Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Kew Gardens Cinema

I don't think I've ever posted an item regarding Kew Gardens. Well, that changes today, as a kind reader sent me this photo of a wooden phone booth on view inside Kew Gardens Cinema.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Harmonie Club

A reader who has been very good about spying old wooden phone booths in the City and sending me shots of them, has done so again!

This was taken inside the Harmonie Club at 4 E. 60th Street, a club I did not even know existed. The Harmonie Club was founded in 1852 and has been in its handsome McKim Mead and White designed building on 60th since 1904. "Jacket and Tie are Required. Shorts, sneakers or tennis shoes are not permitted at any time." My kind of place.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Yale Club

In recent weeks, readers have been sending me photos of extant wooden phone booths like crazy. And I couldn't be happier. This one is in the Yale Club in midtown Manhattan. The door has been taken off. Next to it is another booth with the phone missing. The reader said he saw someone sitting in this booth working on their iPad. See: they still have a use!

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Harvard Club

The same eagle-eyed reader who sent me photos last week of the wooden phone booths at the Queens County Supreme Court, soon after sent me this image of wooden phone booths at the Harvard Club in midtown. Which makes me think this reader of mind travels in some well-heeled circles.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Queens Country Supreme Court

Wooden phone booth sightings are getting harder and harder to come by. Most of the booths I've seen, photographed and posted since 2006 are now gone. Either the business in question went under, or the booth was removed. (I was recently in Farrell's Bar & Grill in Windsor Terrace and can happily state that their booth is still there. Little ever changes at Farrell's, including the patrons' political opinions.)

A reader sent me a photo of these booths. They rest on the second floor of Supreme Court, Queens County, at 88-11 Sutphin Blvd. The reader describes it as "a nice old WPA built courthouse."

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Niagara Bar

I love it when readers send me photos of wooden phone booths. These are the readers who truly follow the blog and know what it's about.

"Kevin" sent this picture of a previously undetected booth at the Niagara Bar in the East Village, at Avenue A and E. 7th. I know the bar well. No phone inside the booth, it goes without saying. Just a mop, broom and a bucket. The indignity!

The booth obviously dates from pre-Niagara days. Niagara isn't that old. In the 1970s, this was a City-sponsored "friendship center for older adults" In the '80s, it was King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, a jazz club. In the '90s, it was Wally's Midtown. But the booth surely predates all three.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: 473 Third Avenue

A sharp-eyed reader sent me a photo of this old wooden phone booth, spotted inside 473 Third Avenue, at 10th Street, in Brooklyn. The space is under construction, but the new owners seem to have retained the phone booth from the address' previous incarnation.

According to old newspaper records, this was the location of the Third Avenue Pub & Restaurant, at least until 1973. And it was a store of some sort going back to 1900. The property was purchased by someone last December. Plans unknown. Note the intact shelf on the side, used for perusing phone books. Remember phone books?

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Station Cafe

I've been inside Woodside's old Station Cafe dive bar many times over the years. I don't know how I missed that they had an old wooden phone booth tucked in the back. The phone has been removed, as is the case with such booths all over town since Verizon started bringing the hammer down, charge-wise, on keeping phone booth phones. But they haven't removed the booth, thank God, or filled it with junk. Sorry about the quality of the photo. I only had my cell phone with me that night. And the Station Cafe was, as always, dark as night.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Tom's Restaurant

In Tom's Restaurant, operating in Prospect Heights since 1936. Needless to say, like nearly all the phone booths in NYC now, it doesn't work. A chair blocks the entrance.

The Last Working Phone Booths in New York?

The other day, when I was spending my final hours in the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, and found that their wooden phone booth phone still worked, I thought to myself, So, is this the last one?

This blog has an obsession with phone booths. And over the past 18 months I have noticed that in very quick fashion the City's surviving phone booths have been going out of order, their dial tones taken away and often the very phone yanked out, even as the booth remains. And sometimes the booth goes too! I've gotten used to picking up a receiver in a phone booth and hearing nothing. It's become so it's starling when I do encounter a working phone.

I'm sure there are other phone booths in the City that still work. But if you were ask me right now where one was, the only ones I could think of are the several banks of phone booths you can find in the lower levels of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. I do not know why the library has chosen to keep them going. Perhaps it's willing to pay the phone company the high fees it asks to keep phone booth in operation; something most businesses aren't willing to do.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Holiday Cocktail Lounge

As the Holiday Cocktail Lounge sails off into the East Village sunset tonight, it's high time I acknowledged that it is home to one of the city's diminishing number of wooden phone booths. Last time I checked (a few days ago), it was also one of the few that still had its phone—and a phone that was in working order! That will end today, when the 47-year old bar closes its doors forever.

Wooden Phone Booth Update: Marchi's

This inset phone booth is probably not as old at Marchi's restaurant—1929—but I bet it's at least 50 years old. Unlike the other booth in town, it still has its phone. You can get a dial tone, but you can't make a call.

Wooden Phone Booth Update: 347 Madison Avenue

OK. They're not wooden. But there are four of them. And—unlike many of the wooden phone books left in the City these days—they all have phones in them, and the phone all work! Hallaluah for that! And the bank of booths looks real sleek, too. Very "Mad Men."

This building is occupied by the MTA. It's very 1950s. In addition to the phone booths, there's an in-lobby newsstand and a lunch counter.

Wooden Phone Booth Update: Old Town Bar

Just a quick update on the wooden phone booth at the Old Town Bar. Like many of the phone booths around town, it has recently been gutted and is now bereft of a phone. But, more than that, you can't even enter it. The bar owners have pushed a booth up against the folding doors.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Montauk Bar

All of my past "Wooden Phone Booth Sighting" shots have been from bars, hotel and restaurants in the five boroughs. I cheat a bit on this one. It's from the Montauk Bar in Montauk, Long Island. But, what the hey. It's a beaut. Doesn't work, as you can clearly see. Sent to Lost City be a friend.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: King Yum

At King Yum, the 57-year-old Chinese tiki joint, two wooden phone booths, just inside the door. As is sadly more and more the case these days, they are non-functioning. The phones have been removed. But these may be the one wooden phone booths in town that are lined with bamboo.

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New York Wooden Phone Booth Population Being Gutted

I've taken a fair amount of time over the years to rhapsodize about New York's dying wooden phone booth population. They're not so common anymore, but neither were they hard to find, if you knew which old bars and libraries to go into.

But recently, there's been a great falling off, mainly because so many old joints have bit the bust. The booths in Chumley's, Gino's (above), Fedora, Von Westernhagen's—all gone, because those restaurants are gone. And many of the remaining booths are being gutted, their phones removed, leaving wooden shells that have only a decorative use. Sardi's lost it's phones. The booth at Capsouto Freres doesn't work anymore. Neither does the one at Bill's Gay Nineties tavern. This is, I expect, because the wicked phone company charges businesses extra for keeping wooden phone booths in working order.

I could have bought the booth at Von Westernhagen's, but I couldn't afford it and had no vehicle with which to pick it up. Kills me to think I let it go.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Gutter

This is in Gutter, a trendy bar-bowling alley in Williamsburg. But it's still a wooden phone booth and it works. So I don't care. If face, as old places fall or have their old phone booths ripped out, new places with an affection for the old may be our only hope.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: New York Public Library Main Branch

The lower level of the Fifth Avenue branch of the New York Public Library. A bank of four. All working.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: O'Hanlon's

O'Hanlon's, an Irish bar in Astoria, is about 60 year old. Old enough to have a wooden phone booth. O'Hanlon's phone is unique, in that it's not a stand-alone booth but is built into the wall, a permanent part of the bar. I've seen this sort of thing at Fedora and Bill's Gay Nineties. It doesn't have a folding door, like most do, but a simple one-panel, open-and-close portal. The phone inside works. The bar has to pay the phone company for that service, and is thinking of disconnecting the line. There is no fan inside. But there is a phone number for a taxi service.

Previous Wooden Phone Booth Sightings.