Thursday, June 24, 2010

Flint Photos: Pay Phone


An elusive public phone, complete with D.I.Y. instructions, on 2nd Street near Thompson.




4 comments:

  1. That's *very* small-and-local free enterprise, using equipment that someone else considered scrap... most phone companies having gotten out of the payphone business, because it didn't pay to maintain the equipment and collect the revenue for the amount of that revenue.

    Especially after the cellphone revolution, with the primary surviving demand for payphones being in rough neighborhoods where the collector/maintainer is at major risk because of the cash involved.

    But if you're running a business that depends on scrap equipment with marker-based user instructions, I suppose you just carry a gun.

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  2. It's two blocks from where I live. HAve yet to see anyone use it.

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  3. There are a few pay phones in Milwaukee.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.