Where have all the phone booths gone? The booths, or "phone boxes" as they are called in England, are disappearing fast and AT&T says they are not coming back. But their legends will live a long time.
Pay phones first appeared at the beginning of the 20th Century. By 1998 there were nearly 2.6 million of them in the United States alone.
The first phone booths were made of wood. The last ones were made of aluminum and glass to provide comfort and protection. They featured hanging phone directories, fans, bright lighting and handy little shelves where a lady could put her purse while calling. The latest phones were even able to accept credit cards.
The new generation of phone booths generally survived the elements, but they proved no match for the changing culture.
Thugs smashed the booth doors and tried to break open the coin boxes. Phone directories were ripped out, sometimes a page at a time. Some booths were hauled away in thieves’ trucks.
John Brooks reported in his 1979 book, "Telephone—The First Hundred Years," that about one third of New York City’s 100,000 pay phones were being wrecked per month in 1969. He added that about one fourth were out of order at any given time, costing the phone company an estimated $5 million per year in repairs and stolen coins.
Phone companies quit installing the booths in the 1990s because the structures did not meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Then came cell phones and phone booths became the dinosaurs of the phone industry. They are recalled fondly by a few customers, but are no longer needed by the millions.
AT&T added closure to the booths' fate by announcing in December 2007 that it planned to exit "the shrinking pay phone business by the end of 2008."
The company said in its news release that it "has continued to experience significant pressure from reduced pay phone usage, primarily as a result of the growth of alternative communications choices, such as wireless phones and personal communication devices."
Some phone booth legends are preserved in Brooks’ book. Others are featured in websites such as Telephone Tribute.com and phonebooth.us.
The popularity of the pay phones was officially recognized in 1964 when the Treasury Department checked with Bell Laboratories to make sure the new coins it was designing would still work in pay phones.
The booths will be missed:
- Now crazy collegians have no booths in which to stuff themselves by the dozen, leaving the known world record at 25 persons.
- Today, Hollywood might not find a suitable booth for filming a sequel to its 2003 crime thriller "Phone Booth."
- Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter, may not have a booth in which to change into his Superman outfit.
- If Alfred Hitchcock was around to do a sequel to The Birds, where would he find a phone box to protect Tippi Hedren from the swarming birds?
The Harry Potter series may provide one of the more lasting memories of a phone booth because a red box serves as the entrance to the Ministry of Magic. It may also have to be explained to future Potter fans who will never have seen a real phone booth.
For some, the lasting memory of a phone booth may be from the movie Jumpin Jack Flash. In that one, a tow truck drags and bounces Whoopi Goldberg across Manhattan while she is locked in a phone booth.
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