New York City's public pay phones are officially a thing of history. The last one was removed on Monday — and is heading straight to a local museum.
that they will be replaced with a digital kiosk,"boosting accessibility and connectivity across the city." The company says it's deployed thousands of Links across the city, and has facilitated more than 3 billion Wi-Fi sessions with more than 10 million subscribers.
City officials in attendance said they hope the end of the official pay phone era will accelerate progress in areas like data privacy and equitable access to technology. New York City Council Member Julie Won called the Link kiosks"vital lifelines" for people who wouldn't otherwise have access to the internet or emergency services. "In less than a decade we've gone from pay phones on street corners to free Wi-Fi kiosks all over our city," Won said."We're on the right track towards making NYC technologically equitable and we must continue this work to connect more New Yorkers to affordable high speed internet in their homes and schools." Matthew Fraser, commissioner of the Office of Technology and Innovation, described the removal of the last pay phone as bittersweet, noting the"prominent place they've held in the city's physical landscape for decades" but acknowledging that it's time for change. "Just like we transitioned from the horse and buggy to the automobile and from the automobile to the airplane, the digital evolution has progressed from pay phones to high-speed Wi-Fi kiosks to meet the demands of our rapidly changing daily communications needs," he said in a statement shared with NPR. Pay phones may no longer be necessary in the age of cellphones and smartwatches, but city officials suspected that they might still be worth reminiscing about — or marveling at. that the city reached out to the Museum of the City of New York last week to see if it was interested in taking the remaining relic., which just opened on Friday. Lilly Tuttle, the curator of the show, told Gothamist the decision was"a no-brainer." "In just a few days since the exhibition has been open, I really have come to appreciate how many people are fascinated by bygone technology," she added."And as we see things changing, and we're reminded of how rapidly our technology has advanced in recent decades, I think people have these moments of realizing how different things are."Stranded New York workers wait in line at a phone booth to call home during the massive power failure of Nov. 9, 1965. Most of the city's pay phones have been replaced by digital kiosks in recent years.The MatrixThose include ones on private property as well as four"permanent full-length Superman" booths, according to the city.
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