As the wave of technology overtakes us, the demise of many
cultural icons are rapidly being sent to the scrap pile. It is hard
to remember when we could go to the movies or out to dinner without
being disturbed by a cellphone or inconsiderate people thinking we
all want to hear their conversation.
Just recently AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. phone company
announced that they plan to leave the pay-phone business after 129
years as more people use wireless handsets to make calls on the
go.
The first pay phone, installed in 1878, had an attendant who
took callers' money. Inventor William Gray set up the first
coin-operated phone in 1889 at a bank in Hartford, Connecticut.
The booths that house pay phones have undergone more design
changes than the phones themselves. At the turn of the century,
indoor booths were constructed of durable hardwood, such as
mahogany, with comfort and privacy in mind, and exhibited detailed
craftsmanship. They were often carpeted. The "original" telephone
booth is credited to Thomas Watson, the man who helped Alexander
Graham Bell invent the telephone. Watson's "booth" was made by
draping blankets over the furniture in his room and crawling
underneath to conduct early telephone experiments. One story says
Watson, in order to hear, was insulating himself from street
noises. Another story is that his landlady ordered Watson to be
quieter; his shouting, albeit for the sake of science, was
disturbing other boarders. In 1883 Watson designed a real booth. It
was built of expensive wood, had a domed top with a ventilator,
windows with screens, and a desk with pen and ink. Over the years,
telephone booths have reflected their surroundings as well as the
times. There have been phone booths resembling cable cars in San
Francisco, and others resembling pagodas in New York City's
Chinatown district. In the 1960s, as American architects designed
glass-wall office buildings, wooden phone booths looked out of
place in lobbies.
Pay phones, especially those in booths, have played a role in
U.S. pop culture for decades. Clark Kent started using them to
change into Superman in the 1940s. In the 1989 movie ``Bill &
Ted's Excellent Adventure,'' a phone booth doubled as a time
machine. In 2002, actor Colin Farrell played a man trapped at a
phone by a sniper in the film ``Phone Booth.''
Special thanks to http://www.telephonetribute.com which provided
the data for this cache.