Pay phone time machine

March 29, 2013 7:30 PM

Recalling 1993 lets you "Step back twenty years into New York City's past. Call from any NYC pay phone to hear what was happening on that block in 1993." Other notable public history projects include the History Pin app and Shimon Attie's installations in Berlin and Rome.
posted by spamandkimchi (12 comments total)

Call from any NYC pay phone to hear what was happening on that block in 1993.

...if you can find one.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:34 PM on March 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

Call from any NYC pay phone to hear what was happening on that block in 1993.

...if you can find one.
posted by Chocolate Pickle

This should give you a start... http://www.payphone-project.com/payphones/usa/212/1/
posted by blaneyphoto at 7:42 PM on March 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Historypin previously and previously-er.

Payphones previously and previously-er.

The idea of a city-wide museum is super appealing. Maybe other common facilities can do double duty, say, laundromats and public restrooms? Or did we sell the rights already to advertisers?
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:59 PM on March 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

What about the future of "pay phones"?
Beacon: A Pay Phone That Saves Lives And Google Searches. We can Reinvent Payphones.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:13 PM on March 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Will George Carlin be narrating?

In all seriousness the project is a pretty creative idea
posted by littlesq at 9:32 PM on March 29, 2013

This is very cool.

I was introduced to NYC in 1994, when I had to go up for some recording work, stayed with a pal (who worked on Wall Street in the WTC) on 23rd and 2nd/3rd, during a garbage strike in which about 2 weeks worth of trash sat on the streets. We partied with his girlfriend's friends on their roof in the village, under the shadow of the WTC

There was very little going to Brooklyn, no one would even think about Williamsburg.

I think the 1993 WTC bombing had been just a bit earlier, or the trial was on, it was in the news.

I had the shock of realising this was a lost age when I saw the film "The Wackness", which was steeped in dope, hip-hop, and nostalgia for the aggro of the Guiliani years.
posted by C.A.S. at 1:42 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm hoping for 1973 phones: When you pick up the receiver the cord's been cut by the junkie who comes out of an adjacent alley to mug you.

Seriously though, I just spent a week in Manhattan, and this is a very cool way of making the city's history accessible and possibly more interesting to all.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:46 AM on March 30, 2013

I always feel sad whenever I walk by a payphone. They seem lonely. I wonder if they have feelings? Do they resent cellular devices?
posted by Fizz at 7:00 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

So weird -- I had a dream last night about time travel where I distinctly recall someone asking, "Of all the times you could travel to, who the hell would choose 1993?" I have no recollection of seeing this post last night, but occam's razor suggests I must have. In my own defense, I am much more sympathetic to 1993 than my subconscious is.
posted by chortly at 12:40 PM on March 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

1993 was when I moved to the East Village.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:08 PM on March 30, 2013

This month (or thereabouts) marks my 20th anniversary of moving to This Fair City. I can't remember the exact date, but sometime during the early spring, I happily decamped from a large, possibly haunted house in Mount Holly, N.J., into a tiny studio apartment on Perry Street and West 4th Street with my boyfriend. (This was long before Sex and the City, so there were no hordes of young women touring the 'hood.) Soon after we moved into a big apartment in a fancy building on Greenwich Street, overlooking Christopher Street and all the summer nights' madness that went on down by the river. Whenever I venture downtown, I long for all the old hangouts, the closed rock clubs, the long-gone record stores.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:07 PM on March 30, 2013

Soon after we moved into a big apartment in a fancy building on Greenwich Street, overlooking Christopher Street
posted by computech_apolloniajames

Must have been The Archive building that you lived in then? Monica Lewinsky lived there during the time I taught at a school right there. Ever go to Sweet Life Cafe? Wish they hadn't closed...
posted by blaneyphoto at 7:28 AM on April 1, 2013