The city of New York disconnected on Monday his last phone booth public of coins, the famous “payphone booth“, which have been replaced for years by free WiFi.
Calm down Superman fans: Manhattan is going to keep four closed phone booths, the ones that turn journalist Clark Kent into a superhero.
On Monday in the morning, New York it put an end to a myth that survived in popular culture for decades in comics, photos, movies and television.
Before the press, the municipal authorities and the president (equivalent to mayor) of the Manhattan neighborhood, Mark Levine, had the last “booth” with two telephones, which had been located for years on the corner of 7th Avenue and 50th Street, in the center of the Big Apple, marked by the blue bell logo of the Bell System telecommunications company.
“I was there today for the last goodbye to the famous – or embarrassing? – NYC pay phone. I will not miss his lack of tone, but I have to admit that I have felt a nostalgic knot in my stomach to see him go, “he writes Mark Levine on Twitter.
The Democrat said he doesn’t really miss the days when these phones worked one out of two times, where you had to search your pockets for a quarter or stand in line to call on the street in sight. of passers-by.
a gradual exit
Los public phones they began to disappear from the New York landscape in the early 2000s as mobile phones were introduced, and accelerated following 2010 with the explosion of smartphones.
Starting in 2015, Manhattan accelerated the installation of thousands of LinkNYC terminals that offer free WiFi and free local calls. These new access points They will gradually connect to the 5G network.
“Really it’s the end of an erabut also, hopefully, the beginning of a new era with more equal access to technology,” said Levine, referring to the northern neighborhoods of Manhattan, in particular Harlem, less covered by telephone networks and the Internet.
According to the local press, Manhattan is going to keep four old telephone booths on the Upper West Side, on West End Avenue at the level of 66th, 90th, 100th and 101st streets. (AFP)
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