So I am still wondering, in this age of cell phones, why we still have those phone booths. Actually I use the term “booth” lightly because they are no more than 3-sided shelters, and only from the waist up, at that. Despite the fact that the “shelves” have wide gaps, and hardly hold anything, there are still cell-phone users who lean up against them.

As a former sales rep who really depended on those self-contained phone booths to afford me privacy I got a job offer in one) and block out city noise while I conducted business, the switch to these paltry enclosures forced me to seek out hotels and climate-controlled buildings. Once, when my boss was about to break the bad news in mid-July, that our salaries were being cut by 20%, he started the conversation with “I hope you are at a phone in an air-conditioned building because this will be a long conversation”. I can still feel my stomach dropping in the lobby of 30 Rock.

Now I read in the Times that the sides of these outdoor phone-enclosures are advertising cash cows. The companies who put them up, are not even concerned about the phone functioning or not, or even if the phone is still there! They are making more money from advertisers than they would ever make from phone calls! I don’t know, but it would seem to me that this is just another way that corporate America can “sneak in” their ads. Read about it at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/nyregion/17phones.html?ex=1345003200&en=998d9ef603df3511&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I think bus shelters, buses, and subways provide enough venues for commercial propaganda! Dirty, garbage-filled eyesores with phones that don’t work anyway, or with wires popping out of metal walls, are shameful and another thing that makes our city look dirty and neglected.