It's not wooden, but it sure is weird.
This old metal phone booth sits in the basement of Broadway's Belasco Theatre, just to the left of the men's "lounge." It's been their for ages, looking lost and out of place.
Since critics stopped rushing up the aisles at curtain to file their reviews with the drama desk decades ago, I can't imagine—in the age of the cell phone—who uses this booth or why the management hasn't yanked it up by the roots and placed it on the sidewalk for collection. I've never seen anyone employ it, though the phone is in perfect working order. But it's a wonderously surreal sight to Belasco theatregoers. Men lined up for the bathroom stare at it with a look of sweet-natured confusion.
There is also an ice machine nearby, as if the Belasco were some roadside motel.
Indoor phone booths are not *that* unusal. There's a beautiful, long row of metal booths in the basement of the UBS Warburg Building on 6th Avenue in midtown, and last time I was the Old Town bar near Union Square they still had their wood phone booth with accordian door and functioning payphone. The NY Public Library's main branch has some wood phone booths, too. I've even spotted the occasional rotary dial payphone!
ReplyDeletethere is also another gem located inside the lobby at the Art Students league on W57th street...
ReplyDelete