"A Era Has Ended"... Public Phone Booths Completely Disappeared in New York

Scheduled for Exhibition at New York Museum... To Be Used as Historical Materials

On the 23rd (local time), a worker is dismantling the last remaining public phone booth in downtown near Times Square, New York City, USA. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jung-wan] The last remaining public phone booth in New York City has been removed.

According to foreign media including AFP, New York City authorities completed the removal of the public phone booth near 7th Avenue and 50th Street on the 23rd and decided to exhibit it at the New York Museum.

New York City stated that this public phone booth will be used in the museum as a material showing life in the city before the commercialization of computers.

However, four old-style public phone booths in Manhattan, used by Clark Kent, the protagonist of the movie Superman, to transform into the Man of Steel while avoiding people's eyes, will be left intact for tourism purposes.

In the early 2000s, as mobile phone usage increased, wired public phones gradually disappeared from New York streets like in other cities, and after the spread of smartphones in the 2010s, they vanished at a faster pace.

Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio began replacing public phones by installing 'Link NYC,' which supports free calls, Wi-Fi, and electronic device charging, throughout the city in 2014.

Matthew Fraser, Director of New York City's Department of Technology and Innovation, said on the day, "Just as transportation evolved from horse-drawn carriages to cars, and from cars to airplanes, digital evolution has progressed from public phones to Wi-Fi kiosks to meet rapidly changing communication demands."

Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President, also tweeted, "Today we say goodbye to New York's famous (or infamous) public phones," adding, "I won't miss all the past call records, but seeing the disappearance of the phone booths brings a bit of nostalgia for the past."