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Verizon promises that the outdoor booths will remain in service for the foreseeable future, but it’s never too late to stop by one and pretend it’s 1977.
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Click through below to see the full gallery.
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Specimen 1: 66th Street and West End Avenue
Specimen 2: 90th Street and West End Avenue
Specimen 3: 100th Street and West End Avenue 
Specimen 4: 101th and West End Avenue 
Specimens 5 and 6: New York Public Library, 42nd St and 5th Ave - Ground Floor 
Specimens 7 and 8: New York Public Library, 1st Floor 
Specimen 9: Yankee Pier, Governors Island (not functional)
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Matt Salacuse has shot for publications including Newsweek, New York Magazine and Radar (R.I.P.). He will be showing work at exhibition opening this weekend at the Lola Gallery in Southampton, NY. Stacey Pittman is a photographer and freelance photo editor, currently working at Men’s Fitness magazine. This is their first project together.
[Note: We've had this project in the works for several weeks--a hat tip to Scouting NY who apparently had a similar idea in the meantime. The Pay Phone Project is the go-to resource for all matters related to pay phones in NYC and elsewhere. The NY Times did a story about payphones back 2002.]
July 13th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
In interior spaces like the library, they ought to rip out the phones and leave the booths and call them “cell phone booths.” That will allow people to make phone calls without irritating everyone around them.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Why rip out the phones? The presence of a payphone will not prevent your cellphone from working, and it provides a convenience for people who don’t have a cell (homeless, impoverished, etc … ) as well as people whose batteries have run out.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
There’s a restaurant in Maine that has a wooden “old school” phone booth, with a working phone in it. If I can find the photo, I’ll try and post it.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I personally have searched for a telephone booth. Some of us don’t have cell phones. Keep the telephone booths.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
With only a handful left in NYC, I fear that bookies no longer have a safe space to “work.”
July 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
[...] The last “Superman” phones in NYC [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Yea Matt & Stacey! I love the one on the Pier
July 14th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Interesting pictures. I was searching desperately for a phone booth around my building in Chicago yesterday, to no avail. I had to return a call on my cell about a job interview and needed a quiet area where I was not in danger of a co-worker or boss overhearing me!
July 14th, 2009 at 8:51 am
[...] Infrastructurist points out several more in NYC, including one at 42nd and 5th as well as a lone phone booth on a [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
[...] The Last “Superman” Phone Booths In NYC » INFRASTRUCTURIS: Gallery, in Infrastructurist. [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Interesting that you reference 1977, the year before the Christopher Reeve “Superman” movie. There was a “sign of the times” moment in that film, where Clark Kent senses trouble brewing and looks for a phone booth. He strikes purposefully towards a common-in-78 style booth, basically like what we have now, no walls, no door, only a bubble around the phone box itself. He does a quick double-take and we all laugh realizing that times have indeed changed since the Golden Age of Comics and that iconic bit of street furniture is no longer.
And that was 30 years ago!
July 16th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Isn’t there any way to repurpose old phone booths? I mean, for things other than ingesting drugs or receiving blow jobs. Everything else old seems to be repurposed nowadays…the old “L” in New York, old mills on the East Coast, etc.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
[...] Infrastructurist has compiled a fantastic gallery of some of the last remaining full-size phone booths in New York City. Once a standard feature of any urban landscape, these days, any kind of phone booth seems like an anachronism. With the advent of ubiquitous mobile phone use these little phone-call stations are next to obsolete, but hopefully some kind of new purpose can be found for these structures. [...]
August 7th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
They need to upgrade phone booths. The reason why many Americans have given them up, was because of cruddy maintenance and lousy service.
We need to put phone booths in busy pedestrian areas (so a vandal will less likely target it), upgrade the service (maybe VOIP calls or Internet access?) and some vents for it to remain cool inside.
August 10th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Great set of pictures but what a bummer.
If there was ever a time that we need Superman, this is it!
But how will he change from Clark Kent into Superman if there are not more phone booths? Bring back the phone booths!
Great post.
Jason Show