The Last Payphone in New York City
They came in bursts and thrusts,
Coins clinking like small promises,
Hands trembling in winter air,
Lovers pressed close beneath my
Scratched glass,
Breath fogged my panes
As if they could keep each other warm
Through copper wires.
I carried urgency.
Births. Deaths.Missed trains.
“I’m sorry.”
“I love you.”
“I’ll be there.”
My cord stretched with longing.
Times Square was never quiet,
But once,
The noise bent towards me.
Neon flicked across my metal skin,
Taxis hissed,
And still-
Someone would stop,
Pat their pockets,
And find me
Like a lighthouse of
communication.
I was a fixed point
In a city that refused to be still
That always talked
But then, slowly
The silence began,
Not all at once
No,
In crept in like rust.
At first
People still approached me
Out of habit,
Fingers brushing my receiver
Tentative,
Before retreating,
As if rememberingI had already died.
They stood often
Inches away,
Heads bowed
But not in prayer.
Their thumbs frantically
moved,
Their eyes glowed.
Entire conversations unfolded
Without a single coin,
Without a single need for me
I listened anyway
To laughter that never touched
My wires.
To arguments whispered into
Glass screens.
Enhancing loniness,
Louder than anything I had ever carried
And I was helpless.
Eventually, I became but a relic
Before I was moved.
Children pointed at me
As if a were a fossil
“What is that?”
That
Not who,Never who,
Just an irrelevant machine
Old useless, worn.
The abuse came next.
Not really cruel at first,
Just careless,
Thoughtless.
Stickers layered over my instructions.
Pages ripped out my phone book
useless below me
Gum pressed into my coin slot,
My receiver left dangling
Like a broken limb.
Then sharper things
Graffiti carved Ito my side,
Names that would outlast me,Declarations of love
That would not.
I held them all.
As I held everything
Nights grew longer.
No coins.
No voices.
Only the hum of electricity
Still running through me
Out of habit a sign of life
Even the pigeons stopped landing.
I began to wonder
An existential crisis
Did I imagine it all
The urgency
The need
The way people once leaned into me
As if I were
The only bridge
Between them and the world.
The day they came to take me
It was quiet. No ceremony.
No crowd.
Just workers with tools,
Unscrewed my purpose
Disconnected me
Bolt by bolt.
I wanted to ring out
In protest
Just once
To prove I was vital
Still here
But no was was calling any more
They lifted me like I weighed nothing
Carried me by the place I had stood
For decades.
Times Square didn’t miss a beat.
Why would it. It had already forgotten me.
Now I stand still again
This stillness is different
Clean.
Polished.Explained in detail.
A small plaque beside me
Tells my history
In tidy concise sentences
“Public Pay Telephone”
Late 20th century-early 21st Century.”
People gather.
They look at me know with curiosity.
They pick up my receiver
Smile, and pose for pictures
With their “cell” phones
I am iconic
Nostalgic
Amazing
No one calls me necessary
Sometimes when the museum is quiet,
I imagine the echo
Of a coin dropping
A voice,
Urgent and alive,
Reaching for me
Like I mattered
And for a moment
Just a moment
I am needed
But the line is dead.
I am preserved
Perfectly,
In my lonliness.
Marty Rempel
Inspired by the song by the New Pornographers about the last payphone in NYC
titled, “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” April 2025. It is housed in the Museum of
New York City. Originally located in Times Square on 7th Ave and West 50th
Street. It is part of the “Before Computers Display.” It was removed May 202
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