The Persistence of Pay Phones

For some reason, a lot of pay phones, which they began to phase out ages ago. still exist on the Eastern side of Second Avenue between 23rd and 42nd Streets...

You sometimes see people, usually non descript men of indeterminate age, stopping by the phones and checking to see if there is a quarter somehow left in the  coin slot...just as Dustin Hoffman did as "Ratso Rizzo" in the film classic "Midnight Cowboy."

(Speaking of "Midnight Cowboy," the funniest story I have heard about that movie was recounted to me by someone from Dallas, who said some rather naive local matron took a bunch of cub scouts to a Saturday matinee screening of the movie not having any idea that it was not just another cowboy movie ( this story is probably invented, because I don't think some theater management people in Texas would have allowed a bunch of children into a movie like that....but you never know).

As to these phone boxes themselves, when I posted this photo on Facebook, someone commented, " What would you think if you saw some of these on display in some NYC museum as an "Art Installation"---you know, I would not be surprised at all! It is like the kind of stunt someone like Yoko Ono would have been up to in her earlier years....