Bell System speaker set to go with office phone system. Features 1964 Bell logo. This is one generation before the black speakerphone made famous on Charlie’s Angels. #bellsystem #phones #1960s #oldtech #retro #vintage

Bell System speaker set to go with office phone system. Features 1964 Bell logo. This is one generation before the black speakerphone made famous on Charlie’s Angels. #bellsystem #phones #1960s #oldtech #retro #vintage

Muldoon’s, a good Irish bar in Midtown with a mean burger, has something else: a functioning pay phone complete with the old Bell Atlantic logo. There’s even a Yellow Pages thrown in for good measure. #bars #nyc #phones #payphoneography

Muldoon’s, a good Irish bar in Midtown with a mean burger, has something else: a functioning pay phone complete with the old Bell Atlantic logo. There’s even a Yellow Pages thrown in for good measure. #bars #nyc #phones #payphoneography

London calling! A British phone booth, complete with tweedy if creepy mannequin, is beached on Broadway in Tarrytown, N.Y. It’s actually been there for years. Now it’s about as useful as a traditional payphone, and is an equal source of curiosity. #payphoneography #tweed #mannequin #tarrytown #phonebooth #phones #britain #london #british

London calling! A British phone booth, complete with tweedy if creepy mannequin, is beached on Broadway in Tarrytown, N.Y. It’s actually been there for years. Now it’s about as useful as a traditional payphone, and is an equal source of curiosity. #payphoneography #tweed #mannequin #tarrytown #phonebooth #phones #britain #london #british

Have $1,100 to spare? Buy this phone booth (looking at you, Superman!)

An antique shop in the Westchester County town of Pound Ridge got its hands on a beautiful old metal-and-glass phone booth, the walk-in variety that offered shelter from the elements and a measure of privacy to conduct your telephonic business. Oh, and if Clark Kent were spending his Saturday antiquing in Pound Ridge, he could pop into this booth real quick and morph into Superman.

This specimen is in pretty nice shape, and comes complete with the requisite phone directory holder. An extra is the sticker reminding you to call 911 in an emergency, a leftover from a time when the service was still a novelty.

However, it’s absent an actual pay phone. That’s not a big deterrent to purchase, I figure, but the asking price — $1,100 — could use some bargaining down.

Text and photos: Rolando Pujol

This fantastic vintage sticker survives outside an auto-repair shop in Tarrytown, N.Y. There’s a lot going on here for the “retrologically” inclined. First, it harkens to the days when New York’s phone company was called NYNEX, which dates this to 1984-97. (NOTE: It was marketed as New York Telephone, a NYNEX company, from 1984 to 94, then just as NYNEX for three more years, but the Yellow Pages business was known as NYNEX during all those years.) Second, it promotes the Yellow Pages! Who uses those anymore, even as booster seats? Thirdly, it features the iconic “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking” logo. And, my, that is one intense shade of yellow. (No filter needed.) Text and photo: Rolando Pujol #phones #phone #yellowpages #nynex #verizon #telephones #history #branding #tarrytown (Taken with Instagram) Follow @RolandoPujol ]]>

This fantastic vintage sticker survives outside an auto-repair shop in Tarrytown, N.Y. There’s a lot going on here for the “retrologically” inclined.

First, it harkens to the days when New York’s phone company was called NYNEX, which dates this to 1984-97. (NOTE: It was marketed as New York Telephone, a NYNEX company, from 1984 to 94, then just as NYNEX for three more years, but the Yellow Pages business was known as NYNEX during all those years.)

Second, it promotes the Yellow Pages! Who uses those anymore, even as booster seats?

Thirdly, it features the iconic “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking” logo.

And, my, that is one intense shade of yellow. (No filter needed.)

Text and photo: Rolando Pujol

#phones #phone #yellowpages #nynex #verizon #telephones #history #branding #tarrytown (Taken with Instagram)

Staubitz Market, serving Cobble Hill since 1917. The neon sign in the window displays the shop’s number in the old-school format: MAIN4-0014. That is still its number, though now we write 624-0014. #neon #vintage #retro #brooklyn #cobblehill #butcher #meat #retail #phones #telephones (Taken with Instagram)

Staubitz Market, serving Cobble Hill since 1917. The neon sign in the window displays the shop’s number in the old-school format: MAIN4-0014. That is still its number, though now we write 624-0014. #neon #vintage #retro #brooklyn #cobblehill #butcher #meat #retail #phones #telephones (Taken with Instagram)

Symbolism alert: A telephone building houses equipment for phone calls, but pulls the plug on its pay phone

This Verizon central office in Ridgewood, Queens, is one of those robust buildings the Bell System constructed back in the day to shelter its large, imposing switching equipment that made phone calls possible.

Verizon, the custodian in New York of the Bell legacy, has made an interesting point about the state of the landline business by making a certain modification to the facade of this building. They pulled out the pay phone, as you can see from its tell-tale shadow left on the wall.

Couldn’t it have stayed there — devoid of dial tone — for old time’s sake?

Text and photos: Rolando Pujol

This pay phone is “out of order” …

… and it’s hard to think it will ever be back “in order,” especially considering it’s an old Verizon phone, and the Ma Bell descendant has pulled out of the pay phone business in New York. 

This relic awaits removal at the New York Public Library branch on East 96th Street.

Text and photo: Rolando Pujol