Comments on: Pay Phones May Be a Bad Call for City

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:28:59 +0000

Sean,

Because then there would be a really long line.

By: sean

sean — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:04:12 +0000

And re: the people who are supporting pay phones for emergencies and in poor neighborhoods. Why not make them free, in that case? The city's getting more money in advertising anyway; the rest of it is coming from people in an emergency, who can't afford a cell phone, etc.

By: sean

sean — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:01:10 +0000

Well, they're also very visible sites for subvertising, and almost as easy to deface as ads on subway platforms. I've seen, for instance, big feminist stickers on the endless objectifying clothing ads that litter our streets, and I think this should be a lot more common. They grab your attention, for better or worse.

Suggestion: wheatpaste subversive speech/thought bubbles on to the "people" on these ads.

By: Susan Donovan

Susan Donovan — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:39:30 +0000

I don't have cell phone and I don't want one. I depend on these phone for the 5 times a year that I need to make a call on the go.

I don't see the problem with the ads. No everyone has a cell phone. Let's not stack the deck against those people.

I agree, though that the phones should be working if they are going to spam the streets with ads.

By: LN

LN — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:10:59 +0000

Up here in Washington heights, we have lots of pay phones. They are the international type, and are still in heavy use, since so many of my neighbors dont have home phones. Use has declined over time though, probably because of cell phones, I miss seeing my neighbors in their jammies on the pay phone in the middle of the night.

By: Fendergal

Fendergal — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 20:16:16 +0000

Absolutely, there should be functioning pay phones across the city, in sufficient numbers in key locations. I am one of the cell-phone carrying masses now, but I remember far too well occasions in recent years when a land line (in particular, one that doesn't depend on electricity, i.e., not a cordless phone) kept me connected to the outside world.

And every time I see that Trump sign, I am sorely tempted to blot out the T.

By: Indignant

Indignant — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:40:19 +0000

If you think this is a bad deal for the city, how about Adopt a Highway? An advertiser like Trump gets an exclusive big sign on a highway that has 120,000 sets of eyeballs a day (Henry Hudson Parkway) for $6000/year (as of last time I checked). It's a bad deal, and it violates the city's own prohibition against advertising within 900 feet of a park or parkway. The city should start enforcing it -- or collecting, say, from Fairway for the scrolling neon sign? Or Ditech.com for setting up in the rr raight of way in the middle of Riverside Park?? Phone booths, billboards, MTA signs. The city should revisit the whole issue.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:31:37 +0000

Never mind the lost street space. NYC garners only a paltry 20-some percent of the phone kiosk ad revenue? Why doesn't the city hire a handful of the best outdoor advertising salespeople around, bring the operation in house rather than offering it to the highest bidder, and keep 100% of the revenue? Bloomberg owns a media company, for God's sake. He can't make this operation more efficient?

By: Angus Grieve-Smith

Angus Grieve-Smith — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:41:23 +0000

It's a good idea, Fendergal, but it's important to have pay phones in certain places in case of emergency, and that necessity doesn't have much to do with how often they're used.

By: Fendergal

Fendergal — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:56:51 +0000

Seems like an easy thing to require that if a phone booth is going to be bringing in ad revenue, that the phone itself be working a designated percentage of the time.

By: Leland

Leland — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:13:58 +0000

The article fails to mention the utility of the phone booths as urinals for drunk college students late at night.

By: d

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:55:23 +0000

Imagine the advertising that could be wrapped around safe, secure bike parking in some of the same locations now taken up by pay phones.

By: Ian D

Ian D — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:31:19 +0000

Of course, this is the very phenomenon that makes a public bike-sharing program so likely - and self-funding. The ad space potential in NYC is a big hunk of juicy meat to advertising companies.

We could say that this is a matter of priorities: would you prefer that advertising to be supporting (physically and financially) a pay phone or a rack of free bikes?

By: ddartley

ddartley — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:59:59 +0000

Item number 944 in the "Widen the Sidewalks" file.

Once again, why should that space be taken from the economy-driving pedestrian majority instead of the all-destructive motoring minority?