Bleecker Street Pay Phones

A Pay Phone was ringing/It just about blew my mind/when I picked it up and said hello/ this foot came through the line

 

Maybe this was the pay phone that inspired that Bob Dylan lyric, maybe this was the actual pay phone were a foot did come through the line, you never know, a lot of strange things happened in the pre-cellphone bohemia that was “The Village,” – before they had to classify it as the “west”village. Maybe not the same phone, but an earlier generation of the metal communication device operated by coinage that was in this exact same spot. This is the Bleecker Street Pay Phone Spot.

Easy to say that Bleeker Street is not what it used to be, and while maybe not as vibrant and certainly more subdued like all of New York, there remains a bohemianism (albiet more upscale) and general air of tolerance and freedom one cannot deny and that I always find refreshing when I find myself in this neck of the downtown Manhattan woods. 

Bleecker Street is still a Street of Dreams even if them dreams are only in your head.

 

There are still pay phones on Bleecker Street, well at least one. There used to be two here. Those following the Pay Phone Series on Dislocation might also have noticed this trend; one pay phone unit has removed.  I guess that due to non-use, the pay phone population has been reduced 50 percent. Not the kiosk, just the unit. The kiosk is left behind, a remnant of the past, a memorial to the drop a dime culture next to a functioning phone. You can tell it still functions cause of the wire that connects to the residential lines strung like world-weary spaghettis on along the poles. I love the line, it looks so temporary. I wonder when two empty kiosks will be here, when only pre-cellphone remnants are left on this corner.