April 10, 2026 • 39 mins
How did an ailing Connecticut wife inspire the pay phone? Why did thousands of people flock to the Mojave Desert just to use one? And do people really talk for longer when they know someone else is waiting? Today Mango and Gabe answer the call of nostalgia by tracing the rise, fall, and possible resurgence of the public pay phone.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, kid?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Did you know that one of the first things to
go viral on the Internet was a payphone in the
Mojave Desert?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Okay, so was this before or after that a flying
toaster screensaver that everybody was going nuts over.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That is so long ago. This was after the toasters,
but before the Hamster Dance.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I got it, I got my bearings now, So what
was so special about this payphone?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Nothing? Really, It was just random and this super isolated
payphone that was in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve.
But for this brief moment in nineteen ninety sive and
it completely captivated the online community, and thousands of people
started trekking out to the desert just to see this
payphone and of course to call up their friends from
the middle of nowhere, which I just love so much.
(01:12):
And the person who brought this to everyone's attention was
a guy named Godfrey Daniels who stumbled upon a mention
of the phone in an underground zine.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Okay, so this guy sparked an online craze about a
payphone after reading about it in a zine that might
be the most nineties thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I know. But Daniels got obsessed with the idea of
this payphone in the middle of a desert and all
the mysterious people who might be using it. So, you know,
he wanted to satisfy that curiosity, so he started calling
the phone over and over, using the number he'd gotten
from that zine article, and he later told reporters quote,
I was just imagining making a phone ring out where
presumably no one could hear it except the coyotes. But
(01:55):
then there was also in the back of the mind
that thought that what if, like what if someone is
wandering by?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Who would be out there?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Who would pick up? Right? So Daniels calls this booth
every day for a solid month without ever getting an answer,
But then at last he gets this busy signal, so
someone's actually using the phone. So he waited a whole minute,
calls back, and to his delight, somebody finally answers and
her name was Loreene. She was a local cinder miner
(02:22):
who lived off grid and used the phone booth to
make her calls.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It is so random, but a case closed, right, I mean,
he figured it out who the clientele was for such
a remote phone booth. Time to move on, learn the
macarena or you know whatever else we were all doing that.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
They were doing in the nineties. Well not quite so.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
After making his own pilgrimage to visit the phone in person,
Daniels made a website, presumably with like geo cities because
again this is the nineties, right, and he published the
phone number and address so anyone in the world could
enjoy his strange discovery. And like I said, people started
coming in droves to make and receive calls from this
phone booth. It was really cool at first because visitors
(03:02):
would just answer the phone and have conversations with total strangers,
some of whom spoke different languages or were calling from
the other side of the world. But unfortunately, this drastic
spike in foot traffic actually created problems for the National
Park Service because remember the booth was technically inside a
nature preserve. So after three years of this weird early
form of internet fuel tourism, the Majave phone booth was
(03:26):
sadly decommissioned.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That is a shame for the Taurus, but it feels
like Loreen is the one who really lost out here,
like she actually.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Needed that, you know, she actually needed it. But this
is right around the time that like cell phones start
to take off, so I'm sure she had options. But
for anyone else who's still mourning the loss of the
Mahave phone booth, there is a silver lining to the story.
About a decade ago, someone revived the phone booth, at least,
you know, in spirit, by reinstating the original number, which
(03:54):
is seven six 's oh seven three three nine nine
six nine. That's the real number. It is no longer
tied to a physical phone, but if you call it,
you'll be placed in a digital conference call, just like
calling that original phone booth. You have no idea who,
if anyone, will be waiting on the other end. You
just dial the number and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I am definitely going to call that, And you know,
it really does hit on one of the peculiar appeals
of payphones, which is kind of the romance and excitement
of the anonymity. Right Like you get a call from
a payphone, or you walk past one that's ringing, there's
no caller ID to tell you who's on the other end.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You just have to pick it up and find out. Yeah,
there's definitely a thrill. You don't get as much in
this age of smartphones where everyone screens their calls to
avoid spam. So today on the show, we're taking a
trip back to the golden age of payphones. We'll look
at how they became this integral part of society, why
they went away, and most importantly, what some folks are
doing to bring them back.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, in a part time genius, I'm Mungi's articular and
today I'm joined by my old pal Gabe Luzia and
on the other side of that soundproof glass rocking a
vintage one eight hundred collect hoodie I didn't even know
there was available. That's our friend and producer Dylan Fagan.
That really takes me back to those commercials where that
were kind of you know, everywhere in the nineties, right,
(05:35):
like like Chris Rock did a bunch of them, David Spade,
mister t Alf got in on the Actually, I'm not sure,
I'm not sure I ever actually called collect from a payphone, Gabe,
did you actually do that?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's where you like reverse the charges, right, so that
the person you're calling pays for the call.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, you would call collect and then you'd have to
say your name real quick so the person can decide
whether or not they want to pay to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. I don't think I officially called collect, right, but
I definitely did the trick where you shout a message
in the space where you're supposed to say your name,
like Mom, I'm at the mall, come pick me up?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
But what about you?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Like any memorable experiences with payphones growing up?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
My dad lived very close to my high school, so
when I needed a ride that he would come pick
me up. It was fairly easy to communicate with him.
But I remember after like soccer practice or tennis practice,
kids would always use that trick to like get a
message across to their parents that they were staying later
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
No one had a quarter or you want to use
them for like like machines. Of course, Yeah, I'm not
gonna lays to call on my mom.
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So I love that we're doing this on phone boots.
You actually came up with the idea. I love that,
you know, someone like Wes Anderson finds phone boots to
(09:27):
put in New York just to make his movies seem
more New york Ish.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
But but like, where do you want to start with this?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, I mean, if we're going to trace you know,
the rise and fall of payphones, we should probably start
at the beginning, right, So in this case, that would
be eighteen eighty eight, just over a decade after the
invention of the telephone. At the time, owning your own
phone was an expensive prospect, as not only did you
have to buy the actual device, you also had to
pay for a monthly phone subscription.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Sure, because back then every call had to be manually
connected by like a switchboard operator, right.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, And this was like a small pool of people
using this service. And you know, the phone companies had
to pay those switchboard operators somehow, so monthly service. But
the high cost of a telephone meant the new technology
was beyond the reach of most Americans. And that includes
a man named William Gray. Now he was the son
of Scottish immigrants, and he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, where
(10:21):
he worked as a machinery polisher at a local armory.
He was also an amateur inventor who would eventually find
success with his design for an improved chest protector for
baseball catchers.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, kind of a jack of all trades.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It was all over the map. But you know, in
eighteen eighty eight, he was not a wealthy man and
certainly couldn't afford his own phone. And this became a
problem for Gray when his wife fell ill one day
and he had no way to call for a doctor. So,
as the story goes, the desperate husband ran from one
local business to another asking to use their phone, but
(10:57):
all of them flat out refused.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That is really horrible. I'm confused, though, Like, was he
one of the most hated men in town? Like, why
was no one letting him use it?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, as you know, people in Connecticut are notorious for
their prejudice against machinery polishers, So yeah, I think no.
But thankfully Gray did eventually find a phone to use,
and his wife made a full recovery. But you know,
the ordeal had underscored the need for him, you know,
for some kind of public telephone, one that people could
(11:26):
pay to use only when needed. And so Gray spent
the rest of the year tinkering with different prototypes, and
in eighteen eighty nine he installed the first coin operated
public payphone inside a bank in downtown Hartford. The device
had a small bell to alert the operator when a
coin had been deposited, and you know, so they would
know to allow the call to go through. And Grey's
(11:49):
invention was an immediate hit. Two years later, he established
his own company and began installing payphones all over the country,
and by nineteen oh two, the US was home to
more than eighty one thousand pay phones. So this took
off pretty quickly, and one hundred years later that number
had soared to over two million.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That is incredible And I really love that origin story, right,
that desire to solve this public problem. But I assume
that you know, you're talking about these two million phone boots,
that these are unenclosed, right, they're like outside, not not
in the like phone boots we think of today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, you know, the two million number was both of those, right,
So the ones that are just kind of hanging out
there on the side of the wall and the ones
that were enclosed in booths. But for the first decade
or so, you know, payphones were either mounted to poles
or hung on walls in their own little cabinets, and
they were always installed indoors to protect them from the elements.
So the first outdoor payphone that was actually installed on
(12:50):
a street in Cincinnati in nineteen oh five, so, you know,
over a decade later, and unfortunately a few people used
it because you know, it didn't have any walls or
partitions around it. There were no booth yet, and most
people balked at the idea of having a private conversation
right out in public, and that aversion led to the
creation of the first phone booths shortly after.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That is so funny to think about privacy that way,
the idea that Americans are hesitant to make phone calls
in public. This week, I was on a bus and
people were using a speaker phone for us to hear
both sides of the conversation, and.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Crazy you hear that everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I mean, it really is funny. I remember thinking it's
so weird when that sort of became more and more
the norm, when people were talking on funds outside. But
what are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, I mean, whatever scruples we used to have about
private conversations in public, that is like right out the window.
The line between public and private life is you know,
a lot more blurred than it used to be, and
in a weird way, phone booths are where that gradual
blurring first started. Phone booths were a kind of transitional
space between public and private life. They weren't wholly one
(13:56):
or the other. Someone in a phone booth was still
outside on a busy street, but now they were kind
of cut off from the crowd and the noise, even
though in those cases they were still plainly visible because
of the glass.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I was thinking about this recently because Henry mentioned he
loved the new Superman movie, and like, how strange it
is that Clark Kent would run into a phone booth
where you need to change into Superman, like like, you know,
everyone can still see him, right.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But to be fair, this is the guy whose secret
identity hinges solely on a pair of glasses, So I
don't think that discretion is really his strong suit.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, regardless, I do see what you're saying about this
idea of phone boots being this bizarre in between of
like public and private spaces. I almost think like the
closest thing we have to that now is sitting in
a parked car, right, Like that's kind of an idea
of like being inside and outside.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Were phone boots always made of glass or was that
something that came along later so people wouldn't get too
comfortable in there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right, So the earliest phone boots were mostly made of wood,
so the only side you could see into was the
one with that French folding door that you've probably seen,
and the one with the two long panes of glass
on it that was included so people could tell whether
the phone was in use or not. And wooden phone
boots looked super classy and you know, afforded users with
a high level of privacy, but they were also expensive
(15:18):
to maintain against the constant exposure to sun and rain.
And the United Kingdom is the one that found a
better solution to that in the nineteen twenties when it
began producing its iconic red telephone boxes. And although the
initial model for those was made from cumbersome concrete, future
versions were mass produced with sturdy cast iron frames and
(15:39):
rows of small glass window panes for maximum visibility. So
in the post war nineteen fifties, the US followed Britain's
lead and began replacing its wooden phone booths with sleeker,
mass produced ones. The new booths featured easy to maintain
aluminum walls and large glass panes so you could see
inside from almost every angle. And the new design made
(16:00):
phone booths, you know, much easier to install in service,
and by the nineteen sixties they had become a ubiquitous
part of the urban landscape, not only in the US
but all over the world.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
It's kind of wild when you look at that timeline,
because you had that big phone booth boom in the
nineteen fifties and sixties, But then in the early seventies,
the seeds of the payphone's downfall were already being planted.
The world's first cell phone call and I had to
look this up, but it was made in nineteen seventy three,
and the first American cell phone network launches just a
(16:33):
decade later. It would take another twenty or so years
for mobile phones to really go mainstream and push payphones
out of the limelight. But once that first call was
made in the seventies, it really was just a matter
of time.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Let's not write the eulogy just yet, Okay, Like, after
we take a quick break, we'll find out how cell
phones muscled out the phone booth, and we'll also talk
about some places where payphones still reign supreme.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
So don't go away, Welcome back to part time Genius.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
In just a second, I'm going to tell you about
the rapid decline of payphones in the twenty first century.
But first I want to ask you a favor. We've
got an episode in the works all about milk, and
we want to know your favorite way to drink it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Do you go for a.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Skim, low fat or whole milk? Do you ever drink
a full glass of it? And if you prefer your
mood juice without the mood, what's your non dairy milk
of choice? Soy, oat, pistachio, almond? You tell us, So
give us a call on the PTG hotline, leave us
a voicemail, and we might include your answer in the episode.
The number is three oh two, four oh five, five
(17:48):
nine two five. We cannot wait to hear from you
because we've actually like been debating this internally, right.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Oh wow, right, Like, who is out there drinking a
full glass of milk.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
We have to know every night. Yeah, we've heard rumors
so that people are doing this, so like we definitely
want Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And in case you're worried, the call is completely free
unless you dial in from a payphone. But I mean,
you know, good luck find in one of those.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So actually, on that topic, let's talk about how phone
boots are really hard to find these days. We mentioned
that there were more than two million payphones in the
US at their peak in the late nineteen nineties, and
that was because even though cell phone usage was on
the rise, the devices and service plans were still extremely expensive,
just like in the early days of landlines, and that
(18:33):
meant that payphones were still the cheapest way to make
calls while away from home. But all of that changed
at the turn of the century when service providers began
slashing service rates to lure more customers in and so
in two thousand and one, Bell South became the first
major phone company to announce its departure from the payphone business,
and it reduced the nation's payphone count by nearly one
(18:54):
hundred and fifty thousand units overnight. Wow. Other major companies
eventually followed suits. Print in two thousand and six, at
and T in two thousand and eight, and Verizon in
twenty eleven. And the result was that between two thousand
and twenty sixteen, most states saw the number of their
payphones fall by more than ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
My gosh, that is like shockingly steep in such a
short amount of time. Was this across the board, though,
because I'd imagine some states you might have more of
a need for payphones than others.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, so there were definitely some holdouts.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
New York was one of the examples. In twenty sixteen,
the state account for one five of the country's remaining payphones.
Most of them, of course, were located in New York City,
where you know, you used to be able to find
one on almost every block. Since then, most of the
city's former phone booths have been converted into Link NYC kiosks,
which offer free domestic phone calls public Wi Fi device charging.
(19:48):
You've seen them, probably like nearbus stops in New York.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Have you ever used one of those?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
I'm just curious. I haven't, but I've seen people use them,
and I've seen people charge the phones at them. Yeah,
it seems pretty handy for that, especially in that era.
Before and now the buses actually have like a phone
charging but before that.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So even the kiosks are becoming outdated now.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Aside from New York, though, the bigger outlier is Hawaii,
which I wouldn't have expected. The number of payphones in
the island state had only dropped by about sixty percent
in twenty sixteen, so about a third slower than the
national average. It's not fully clear why that was, but
experts think it's because of all the international travelers Hawaii gets,
and that can mean that, like mobile calls abroad from
(20:34):
the US can be pricey, so you know, for foreign tourists,
it's still cheaper to call home on a payphone.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And so what about today, like how many payphones are
still left in Hawaii or you know, in the US
in general.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That's actually the crazy part. Payphones have become such a
rarity that the FCC stopped requiring audits of them in
twenty eighteen. It just wasn't worth the money to count
them anymore. So, like the last tally found fewer than
one hundred thousand of them left in the US. But
you know, since no one's really keeping track, there's a
strong chance the number is way lower than that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Obviously, that's a far cry from two million, but it's
still a lot of payphones, right, given how infrequently you
come across one.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That said, though, there is one place I know of
in the US where you're still bound to find at
least a few of them in active use, and that's
inside the National Radio Quiet Zone. So if you've never
heard of this, it's a thirteen thousand square mile area
located between Green Bank and sugar Grove, West Virginia, and
within that zone, wireless signals are completely illegal. So no smartphones,
(21:38):
no Wi Fi, no microwaves, no nothing.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You know, I was thinking like maybe there's something like
comming about that, but I also think like my kids,
I would think it's their worst nightmare, right, there's nothing
worse than no, And then for plenty.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Of adults too, absolutely, But yeah, federal officials established this
quiet zone back in nineteen fifty eight as a way
to protect a pair of government radio telescopes from man
made interference. So the astronomers station there, they use this
equipment to listen to radio energy that's traveled light years
across the cosmos. And you know that provides insights on
(22:14):
how far away stars and galaxies were formed, and since
signals from outer space are you know, millions or billions
of times weaker than those from a nearby satellite, they
can't risk that information being garbled by a stray radio
signal from somebody's cell phone, and so as a result,
landlines and payphones are still a necessity for the hundreds
(22:35):
of thousands of people who call that region home.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I love this idea of this like kind of protected zone,
and I also love the idea of like them accidentally
hearing some sort of like a zoom morning.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Crews into a star being born in a different galaxy,
and then it's just somebody you know, asking to pick
up milk on the way home or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So how strictly enforced is all this because I, you know,
I can't imagine everyone who lives there is happy with
their radio. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
No, There's been a lot of pushback in recent years,
especially from first responders, because like they're only allowed to
communicate by short distance CB radios, which you know, makes
the job a lot harder. And while local officials don't
have much power to enforce these measures, that's actually the
job of the FCC. The National Science Foundation does have
people who patrol the area listening for rogue radio signals.
(23:26):
So if they catch someone using, you know, an illicit
smartphone or whatever, all they can do is ask the
person to turn it off. So this is it's mostly
on the honor system.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That is so strange to think about it. It's like
almost like living in some kind of minimum security tech jail.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
The guards just like politely ask you not to use
the microwave. But you know, actually speaking of jail, the
prison system is another place where payphones are still a
big deal. Studies show the communication between inmates and their
loved ones that helps to improve their mental health, health
increases the odds of successfully rejoining society, and payphones are
(24:04):
oftentimes the easiest way to maintain those connections with the
outside world. Unfortunately, as you may guess, prison phone calls
are based on a profit driven model, like those are
private phones, not public ones, and so telecommunication companies have
historically charged really exorbitant fees for the service, in some
cases more than twelve dollars for a fifteen minute phone call. Well, thankfully,
(24:28):
the FCC did introduce new rate caps for the cost
of phones in jails and prisons. This was actually just
last year in twenty twenty five, so it now ranges
between six cents to twelve cents per minute. That's the limit.
But of course, you know, telecom companies are still finding
new ways to price gouge prisoners through you know, other
communication methods like electronic messaging.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
That's really really unfortunate, Like, and it feels hard that
these people are already paying their debt to society in
now like to have to have a cost for communications. Yeah,
it's crazy because it feels like it doesn't take much
to make a payphone sustainable, right, Like I found this
twenty sixteen interview. It was with the head of a
telecommunication firm, and he said that for a payphone to
(25:12):
be profitable, you just need people to make three fifty
cent calls per day.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, But since most remaining payphones are now owned by
private operators, they can basically charge whatever they want because
they know that people still using these phones don't really
have other options.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It's kind of shocking to hear that, like all the
major providers pulled up stakes in the payphone business when
the bar was low as a dollar fifty a day.
But I guess there were a ton of payphones out
there that weren't even meeting that three call threshold.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, I mean it kind of makes sense for payphones
to persist in like rural areas and prisons and places
where mobile phones are unreliable or also not allowed. But
in most parts of the country and the rest of
the developed world, the average person just wouldn't have much
need for a payphone except in sort of a dire emergency.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Right, Yeah, and nine to one one calls are free
from payphones, so you know those aren't going to keep
the industry afloat anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So what do you think this all means for the
future though, Like our payphones, you know, destined for the
scrap heap once the last few hangars on kind of
let go.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know, if you had asked me that a week ago,
I would have said, yes, absolutely. Like my friend Winslow,
who's the designer for Mental Floss, had a phone booth
in one of his early apartments.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You just like decorated.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
But uh, you know, I actually think they're kind of
making a comeback, and I'm going to tell you a
little bit about that right after the break. Welcome back
(26:47):
to part Tien genius. Now before the break, I tease
that some groups out there are currently working to resurrect
the payphone And while it might be tempting to call
this project futile, the correct term is actually futel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't get it is that the French pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
No futel, as in futile telephone or pointless telephone. That's
the name of a nonprofit group. It's based in Portland,
Oregon that's been updating decommissioned payphones to provide free calls
and voicemail. The service is meant to help impoverished and
unhoused members of the community, as well as people who
just don't want to carry a cell phone.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Everywhere they go.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
At the time of recording, Futel had fifteen outdoor payphone
style phones in Portland, plus four more in Washington State
and another two in Michigan. And this is actually how
the group's founders sum up their mission quote. We believe
in the preservation of public telephone hardware as a means
of providing access to the public square for everybody. We
are primarily driven by the basic needs that we see
(27:50):
on the streets every day. By giving something away that
is cheap for us, but valuable to the recipient.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Huh so payphones that don't require payment? Is there a
name for that, payless phones?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I guess free payphones, but you know that's kind of
an oxymoron, free and payphone.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, I mean, whatever you call them, I like it.
It's been crazy talking about payphones getting more expensive in
the age of smartphones, you know, like you'd imagine that
as demand lessened, this is a service that would get cheaper,
But no, it's been the opposite. So this is a
nice change of pace. I'm curious, though, do you know,
are there any other cities that have kind of followed
Portland's example? Is this catching on?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, there's actually a similar program in Philadelphia, inspired by futel.
It's actually called phil Tel Philadelphia Telephone, I imagine, and
its goal is to create a network of phones all
across the city that could make free calls anywhere in
North America. And the cool thing is that they are
just revitalizing these existing payphone locations that are also installing
(28:53):
refurbished phones and places that never had one before.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And they work just like old payphones, except you know,
without the whole pay part.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
They functioned the same, but the hardware is more modern.
The collective's co founders their name Mark Dank and Navien Albert.
They developed a way to replace the coin system with
a payment free circuit board and router. So when someone
makes a call, the analog phone uses voiceover Internet Protocol
or VoIP, which connects a call using an Internet connection.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is super clever. And I've got to ask, though,
who pays for all this, like, not just the calls,
but you know, the phones, the installations, keeping the servers running.
That can't be cheap.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So that's actually the amazing part. All of Filltel's employees
are volunteers and the work they do is completely funded
by public donations.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So this is how.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Mark Dank put it quote, you could think of this
as half art project, half community service project. We like
tinkering with these phones. We like the idea of providing
interesting experiences and having people play with them. But at
the same time, there are people out there who can
really benefit from having free phones available. So if anyone
listening has some extra time or spare change they'd like
to donate to the cause, you can definitely check out
(30:00):
filtele dot org to learn how you can contribute.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's nice to see projects like that, because you mostly
hear about old phone boots being converted into tiny libraries
or art galleries, and you know, don't get me wrong,
those are awesome ways to repurpose those spaces. But the
whole point of payphones was to facilitate conversations for people
on the go, So it's cool that people are finding
ways to kind of carry forward that service. And another
(30:25):
thing I was struck by this week is how using
a payphone not only allows for conversations, but specific kinds
of conversations, so ones that you might never have otherwise. Like,
there's this really beautiful practice that started in Japan. I
was reading about. It's called wind phones, and so these
are disconnected payphones or sometimes just an old landline phone,
(30:46):
and they're usually set up in some kind of booth
in a secluded spot in nature. And the idea is
that people who are grieving the loss of a loved
one can use these to call the person who's gone
and have a one way conversation with them. So it's
a way to kind of help people process their emotions
or say the things they never got the chance to say.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
That is really really beautiful. It reminds me of like
forest bathing too, which is also a Japanese concept. I
feel like there's something about being in nature and communicating
that's really interesting. So like, how did this come about?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Well, yeah, so the.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
First wind phone was created in Japan back in twenty
ten by a garden designer named Itaru Sasaki. He moved
an old phone booth into his yard so he could
talk to his late cousin and let his thoughts, as
he put it quote be carried on the wind. But
then you know, the following year, the Fukushim earthquake and
tsunami struck Japan in quick succession, killing more than twenty
(31:41):
thousand people. So Sasaki opened up this phone booth to
his neighbors who had lost relatives in that disaster, and
once word got out, people started coming from all over
the country to express their grief through the phone of
the wind. And in the time since then, the idea
has been adopted all over the world. Like, there were
currently about six hundred registered wind phones, most of which
(32:03):
are actually right here in the US. And if you'd
like to try one, you can go to my windphone
dot com and find a location nearest to you.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I really really love that, like It kind of speaks
to the power of placemaking, right, Like a lot of
people wouldn't sit in their living room to talk to
a deceased loved one. You know, you can get self
conscious or like like, you know, it feels weird to
do that with an iPhone and play act. But if
you carve out the space that's designated for that type
(32:32):
of connection, suddenly people become so much more open to
the idea. I really think there's something special about it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, no, me too. And it kind of goes back
to you know, when the payphone wasn't just a means
of communication, it was part of the landscape. And I
think the fact the phones are kind of archaic also
plays a part in this. You know, we all know
there's there's nothing magical about a smartphone, right but an
old timey rotary phone where you have to pull that dial,
or a payphone with those big clicky steel buttons like
(33:00):
those aren't devices that were used to interacting with anymore.
So when you pick one up, you know, who knows
what might happen?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, I mean, being old, I know that what's happening
is that you hear an annoying dial tone. If you
didn't deposit any money or recording would tell you to
hang off the phone.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Okay, all right, yeah, okay, so nothing too magical about
that either. But you know, everything looks more charming when
viewed through those rose tinted glasses and nostalgia and even
something as mundane as payphones.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So you know, if you're not ready to hang it
up just yet, I've got another quarter here that should
buys a few more minutes, and I think there's no
better way to spend that time than with the fact off.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Okay, I'll get us started with my favorite piece of
payphone psychology, which is that callers tend to take longer
if they know someone is waiting to use the phone.
So we've all e to this, but according to a
nineteen eighty nine study conducted by Professor Barry Rubach, it
is true another person's presence really does make a caller linger.
(34:10):
It's an example of a behavioral phenomenon called territorial defense,
which happens when someone develops a personal sense of ownership
over a public space and kind of feels the need
to defend it from challengers. So it all goes back
to the idea of payphones being a limbo state between
public and private life. Even our brains can't tell the difference. Sometimes.
(34:31):
The good news, though, is this is likely happening unconsciously,
so the person on the phone probably isn't trying to
be a jerk.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And you know.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Professor Rubac also pointed out that in some cases the
person waiting might be distracting to the caller, causing them to,
you know, need more time to get their words out.
So as unlikely as it is these days, if you
ever find yourself waiting for a payphone, your best bet
is to give the caller some space and try to
look nonchalant.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So we talked about a few ways that people have
been vitalizing phone boots on the streets and nature, But
another place where they found a new life is in
the modern office. So soundproof privacy pods styled after phone
boots have become super popular as a solution to the
problems of open office floor plans. They provide individuals or
small teams with a quiet place to focus conduct meetings
(35:18):
without being distracted. This trend to actually started small in
twenty fifteen, with only one dedicated office phone booth company.
It was this finish firm called Framery. But then the
pandemic pushed a lot of businesses to sort of re
examine the value of private offices, and now there are
dozens of companies selling office phone boots. In twenty twenty four,
the global phone booth market was about one point four
(35:40):
billion dollars, and it's projected to be nearly triple that
by twenty thirty three. So phone boots, may you know,
have lost their place on the street corners, but they
found a new home next to the water cooler.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Wow, I feel like come on back to the office
so we can stick you in a phone booth. Might
not be as enticing as managers think, but well, my
next fact is about a public servant who spent so
much time in a phone booth that he's now immortalized
inside one at the Honolulu International Airport. World War II
veteran Daniel K and Noeh became one of Hawaii's first
(36:15):
representatives in Congress when he was elected to the Senate
in nineteen sixty two. He held his seat there for
the next fifty years, and during that time, most of
which was before cell phones, he would routinely use an
airport phone booth. Between his flights to Washington. It became
such a common sight to see the Senator working away
in his phone booth that after his passing in twenty twelve,
(36:37):
his supporters decided to erect a bronze statue of him
right there in the terminal. It depicts him seated inside
a reconstituted phone booth with a bronze payphone in his
left hand, and there's even enough room on the bench
for visitors to sit next to him and snap a selfie,
something they couldn't have done back then. And there's also
a plaque that reads, quote in honor of Daniel k
(37:00):
in no way as our superman, he timelessly served Hawaii
and America with extraordinary dedication and valor.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's really sweet, Ashly. My last fact is another fitting
tribute to an avid phone user, mister Alexander Graham Bell.
When the inventor of the telephone passed away in nineteen
twenty two, every phone in the US and Canada, including payphones,
fell silent for a full minute. It was a show
of respect from all the telephone exchanges, and the moment
of silence coincided with the start of his funeral, And
(37:31):
you know. I read that the first ever phone book
told callers to end a conversation by saying that is all.
But that feels so unfriendly, So instead, I think we
should close out the show with Bell's preferred telephone greeting,
which was actually a hoy.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Not hello. Well, a hooy to Alexander Graham Bell, and
congratulations to you, Mango for bringing us around to the
man who started it all. I think you've earned today's trophy.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I think it's the perfect place to keep all of
my spare quarters, so thank you so much. If anyone
listening has a payphone related story to share, we'd love
to hear about it. Give us a call at three
oh two, four oh five, five nine two five. We're
also waiting for those answers about milk, so send those
as well. You can send us an email at high
Geniuses at gmail dot com. Two that is spelled Hi
(38:23):
Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can also find us
on Instagram, blue Sky at part Time Genius. We'll be
back next week with another new episode, but in the meantime,
from Will Dylan, Gabe, Mary and myself, thank you so
much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(38:51):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal
will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
That is insane.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I'm the autoco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is
Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going
to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier,
who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
(39:22):
to hit record and then mix the show after he
does a great job. I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Calypso Rallis. If you like our videos. That is all
Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
(39:43):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much for listening.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, kid?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Did you know that one of the first things to
go viral on the Internet was a payphone in the
Mojave Desert?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Okay, so was this before or after that a flying
toaster screensaver that everybody was going nuts over.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That is so long ago. This was after the toasters,
but before the Hamster Dance.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I got it, I got my bearings now, So what
was so special about this payphone?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Nothing? Really, It was just random and this super isolated
payphone that was in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve.
But for this brief moment in nineteen ninety sive and
it completely captivated the online community, and thousands of people
started trekking out to the desert just to see this
payphone and of course to call up their friends from
the middle of nowhere, which I just love so much.
(01:12):
And the person who brought this to everyone's attention was
a guy named Godfrey Daniels who stumbled upon a mention
of the phone in an underground zine.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Okay, so this guy sparked an online craze about a
payphone after reading about it in a zine that might
be the most nineties thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I know. But Daniels got obsessed with the idea of
this payphone in the middle of a desert and all
the mysterious people who might be using it. So, you know,
he wanted to satisfy that curiosity, so he started calling
the phone over and over, using the number he'd gotten
from that zine article, and he later told reporters quote,
I was just imagining making a phone ring out where
presumably no one could hear it except the coyotes. But
(01:55):
then there was also in the back of the mind
that thought that what if, like what if someone is
wandering by?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Who would be out there?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Who would pick up? Right? So Daniels calls this booth
every day for a solid month without ever getting an answer,
But then at last he gets this busy signal, so
someone's actually using the phone. So he waited a whole minute,
calls back, and to his delight, somebody finally answers and
her name was Loreene. She was a local cinder miner
(02:22):
who lived off grid and used the phone booth to
make her calls.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It is so random, but a case closed, right, I mean,
he figured it out who the clientele was for such
a remote phone booth. Time to move on, learn the
macarena or you know whatever else we were all doing that.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
They were doing in the nineties. Well not quite so.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
After making his own pilgrimage to visit the phone in person,
Daniels made a website, presumably with like geo cities because
again this is the nineties, right, and he published the
phone number and address so anyone in the world could
enjoy his strange discovery. And like I said, people started
coming in droves to make and receive calls from this
phone booth. It was really cool at first because visitors
(03:02):
would just answer the phone and have conversations with total strangers,
some of whom spoke different languages or were calling from
the other side of the world. But unfortunately, this drastic
spike in foot traffic actually created problems for the National
Park Service because remember the booth was technically inside a
nature preserve. So after three years of this weird early
form of internet fuel tourism, the Majave phone booth was
(03:26):
sadly decommissioned.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That is a shame for the Taurus, but it feels
like Loreen is the one who really lost out here,
like she actually.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Needed that, you know, she actually needed it. But this
is right around the time that like cell phones start
to take off, so I'm sure she had options. But
for anyone else who's still mourning the loss of the
Mahave phone booth, there is a silver lining to the story.
About a decade ago, someone revived the phone booth, at least,
you know, in spirit, by reinstating the original number, which
(03:54):
is seven six 's oh seven three three nine nine
six nine. That's the real number. It is no longer
tied to a physical phone, but if you call it,
you'll be placed in a digital conference call, just like
calling that original phone booth. You have no idea who,
if anyone, will be waiting on the other end. You
just dial the number and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I am definitely going to call that, And you know,
it really does hit on one of the peculiar appeals
of payphones, which is kind of the romance and excitement
of the anonymity. Right Like you get a call from
a payphone, or you walk past one that's ringing, there's
no caller ID to tell you who's on the other end.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
You just have to pick it up and find out. Yeah,
there's definitely a thrill. You don't get as much in
this age of smartphones where everyone screens their calls to
avoid spam. So today on the show, we're taking a
trip back to the golden age of payphones. We'll look
at how they became this integral part of society, why
they went away, and most importantly, what some folks are
doing to bring them back.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, in a part time genius, I'm Mungi's articular and
today I'm joined by my old pal Gabe Luzia and
on the other side of that soundproof glass rocking a
vintage one eight hundred collect hoodie I didn't even know
there was available. That's our friend and producer Dylan Fagan.
That really takes me back to those commercials where that
were kind of you know, everywhere in the nineties, right,
(05:35):
like like Chris Rock did a bunch of them, David Spade,
mister t Alf got in on the Actually, I'm not sure,
I'm not sure I ever actually called collect from a payphone, Gabe,
did you actually do that?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's where you like reverse the charges, right, so that
the person you're calling pays for the call.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, you would call collect and then you'd have to
say your name real quick so the person can decide
whether or not they want to pay to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. I don't think I officially called collect, right, but
I definitely did the trick where you shout a message
in the space where you're supposed to say your name,
like Mom, I'm at the mall, come pick me up?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
But what about you?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Like any memorable experiences with payphones growing up?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
My dad lived very close to my high school, so
when I needed a ride that he would come pick
me up. It was fairly easy to communicate with him.
But I remember after like soccer practice or tennis practice,
kids would always use that trick to like get a
message across to their parents that they were staying later
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
No one had a quarter or you want to use
them for like like machines. Of course, Yeah, I'm not
gonna lays to call on my mom.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
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So I love that we're doing this on phone boots.
You actually came up with the idea. I love that,
you know, someone like Wes Anderson finds phone boots to
(09:27):
put in New York just to make his movies seem
more New york Ish.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
But but like, where do you want to start with this?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, I mean, if we're going to trace you know,
the rise and fall of payphones, we should probably start
at the beginning, right, So in this case, that would
be eighteen eighty eight, just over a decade after the
invention of the telephone. At the time, owning your own
phone was an expensive prospect, as not only did you
have to buy the actual device, you also had to
pay for a monthly phone subscription.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Sure, because back then every call had to be manually
connected by like a switchboard operator, right.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, And this was like a small pool of people
using this service. And you know, the phone companies had
to pay those switchboard operators somehow, so monthly service. But
the high cost of a telephone meant the new technology
was beyond the reach of most Americans. And that includes
a man named William Gray. Now he was the son
of Scottish immigrants, and he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, where
(10:21):
he worked as a machinery polisher at a local armory.
He was also an amateur inventor who would eventually find
success with his design for an improved chest protector for
baseball catchers.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, kind of a jack of all trades.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It was all over the map. But you know, in
eighteen eighty eight, he was not a wealthy man and
certainly couldn't afford his own phone. And this became a
problem for Gray when his wife fell ill one day
and he had no way to call for a doctor. So,
as the story goes, the desperate husband ran from one
local business to another asking to use their phone, but
(10:57):
all of them flat out refused.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That is really horrible. I'm confused, though, Like, was he
one of the most hated men in town? Like, why
was no one letting him use it?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, as you know, people in Connecticut are notorious for
their prejudice against machinery polishers, So yeah, I think no.
But thankfully Gray did eventually find a phone to use,
and his wife made a full recovery. But you know,
the ordeal had underscored the need for him, you know,
for some kind of public telephone, one that people could
(11:26):
pay to use only when needed. And so Gray spent
the rest of the year tinkering with different prototypes, and
in eighteen eighty nine he installed the first coin operated
public payphone inside a bank in downtown Hartford. The device
had a small bell to alert the operator when a
coin had been deposited, and you know, so they would
know to allow the call to go through. And Grey's
(11:49):
invention was an immediate hit. Two years later, he established
his own company and began installing payphones all over the country,
and by nineteen oh two, the US was home to
more than eighty one thousand pay phones. So this took
off pretty quickly, and one hundred years later that number
had soared to over two million.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That is incredible And I really love that origin story, right,
that desire to solve this public problem. But I assume
that you know, you're talking about these two million phone boots,
that these are unenclosed, right, they're like outside, not not
in the like phone boots we think of today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, you know, the two million number was both of those, right,
So the ones that are just kind of hanging out
there on the side of the wall and the ones
that were enclosed in booths. But for the first decade
or so, you know, payphones were either mounted to poles
or hung on walls in their own little cabinets, and
they were always installed indoors to protect them from the elements.
So the first outdoor payphone that was actually installed on
(12:50):
a street in Cincinnati in nineteen oh five, so, you know,
over a decade later, and unfortunately a few people used
it because you know, it didn't have any walls or
partitions around it. There were no booth yet, and most
people balked at the idea of having a private conversation
right out in public, and that aversion led to the
creation of the first phone booths shortly after.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That is so funny to think about privacy that way,
the idea that Americans are hesitant to make phone calls
in public. This week, I was on a bus and
people were using a speaker phone for us to hear
both sides of the conversation, and.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Crazy you hear that everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I mean, it really is funny. I remember thinking it's
so weird when that sort of became more and more
the norm, when people were talking on funds outside. But
what are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, I mean, whatever scruples we used to have about
private conversations in public, that is like right out the window.
The line between public and private life is you know,
a lot more blurred than it used to be, and
in a weird way, phone booths are where that gradual
blurring first started. Phone booths were a kind of transitional
space between public and private life. They weren't wholly one
(13:56):
or the other. Someone in a phone booth was still
outside on a busy street, but now they were kind
of cut off from the crowd and the noise, even
though in those cases they were still plainly visible because
of the glass.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I was thinking about this recently because Henry mentioned he
loved the new Superman movie, and like, how strange it
is that Clark Kent would run into a phone booth
where you need to change into Superman, like like, you know,
everyone can still see him, right.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But to be fair, this is the guy whose secret
identity hinges solely on a pair of glasses, So I
don't think that discretion is really his strong suit.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, regardless, I do see what you're saying about this
idea of phone boots being this bizarre in between of
like public and private spaces. I almost think like the
closest thing we have to that now is sitting in
a parked car, right, Like that's kind of an idea
of like being inside and outside.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Were phone boots always made of glass or was that
something that came along later so people wouldn't get too
comfortable in there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right, So the earliest phone boots were mostly made of wood,
so the only side you could see into was the
one with that French folding door that you've probably seen,
and the one with the two long panes of glass
on it that was included so people could tell whether
the phone was in use or not. And wooden phone
boots looked super classy and you know, afforded users with
a high level of privacy, but they were also expensive
(15:18):
to maintain against the constant exposure to sun and rain.
And the United Kingdom is the one that found a
better solution to that in the nineteen twenties when it
began producing its iconic red telephone boxes. And although the
initial model for those was made from cumbersome concrete, future
versions were mass produced with sturdy cast iron frames and
(15:39):
rows of small glass window panes for maximum visibility. So
in the post war nineteen fifties, the US followed Britain's
lead and began replacing its wooden phone booths with sleeker,
mass produced ones. The new booths featured easy to maintain
aluminum walls and large glass panes so you could see
inside from almost every angle. And the new design made
(16:00):
phone booths, you know, much easier to install in service,
and by the nineteen sixties they had become a ubiquitous
part of the urban landscape, not only in the US
but all over the world.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
It's kind of wild when you look at that timeline,
because you had that big phone booth boom in the
nineteen fifties and sixties, But then in the early seventies,
the seeds of the payphone's downfall were already being planted.
The world's first cell phone call and I had to
look this up, but it was made in nineteen seventy three,
and the first American cell phone network launches just a
(16:33):
decade later. It would take another twenty or so years
for mobile phones to really go mainstream and push payphones
out of the limelight. But once that first call was
made in the seventies, it really was just a matter
of time.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Let's not write the eulogy just yet, Okay, Like, after
we take a quick break, we'll find out how cell
phones muscled out the phone booth, and we'll also talk
about some places where payphones still reign supreme.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
So don't go away, Welcome back to part time Genius.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
In just a second, I'm going to tell you about
the rapid decline of payphones in the twenty first century.
But first I want to ask you a favor. We've
got an episode in the works all about milk, and
we want to know your favorite way to drink it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Do you go for a.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Skim, low fat or whole milk? Do you ever drink
a full glass of it? And if you prefer your
mood juice without the mood, what's your non dairy milk
of choice? Soy, oat, pistachio, almond? You tell us, So
give us a call on the PTG hotline, leave us
a voicemail, and we might include your answer in the episode.
The number is three oh two, four oh five, five
(17:48):
nine two five. We cannot wait to hear from you
because we've actually like been debating this internally, right.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Oh wow, right, Like, who is out there drinking a
full glass of milk.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
We have to know every night. Yeah, we've heard rumors
so that people are doing this, so like we definitely
want Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And in case you're worried, the call is completely free
unless you dial in from a payphone. But I mean,
you know, good luck find in one of those.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So actually, on that topic, let's talk about how phone
boots are really hard to find these days. We mentioned
that there were more than two million payphones in the
US at their peak in the late nineteen nineties, and
that was because even though cell phone usage was on
the rise, the devices and service plans were still extremely expensive,
just like in the early days of landlines, and that
(18:33):
meant that payphones were still the cheapest way to make
calls while away from home. But all of that changed
at the turn of the century when service providers began
slashing service rates to lure more customers in and so
in two thousand and one, Bell South became the first
major phone company to announce its departure from the payphone business,
and it reduced the nation's payphone count by nearly one
(18:54):
hundred and fifty thousand units overnight. Wow. Other major companies
eventually followed suits. Print in two thousand and six, at
and T in two thousand and eight, and Verizon in
twenty eleven. And the result was that between two thousand
and twenty sixteen, most states saw the number of their
payphones fall by more than ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
My gosh, that is like shockingly steep in such a
short amount of time. Was this across the board, though,
because I'd imagine some states you might have more of
a need for payphones than others.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, so there were definitely some holdouts.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
New York was one of the examples. In twenty sixteen,
the state account for one five of the country's remaining payphones.
Most of them, of course, were located in New York City,
where you know, you used to be able to find
one on almost every block. Since then, most of the
city's former phone booths have been converted into Link NYC kiosks,
which offer free domestic phone calls public Wi Fi device charging.
(19:48):
You've seen them, probably like nearbus stops in New York.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Have you ever used one of those?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
I'm just curious. I haven't, but I've seen people use them,
and I've seen people charge the phones at them. Yeah,
it seems pretty handy for that, especially in that era.
Before and now the buses actually have like a phone
charging but before that.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So even the kiosks are becoming outdated now.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Aside from New York, though, the bigger outlier is Hawaii,
which I wouldn't have expected. The number of payphones in
the island state had only dropped by about sixty percent
in twenty sixteen, so about a third slower than the
national average. It's not fully clear why that was, but
experts think it's because of all the international travelers Hawaii gets,
and that can mean that, like mobile calls abroad from
(20:34):
the US can be pricey, so you know, for foreign tourists,
it's still cheaper to call home on a payphone.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And so what about today, like how many payphones are
still left in Hawaii or you know, in the US
in general.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
That's actually the crazy part. Payphones have become such a
rarity that the FCC stopped requiring audits of them in
twenty eighteen. It just wasn't worth the money to count
them anymore. So, like the last tally found fewer than
one hundred thousand of them left in the US. But
you know, since no one's really keeping track, there's a
strong chance the number is way lower than that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Obviously, that's a far cry from two million, but it's
still a lot of payphones, right, given how infrequently you
come across one.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That said, though, there is one place I know of
in the US where you're still bound to find at
least a few of them in active use, and that's
inside the National Radio Quiet Zone. So if you've never
heard of this, it's a thirteen thousand square mile area
located between Green Bank and sugar Grove, West Virginia, and
within that zone, wireless signals are completely illegal. So no smartphones,
(21:38):
no Wi Fi, no microwaves, no nothing.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You know, I was thinking like maybe there's something like
comming about that, but I also think like my kids,
I would think it's their worst nightmare, right, there's nothing
worse than no, And then for plenty.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Of adults too, absolutely, But yeah, federal officials established this
quiet zone back in nineteen fifty eight as a way
to protect a pair of government radio telescopes from man
made interference. So the astronomers station there, they use this
equipment to listen to radio energy that's traveled light years
across the cosmos. And you know that provides insights on
(22:14):
how far away stars and galaxies were formed, and since
signals from outer space are you know, millions or billions
of times weaker than those from a nearby satellite, they
can't risk that information being garbled by a stray radio
signal from somebody's cell phone, and so as a result,
landlines and payphones are still a necessity for the hundreds
(22:35):
of thousands of people who call that region home.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I love this idea of this like kind of protected zone,
and I also love the idea of like them accidentally
hearing some sort of like a zoom morning.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Crews into a star being born in a different galaxy,
and then it's just somebody you know, asking to pick
up milk on the way home or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So how strictly enforced is all this because I, you know,
I can't imagine everyone who lives there is happy with
their radio. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
No, There's been a lot of pushback in recent years,
especially from first responders, because like they're only allowed to
communicate by short distance CB radios, which you know, makes
the job a lot harder. And while local officials don't
have much power to enforce these measures, that's actually the
job of the FCC. The National Science Foundation does have
people who patrol the area listening for rogue radio signals.
(23:26):
So if they catch someone using, you know, an illicit
smartphone or whatever, all they can do is ask the
person to turn it off. So this is it's mostly
on the honor system.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That is so strange to think about it. It's like
almost like living in some kind of minimum security tech jail.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
The guards just like politely ask you not to use
the microwave. But you know, actually speaking of jail, the
prison system is another place where payphones are still a
big deal. Studies show the communication between inmates and their
loved ones that helps to improve their mental health, health
increases the odds of successfully rejoining society, and payphones are
(24:04):
oftentimes the easiest way to maintain those connections with the
outside world. Unfortunately, as you may guess, prison phone calls
are based on a profit driven model, like those are
private phones, not public ones, and so telecommunication companies have
historically charged really exorbitant fees for the service, in some
cases more than twelve dollars for a fifteen minute phone call. Well, thankfully,
(24:28):
the FCC did introduce new rate caps for the cost
of phones in jails and prisons. This was actually just
last year in twenty twenty five, so it now ranges
between six cents to twelve cents per minute. That's the limit.
But of course, you know, telecom companies are still finding
new ways to price gouge prisoners through you know, other
communication methods like electronic messaging.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
That's really really unfortunate, Like, and it feels hard that
these people are already paying their debt to society in
now like to have to have a cost for communications. Yeah,
it's crazy because it feels like it doesn't take much
to make a payphone sustainable, right, Like I found this
twenty sixteen interview. It was with the head of a
telecommunication firm, and he said that for a payphone to
(25:12):
be profitable, you just need people to make three fifty
cent calls per day.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, But since most remaining payphones are now owned by
private operators, they can basically charge whatever they want because
they know that people still using these phones don't really
have other options.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It's kind of shocking to hear that, like all the
major providers pulled up stakes in the payphone business when
the bar was low as a dollar fifty a day.
But I guess there were a ton of payphones out
there that weren't even meeting that three call threshold.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, I mean it kind of makes sense for payphones
to persist in like rural areas and prisons and places
where mobile phones are unreliable or also not allowed. But
in most parts of the country and the rest of
the developed world, the average person just wouldn't have much
need for a payphone except in sort of a dire emergency.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Right, Yeah, and nine to one one calls are free
from payphones, so you know those aren't going to keep
the industry afloat anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So what do you think this all means for the
future though, Like our payphones, you know, destined for the
scrap heap once the last few hangars on kind of
let go.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know, if you had asked me that a week ago,
I would have said, yes, absolutely. Like my friend Winslow,
who's the designer for Mental Floss, had a phone booth
in one of his early apartments.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You just like decorated.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
But uh, you know, I actually think they're kind of
making a comeback, and I'm going to tell you a
little bit about that right after the break. Welcome back
(26:47):
to part Tien genius. Now before the break, I tease
that some groups out there are currently working to resurrect
the payphone And while it might be tempting to call
this project futile, the correct term is actually futel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't get it is that the French pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
No futel, as in futile telephone or pointless telephone. That's
the name of a nonprofit group. It's based in Portland,
Oregon that's been updating decommissioned payphones to provide free calls
and voicemail. The service is meant to help impoverished and
unhoused members of the community, as well as people who
just don't want to carry a cell phone.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Everywhere they go.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
At the time of recording, Futel had fifteen outdoor payphone
style phones in Portland, plus four more in Washington State
and another two in Michigan. And this is actually how
the group's founders sum up their mission quote. We believe
in the preservation of public telephone hardware as a means
of providing access to the public square for everybody. We
are primarily driven by the basic needs that we see
(27:50):
on the streets every day. By giving something away that
is cheap for us, but valuable to the recipient.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Huh so payphones that don't require payment? Is there a
name for that, payless phones?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I guess free payphones, but you know that's kind of
an oxymoron, free and payphone.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Well, I mean, whatever you call them, I like it.
It's been crazy talking about payphones getting more expensive in
the age of smartphones, you know, like you'd imagine that
as demand lessened, this is a service that would get cheaper,
But no, it's been the opposite. So this is a
nice change of pace. I'm curious, though, do you know,
are there any other cities that have kind of followed
Portland's example? Is this catching on?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, there's actually a similar program in Philadelphia, inspired by futel.
It's actually called phil Tel Philadelphia Telephone, I imagine, and
its goal is to create a network of phones all
across the city that could make free calls anywhere in
North America. And the cool thing is that they are
just revitalizing these existing payphone locations that are also installing
(28:53):
refurbished phones and places that never had one before.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And they work just like old payphones, except you know,
without the whole pay part.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
They functioned the same, but the hardware is more modern.
The collective's co founders their name Mark Dank and Navien Albert.
They developed a way to replace the coin system with
a payment free circuit board and router. So when someone
makes a call, the analog phone uses voiceover Internet Protocol
or VoIP, which connects a call using an Internet connection.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is super clever. And I've got to ask, though,
who pays for all this, like, not just the calls,
but you know, the phones, the installations, keeping the servers running.
That can't be cheap.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So that's actually the amazing part. All of Filltel's employees
are volunteers and the work they do is completely funded
by public donations.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
So this is how.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Mark Dank put it quote, you could think of this
as half art project, half community service project. We like
tinkering with these phones. We like the idea of providing
interesting experiences and having people play with them. But at
the same time, there are people out there who can
really benefit from having free phones available. So if anyone
listening has some extra time or spare change they'd like
to donate to the cause, you can definitely check out
(30:00):
filtele dot org to learn how you can contribute.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's nice to see projects like that, because you mostly
hear about old phone boots being converted into tiny libraries
or art galleries, and you know, don't get me wrong,
those are awesome ways to repurpose those spaces. But the
whole point of payphones was to facilitate conversations for people
on the go, So it's cool that people are finding
ways to kind of carry forward that service. And another
(30:25):
thing I was struck by this week is how using
a payphone not only allows for conversations, but specific kinds
of conversations, so ones that you might never have otherwise. Like,
there's this really beautiful practice that started in Japan. I
was reading about. It's called wind phones, and so these
are disconnected payphones or sometimes just an old landline phone,
(30:46):
and they're usually set up in some kind of booth
in a secluded spot in nature. And the idea is
that people who are grieving the loss of a loved
one can use these to call the person who's gone
and have a one way conversation with them. So it's
a way to kind of help people process their emotions
or say the things they never got the chance to say.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
That is really really beautiful. It reminds me of like
forest bathing too, which is also a Japanese concept. I
feel like there's something about being in nature and communicating
that's really interesting. So like, how did this come about?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Well, yeah, so the.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
First wind phone was created in Japan back in twenty
ten by a garden designer named Itaru Sasaki. He moved
an old phone booth into his yard so he could
talk to his late cousin and let his thoughts, as
he put it quote be carried on the wind. But
then you know, the following year, the Fukushim earthquake and
tsunami struck Japan in quick succession, killing more than twenty
(31:41):
thousand people. So Sasaki opened up this phone booth to
his neighbors who had lost relatives in that disaster, and
once word got out, people started coming from all over
the country to express their grief through the phone of
the wind. And in the time since then, the idea
has been adopted all over the world. Like, there were
currently about six hundred registered wind phones, most of which
(32:03):
are actually right here in the US. And if you'd
like to try one, you can go to my windphone
dot com and find a location nearest to you.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I really really love that, like It kind of speaks
to the power of placemaking, right, Like a lot of
people wouldn't sit in their living room to talk to
a deceased loved one. You know, you can get self
conscious or like like, you know, it feels weird to
do that with an iPhone and play act. But if
you carve out the space that's designated for that type
(32:32):
of connection, suddenly people become so much more open to
the idea. I really think there's something special about it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, no, me too. And it kind of goes back
to you know, when the payphone wasn't just a means
of communication, it was part of the landscape. And I
think the fact the phones are kind of archaic also
plays a part in this. You know, we all know
there's there's nothing magical about a smartphone, right but an
old timey rotary phone where you have to pull that dial,
or a payphone with those big clicky steel buttons like
(33:00):
those aren't devices that were used to interacting with anymore.
So when you pick one up, you know, who knows
what might happen?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, I mean, being old, I know that what's happening
is that you hear an annoying dial tone. If you
didn't deposit any money or recording would tell you to
hang off the phone.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Okay, all right, yeah, okay, so nothing too magical about
that either. But you know, everything looks more charming when
viewed through those rose tinted glasses and nostalgia and even
something as mundane as payphones.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So you know, if you're not ready to hang it
up just yet, I've got another quarter here that should
buys a few more minutes, and I think there's no
better way to spend that time than with the fact off.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Okay, I'll get us started with my favorite piece of
payphone psychology, which is that callers tend to take longer
if they know someone is waiting to use the phone.
So we've all e to this, but according to a
nineteen eighty nine study conducted by Professor Barry Rubach, it
is true another person's presence really does make a caller linger.
(34:10):
It's an example of a behavioral phenomenon called territorial defense,
which happens when someone develops a personal sense of ownership
over a public space and kind of feels the need
to defend it from challengers. So it all goes back
to the idea of payphones being a limbo state between
public and private life. Even our brains can't tell the difference. Sometimes.
(34:31):
The good news, though, is this is likely happening unconsciously,
so the person on the phone probably isn't trying to
be a jerk.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And you know.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Professor Rubac also pointed out that in some cases the
person waiting might be distracting to the caller, causing them to,
you know, need more time to get their words out.
So as unlikely as it is these days, if you
ever find yourself waiting for a payphone, your best bet
is to give the caller some space and try to
look nonchalant.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So we talked about a few ways that people have
been vitalizing phone boots on the streets and nature, But
another place where they found a new life is in
the modern office. So soundproof privacy pods styled after phone
boots have become super popular as a solution to the
problems of open office floor plans. They provide individuals or
small teams with a quiet place to focus conduct meetings
(35:18):
without being distracted. This trend to actually started small in
twenty fifteen, with only one dedicated office phone booth company.
It was this finish firm called Framery. But then the
pandemic pushed a lot of businesses to sort of re
examine the value of private offices, and now there are
dozens of companies selling office phone boots. In twenty twenty four,
the global phone booth market was about one point four
(35:40):
billion dollars, and it's projected to be nearly triple that
by twenty thirty three. So phone boots, may you know,
have lost their place on the street corners, but they
found a new home next to the water cooler.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Wow, I feel like come on back to the office
so we can stick you in a phone booth. Might
not be as enticing as managers think, but well, my
next fact is about a public servant who spent so
much time in a phone booth that he's now immortalized
inside one at the Honolulu International Airport. World War II
veteran Daniel K and Noeh became one of Hawaii's first
(36:15):
representatives in Congress when he was elected to the Senate
in nineteen sixty two. He held his seat there for
the next fifty years, and during that time, most of
which was before cell phones, he would routinely use an
airport phone booth. Between his flights to Washington. It became
such a common sight to see the Senator working away
in his phone booth that after his passing in twenty twelve,
(36:37):
his supporters decided to erect a bronze statue of him
right there in the terminal. It depicts him seated inside
a reconstituted phone booth with a bronze payphone in his
left hand, and there's even enough room on the bench
for visitors to sit next to him and snap a selfie,
something they couldn't have done back then. And there's also
a plaque that reads, quote in honor of Daniel k
(37:00):
in no way as our superman, he timelessly served Hawaii
and America with extraordinary dedication and valor.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's really sweet, Ashly. My last fact is another fitting
tribute to an avid phone user, mister Alexander Graham Bell.
When the inventor of the telephone passed away in nineteen
twenty two, every phone in the US and Canada, including payphones,
fell silent for a full minute. It was a show
of respect from all the telephone exchanges, and the moment
of silence coincided with the start of his funeral, And
(37:31):
you know. I read that the first ever phone book
told callers to end a conversation by saying that is all.
But that feels so unfriendly, So instead, I think we
should close out the show with Bell's preferred telephone greeting,
which was actually a hoy.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Not hello. Well, a hooy to Alexander Graham Bell, and
congratulations to you, Mango for bringing us around to the
man who started it all. I think you've earned today's trophy.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I think it's the perfect place to keep all of
my spare quarters, so thank you so much. If anyone
listening has a payphone related story to share, we'd love
to hear about it. Give us a call at three
oh two, four oh five, five nine two five. We're
also waiting for those answers about milk, so send those
as well. You can send us an email at high
Geniuses at gmail dot com. Two that is spelled Hi
(38:23):
Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can also find us
on Instagram, blue Sky at part Time Genius. We'll be
back next week with another new episode, but in the meantime,
from Will Dylan, Gabe, Mary and myself, thank you so
much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(38:51):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal
will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
That is insane.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I'm the autoco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is
Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going
to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier,
who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
(39:22):
to hit record and then mix the show after he
does a great job. I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Calypso Rallis. If you like our videos. That is all
Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
(39:43):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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