I’m a little surprised it took this long to happen . . . the last payphone in New York City was removed yesterday. The payphones were removed from the corner of 7th Avenue and 50th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
Someone captured video of a crane loading it onto a flatbed truck. There was even a small ceremony down the street near Times Square.
Some stats on payphones . . . as of 2018 there were still around 100,000 payphones in the U.S. . . . down from two million in 1999. And around 20% of them were in New York. NYC started removing them in 2015.
Some of the removed payphones were replaced with free Wi-Fi kiosks where you can charge your devices and make FREE phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. The kiosks also have a dedicated button you can push to call 911.
Truly, an end of an era.
END OF AN ERA. Say goodbye to New York City's LAST public pay-phone booth, at 50th and 7th.
— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) May 23, 2022
Kinda sad, I'm a little verklempt. pic.twitter.com/mEV30ASFZ9