Payphones, everywhere: 2000s 12 comments
12 Responses to 'Payphones, everywhere: 2000s'
Subscribe to comments with RSS
-
Mr BO
16 Sep 25 at 7:39 am
-
The Woolworth's at the original Richland Mall had pay toilets. Cost a nickel.
Tom
16 Sep 25 at 9:16 am
-
Yes indeed. I remember when I was a kid being so fascinated with the door mechanism at Woolworth's that I "held it" while we were at Whites and then declared I needed to go while we were at Woolworth's -- greatly irritating my mother!
ted
16 Sep 25 at 10:35 pm
-
Sometimes I wish that cell phones were still simple and only did calling and texting - and no more unlimited calling/texting plans. In that case, pay phones would probably still be useful. I remember getting my first cell phone and having to think about whether I wanted to use minutes or one of my limited text messages.
Also, it might be beneficial if people didn't always have access to the Internet in their pockets/handbags.
Lavender
17 Sep 25 at 9:34 am
-
Lavender, you started me thinking back about getting online with AOL in the '90s. SQEAK-SQWAUK!!! The monthly plan was 5 hours of surfing for $9.95 and $1.95 for each additional hour. I cannot tell you how much time I spent watching that AOL symbol in the upper right corner rotating and wondering if the page was ever going to open. Kind of comical now. Like a Buster Keaton movie.
Joe Shlabotnik
17 Sep 25 at 9:51 pm
-
I didn't know pay toilets even existed until a few years back I was watching a YouTube vlogger that was vlogging from a trip to Paris she went on and she mentioned having to figure out how to get to a pay toilet (and handle paying for it) because she needed those facilities because nature was calling...
I don't miss dealing with the dial up internet sounds that Joe Shlabotnik mentioned...I remember itching to get away from it in the 2002-04 timeframe (I was in HS at the time and was envious of friends that told me they had Road Runner and AOL High Speed) and now I'm glad it's a distant memory...now it's something (one of several things from that timeframe that come to mind for me) the generation younger than I would have a hard time visualizing...I have found several YouTube videos of the connection sounds that I've listed to.
Andrew
17 Sep 25 at 10:05 pm
-
@Joe and @Andrew - Also, having to get off the phone because someone wants to use the Internet, or vice versa!
Somewhat related...apparently, us Millennials (born about 1981 - 1996) were the last group to hesitate when a video starts recording, or glance down at buttons/controls to make sure it's recording. Generation Z (1997 - 2012) is more likely to start talking into the camera immediately.
Lavender
18 Sep 25 at 8:34 am
-
Yesterday I was driving through Chesterfield and I saw an abandoned building with a Southern Bell (?) blue and white "Payphone" sign on the building's exterior. The phone however was apparently long gone.
Tom
19 Sep 25 at 9:09 am
-
I'm not old enough to recall seeing a pay toilet in the US; however, I know that the Netherlands still had them as of about 10 years ago when I visited. Although you'd think that requiring payment to use a public bathroom would directly correlate with the cleanliness of said bathroom...that was not the case in the Netherlands. That was one of the nastiest bathrooms I have EVER seen!
Somewhat related, this is an interesting collection of audio from back in the day that gives insight to how the various phone networks functioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgoIJ9UDm5E&t=185s&pp=ygUac291dGhlcm4gYmVsbCBwaG9uZSBzb3VuZHM%3D
-
There is also a payphone outside the Lexington post office, not sure if that's considered 378 or Hwy1 at that point.
To be honest, it's actually just an exit from the Matrix at this point. Keep these locations in mind for when you need them.
Brian
25 Sep 25 at 12:59 pm
-
The Lexington Downtown Station Post office Brian referenced is in a stretch of roadway where 378 & US 1 come together briefly (between Flight Deck & Jim Hudson Ford)...
Andrew
25 Sep 25 at 9:49 pm
-
The former Steve's Classic Burgers on St. Andrews Road (now renamed Full Bellies Sports Kitchen under the new ownership) still has 2 pay phones flanking the entry doors, and they appear to be operational, though I didn't confirm. A closings page for that address that pre-dates Steve's (http://columbiaclosings.com/wordpress/?p=7684) has a couple of photos of those phones; they look just the same today. Labels on them indicate affiliation with a business called Black Beauty's Seafood; I'm sure it's long gone, and I find no reference to it online. The phone numbers printed on the labels are both disconnected. Couple of photos: https://i.postimg.cc/wTN2Qk0N/IMG-0859.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4drtYDk7/IMG-0857.jpg
Payne
5 Oct 25 at 12:01 pm
Haven't seen one in years. They went the way of pay-toilets.
I saw only one of those in Pittsburgh, PA back in 1964. It was a dime to open the stall.
You never saw such a gleaming-clean bathroom.