|
| And I had to text. Scam calls have made it far too unlikely
| that anyone picks up for an unknown number
| jstummbillig wrote:
| A time where you'd borrow a phone from a stranger "for
| anonymous communication, say as a whistleblower" rates not
| as ancient but as fictional.
| [deleted]
| jakzurr wrote:
| From earlier comments: https://www.link.nyc/ Each station
| allows free US calls.
| s5300 wrote:
| > Are there any situations where it would be desirable to keep
| some payphones around?
|
| If you happen to find yourself running from somebody named Mr.
| Anderson...
| criddell wrote:
| Haven't pay phones been cell phones for quite a long time now?
| webmobdev wrote:
| That's why I still keep a landline, though the family rarely
| uses it. It so happened that my family was debating why we need
| a landline when each of us has one or two mobile connections.
| Co-incidentally, the next day a major city got flooded. Nearly
| all the cell towers in the flooded area got knocked out because
| the generators / UPS of the towers all conked out. Only the
| wired landlines worked. We all voted to keep the landline. (It
| also turned out to be a blessing because in some forms of the
| US embassy, landline is a required field).
| ghaff wrote:
| One problem is that, if you just keep and maintain "some"
| payphones, there probably won't be nearly enough to be useful
| if the cellular infrastructure is out for some reason.
| lbotos wrote:
| NYC has these kiosks now https://www.link.nyc/
|
| Which, if they are cellular based don't solve for the problem,
| but I suspect some are hardwired?
| sethhochberg wrote:
| They have fiber backhaul since they are high-volume public
| wifi access points. I'd bet the phone tablet on the front is
| VoIP.
| sophacles wrote:
| It saddens me that you can't think of a use for a communication
| device that doesn't track your every move in such detail that
| would make omniscient deities jealous.
| bombcar wrote:
| The call boxes alongside US highways are starting to disappear
| also - so many people have cell phones and most highways are
| patrolled at least once a day, so the cost of keeping them
| working is not worth it as much.
| cwwc wrote:
| Interestingly -- these call boxes are still prevalent along
| highways (along with these odd S.0.S. Pull offs every km/
| half km or so) throughout much of northern Italy (and if my
| memory serves.. also in Germany, as of this past fall).
|
| I think there may be a a divide between toll/non toll roads
| tho -- curious if anyone knows why this is.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| This is 100% gone for urban freeways in California.
| asdff wrote:
| They have them on the freeways in LA
| silisili wrote:
| Wow... I'd actually forgotten these even ever existed until I
| read this comment, so I guess you're right... What a blast
| from the past!
| supertrope wrote:
| On September 11th 2001 people lined up to use payphones because
| the cellular networks were overloaded.
| firstcommentyo wrote:
| Though I really like the idea of having some backup
| infrastructure already for those discussed simple cases like
| (top comment for example): car broke down and you.. .. forgot
| your mobile .. out of battery .. out of "credit" (in case of
| prepaid) .. cuz you got robbed .. cuz you got raped....(!) ..
| cuz you lost your fingertips and can't operate a touch
| display anymore.. .. possibilties are hopefully rare but
| endless but you're just in whatever emergency at 3 am and
| really need a to make a call!
|
| But just for curiosity, whom/where you wanna call in 2022++
| in case of overloaded networks like Sep. 11th in 2001. At
| least I didn't even "own" (actually set-up) my landline
| anymore.
| satsuma wrote:
| were cell phones that common in 2001? i thought payphones
| were still more commonly used at that point
| supertrope wrote:
| No. They were very expensive because the network had
| minuscule capacity compared with today. I remember having a
| consumer plan with a 400 minute per month quota and calls
| after 9 p.m. were free. Even with those tight limits you'd
| sometimes place a call and hear a switch message "All
| circuits are busy."
| epc wrote:
| Yes, for average business people in Lower Manhattan, New
| York City. Not unusual for adults to have them, uncommon
| for students and children to have them.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I live near some mountainous rural terrain. There is no cell
| coverage in large swaths of valleys so many of the county and
| state parks have payphones to ensure phone service.
| angstrom wrote:
| Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) was the weakest link in the
| land lines. Since so much traffic has moved off onto wireless I
| would think there's a lot of reason to use landlines as a
| reliable emergency line when the towers are overloaded or down.
| Landlines were reliable for power outages since the power was
| supplied separately by the phone company and the lines were
| buried in the ground.
| _jal wrote:
| > landlines as a reliable emergency line
|
| Unfortunately, carriers are letting POTS rot.
|
| It is arguably unreliable now in some places. My
| grandmother's land line (semi-rural Ohio) goes out every few
| months and it usually takes a week or so for them to fix it.
| When we talked to them at one point, they suggested she get a
| cell phone.
|
| Just another example of how planning for quarterly reports
| causes massive value destruction.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| There are plenty of examples of companies shooting
| themselves in the foot by only looking at the short term,
| but this doesn't seem like one of them. It's not like
| investment in POTS is going to pay off in the long run:
| rural America is depopulating, most households are becoming
| cellphone only, etc. There's no positive ROI for POTS out
| in the countryside no matter what time horizon you look at.
|
| The actual fix here is that we have to take a hard look and
| really decide if this is something worth keeping around. If
| it is, it needs massive ongoing subsidies. The market alone
| won't fix it, because the economics simply aren't there.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Telcos have been given free resources from the government
| for decades to maintain rural infrastructure. ROI never
| entered into in the first place.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This isn't just a rural problem. I live in a city that is
| home base to a major regional telco. They wouldn't deploy
| fiber and let their copper rot. I had 4Mb DSL some years
| back that went bad so I was moved to a new pair that
| could only manage 2Mb despite being relatively close to
| the CO. These companies DGAF.
| [deleted]
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing. Funnily enough I'm in
| semi-rural Ohio. I see POTS infrastructure all over the
| place being neglected. Boxes are open to the elements.
| Spliced cables are just laying out on the ground.
|
| I can only imagine the ghosts of old-school telco linemen
| rolling in their graves over this.
|
| I keep meaning to do a deep-dive into public utility
| regulation here to see if the incumbent telcos are required
| to maintain that infrastructure. I'd actually have fun
| going out and photographing/geotagging damaged
| infrastructure if a court would actually compel the telco
| to do something about it.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Maybe the true solution is to have more than two providers?
| [deleted]
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes. I worked in the "street furniture" industry. It used to me
| Cemusa and another company who's name slips mind.
|
| This was decades ago, but still in an Era when people were
| asking why pay phones still exist. It's the ad revenue.
|
| Companies like Cemusa give cities like NYC big money (dozens or
| hundreds of millions) to buy the right to provide the city with
| " street furniture" for free, in exchange for the right to sell
| the ad revenue placed on those pieces of street furniture. This
| includes pay phones, bus stop shelters, benches, news stands,
| etc.
|
| This dynamic is what caused NYC payphones to exist far beyond
| their useful life as pay phones.
|
| I talk about it on this "being an engineer" podcast I was
| recently on: https://teampipeline.us/ian-mceachern-engineering-
| freelancin...
| selectodude wrote:
| >It used to me Cemusa and another company who's name slips
| mind.
|
| JCDecaux is the other one - they actually bought Cemusa a few
| years ago.
| ddeck wrote:
| Definitely. Telstra in Australia recently made all their
| (15000) payphones free and the CEO specifically called out
| bushfires and cyclones (hurricanes) as events that have brought
| the mobile network down:
|
| _About 11m calls were made across Telstra pay phones in the
| past year, including 230,000 calls to critical services such as
| triple zero and Lifeline._
|
| _The Telstra chief executive, Andrew Penn, said pay phones
| were a vital lifeline, particularly for the homeless and people
| escaping an unsafe situation._
|
| _"I have been moved seeing firsthand queues of people waiting
| in line to use a payphone to tell their family and friends
| they're safe after a bushfire, a cyclone or some other natural
| disaster has taken the mobile network down," he said._ [1]
|
| I believe the existence/number of payphones is mandated by the
| federal government.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/telstra-
| to-...
| [deleted]
| the_only_law wrote:
| I had an issue a while back where my mobile service got cut off
| and in the most well thought out support system I've seen, I
| needed to make a phone call to resolve it.
|
| At first I couldn't find anyone who'd allow me to make a call
| real quick. Luckily the phone worked fine and I still had wifi
| and was able to use Google voice, but if pay phones were still
| a thing I may have reached for one.
| dheera wrote:
| There are emergency phones all over school campuses these days,
| that only dial emergency service.
|
| I do believe cell towers have ways to prioritize emergency
| number calls if their capacity is reduced, but I'm not sure of
| the details.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Are those emergency telephones, or the "press big button,
| speak into mic" public safety call posts? Can't order a pizza
| or call a cab on the latter I'm afraid.
| lizknope wrote:
| I'm sure some college kids have tried to use it and
| classify it as a "pizza emergency"
| gs17 wrote:
| Or just having your phone die and needing to call someone for a
| ride. Of course, then you need their number memorized, which is
| less common now.
| Minor49er wrote:
| It was common for phone booths to have copies of the yellow
| and white pages, though it was also common for people to just
| go in and tear up the pages
| lizknope wrote:
| I keep a small printout in my wallet with 20 phone numbers
| just for that situation.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Even if it were beneficial, nobody will pay to up keep them.
| And even if they did, without incentive to make sure they
| actually work, I suspect they'd fall into disrepair anyway
| since it wouldn't be a priority.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Except they (more specifically, ads) pay for themselves.
| bogomipz wrote:
| This just just supports the OPs point though. They may have
| paid for themselves but whomever was collecting that
| money(Titan mostly) was not maintaining the condition of
| the phones. The phone were almost always in disgusting and
| deplorable condition.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> You can still find some private payphones on public property
| in New York City as well as four full-length phone booths.
|
| That means the title is very misleading. This appears to be the
| end of the last _publicly-available_ payphone _on public land_ ,
| not the last payphone in NYC. There just aren't any on the
| streets.
| leetrout wrote:
| The title also specifically says Manhattan. Maybe there are
| still some in the other boroughs.
| [deleted]
| NanoWar wrote:
| Matrix would happen differently today
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I hadn't thought about pay phones in a long time until early in
| the pandemic, when I was listening to the Phoebe Bridgers( _)
| song "Kyoto" that includes they lyrics
|
| "You called me from a payphone / They still got payphones / it
| cost a dollar a minute"
|
| and I realized "holy shit, when was the last time I saw a pay
| phone?" And I don't know the answer to that question. It _might*
| be a weird one I saw at the end of a bar in a remote pub in
| Northumberland in the summer of 2019, in an area with dodgy cell
| service. I have NO idea when I last saw a real Ma Bell style pay
| phone anywhere.
|
| (* Like most middle-aged men, I'm a fan. You laugh (I assume),
| but there was a definite non-parent adult contingent at her
| concert here last weekend. It seems weird for a south-of-30
| songwriter tied very much to a certain sort of Millennial life to
| resonate so much outside the most obvious core demographic, but
| here we are.)
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| Or it could just be that Phoebe Bridgers has great music that
| everyone can enjoy :)
| asdff wrote:
| There are still some payphones around especially in the working
| class areas of LA. I think a payphone must still be the cheapest
| way to dial family in some countries. They all advertise their
| international rates at least.
| walterbell wrote:
| Payphones were replaced with LinkNYC kiosks,
| https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/3/20/22985681/linknyc-5g-tower-...
|
| _> The LinkNYC buildout halted in 2018, with the majority of
| kiosks installed in relatively plugged-in Manhattan ... The
| company wound up unable to make its payments to the city, racking
| up a bill of $60 million. By 2019, the company faced bankruptcy
| ... The reboot of LinkNYC will add fifth-generation cellular
| network technology, on top of existing features like free Wi-Fi,
| a 911 button and USB chargers. Multiple telecom companies are in
| talks to house their 5G equipment in compartments in the upper
| chambers of the poles, Cannon said._
| donohoe wrote:
| No. It is not the last. There is still one in the Upper West
| Side.
| aasasd wrote:
| Here in the country of an encroaching police state, I recently
| learned that we do still have street 'payphones'. And then, that
| they only work with special pay cards, and to buy one you need to
| provide your ID.
| smm11 wrote:
| Yet it's impossible to imagine a nation with electric vehicle
| charging stations, and no more 'gas stations.'
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Payphone seems to be like public toilets: you don't want to use
| one, when you have to, you are glad they are there.
|
| 3-4 years ago I got stuck in San Francisco with a dead cellphone
| and broken car. I remembered my spouse's number, I don't remember
| of I forgot my wallet somewhere or it wasn't accepting cards, but
| I do remember asking a random woman on the street for few coins.
| Anyway, I was able to call and even to get a call back in few
| minutes.
|
| It can be a public safety matter, hopefully no-one needs it, but
| when one does, can be for a good reason.
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