A Telephone Booth Grows in the Winter Garden…
…and how a photo of it led to a curmudgeonly cautionary tale, set in a telephone booth-less future, with ‘Ma Bell’ exacting an appropriate revenge.
I admit to being bemused at the phenomenon of pedestrians hurrying down sidewalks, or crossing busy streets, or waiting on Subway platforms, their gaze glued to their i-gadgets, as though their busy lives depended on whatever “essentials” they were navigating on their glossy little slabs…or listening to through those ubiquitous white ear-buds. Indeed, it seems all eye-contact is reserved for — and, in fact, restricted to — these modern wonders of connectivity.
But — and I freely admit it — said bemusement ratchets up to outright annoyance as users of such devices screech and cackle out their angst for all the world to hear, while pushing their way through crowds, or bellowing out their self-importance in restaurants or rest rooms or railroad cars…
In short, doing something that was once reserved for doing inside a … telephone booth. And now, if you will excuse me as I launch into my best attempt at an Elaine Stritch impersonation and ask, “Does anyone still remember…a telephone booth?”
I cringe at what remakes of classic movies that contained phone booth scenes would look like now. Imagine someone re-visiting Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (that, incidentally, should be considered a capital crime …) to make the story somehow more relevant to today’s societal mores. Imagine…the long raking shot along a rank of telephone booths in the Chicago railroad station, as Leonard gives Eve Kendall her instructions for sending Roger Thornhill out to a deserted stretch of highway through rural Indiana cornfields, there to be eliminated by machine-gunning assassins in a crop duster.
It’s a cinematic — and acting — tour de force, as we hear no dialogue; it’s all played out in Martin Landau’s wickedly sinister facial expressions while gesticulating with his free hand, and Eva Marie Saint’s intent expression as she takes it all down. Now, how could you possibly do that with smart phones? For one thing, Leonard never raises his voice! Oh, I know — Leonard just texts Eve’s instructions to her. Cue close-up of frenetically texting thumbs and jiggling screens…
On the other hand…
Who could fail to be impressed by a technology that makes contact with family and other loved ones, business associates, emergency assistance totally independent of being tethered to a landline telephone?
My gripe is with how too many people choose to use that technology in what I consider to be a consummately rude fashion.
The all-but-disappeared telephone booth represented an era of politeness, courtesy and consideration that has by and large been lost in the onslaught of ubiquitous connectivity and instant gratification.
I mean, some calls really can wait till one gets home or to the office, where you’re not screeching into your smart phone, oblivious to those around you, to overcome the ambient noise of a city street. Really, can’t they?
I do have some use for cell-phone connectivity, as when stuck in a miles-long traffic back-up on the Beltway while en route to a dinner engagement, or should a mechanical issue intrude and I need to reach out and touch someone at Triple-A for a tow.
Oh, here’s Elaine again — “Does anyone still…’Reach out and touch someone’?”
If you’re of tender years, that was the theme of some of AT&T’s most memorable advertising for long distance calling. Some of those spots included the line, “To communicate is the beginning of understanding.” To which I would add, “And to do so with some consideration of those around you is the beginning of politeness.”
And AT&T, the long lines division of what I — nostalgically and respectfully — remember as “the telephone company” brings me — through the usual circuitous path of twisted pairs and coaxial cables tucked inside the trivia-clogged nooks and crannies of gray matter of your faithful scribe — to this ramble and its little audio production, inspired by the sight of that telephone booth smack dab in the middle of the soaring atrium of the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan.
The Bell System…the name had such a nice ring to it…
For youthful readers (as though I’d be likely to have any…) we once had all of our telephony needs provided by a single entity, known as the nationwide Bell System. It provided dial tone, long distance, operator assistance, and, through its Western Electric subsidiary, fine sounding (no, that is not an oxymoron — more on that in a bit) telephones that would probably still work if run over by a locomotive. Well, one of the reasons that equipment was so well made was that the phone company owned it, as they did everything from the receiver we held to our ear through the chattering frames in telephone exchanges that housed those vertically dancing thingamajigs that connected us to the numbers we dialed. Of course, through Bell Labs research that brought us touch tone dialing, the clattering mechanical cacaphony gave way to a more calming environment as electrons and light transmitting fibers took over the work. But in essence, no matter the decade, as long as there was dial tone, phones just did what they were designed to do, did it well, and rarely broke down. Oh, yes, and did I say, sounded good?
It was common to also refer to “the phone company” as “Ma Bell,” a title I would really come to like, as it somehow managed to put a reassuring “face” to the huge corporate entity. But, as I look back, from the current cacophonous chaos of cellular connectivity, I find I miss the concept of Ma Bell, for she did look after our every need and, like a good matriarch, had high standards and rarely let us down.
And to take it a notch further, one has to acknowledge that Ma Bell was a very classy gal. She trained her operators and business office representatives to be calming and professional as they interacted with us customers. They spoke in well modulated voices, with (you should pardon the expression) bell-clear enunciation. Not to detract from Lily Tomlin’s popular adenoidal telephone operator character, but I choose to remember those whose voices were more like an aural caress that had one imagining what they might look like. Of course, I must remember to put this in context — it was also an era in which popular singers sang from the diaphragm, not through their noses, and clearly enunciated a lyric that was often poetry, with intelligence and respect.
Speaking of Ma Bell being a classy dame, she even brought us some exquisite musical entertainment, on the long-running Bell Telephone Hour.
Ah, but getting back to the telephones Ma Bell gave — okay, rented — to us…did I mention they sounded good?
Part of my, shall we say, love-hate relationship with modern telephony is how execrably bad most of it sounds. Right, I warned you this would be quintessentially curmudgeonly, but let me explain.
Unless one remembers how good the “old technology” telephones actually sounded, one has no point of reference here. And back to those who live their lives and air their angst on smart phones, perhaps being able to text and yap from a stall in a public bathroom far outweighs as “irrelevant” such a concept as clear audio quality.
But being an audio-oriented guy and, more to the point, a professional communicator for most of my years, I have to say, clear sound or, better stated, good voice fidelity matters … to me. A nice “old tech” carbon microphone in the receiver of a Western Electric phone from Ma Bell put to shame much of the often shoddy, built-to-a-price stuff that flooded the market in the wake of the break-up of the Bell System into the chaos that reigned after 1984 (as many a “Baby Bell” turned out, initially at least, to be a genuinely brattish bastard child in terms of the “service” they provided). Yet even those “after-market” phones sounded decent compared to most cell-phone “connectivity” that makes conversations sound like they are being modulated by a flushing toilet. Oops, I guess some of them…really are….
Thus, perhaps it won’t surprise you that, after the break-up, I bought from my local phone company one of the phones I’d been leasing from them. Yes, it’s ’70s avocado green, and no, I shall not subject it to the locomotive test. But I know it will last me as long as I possess a voice with which to speak into its lovely “old tech” carbon mic.
There, given that preamble, you may understand this bit of curmudgeonly whimsy that occurred to me when I came upon this photo I’d taken earlier of the phone booth in the middle of the Winter Garden. I set it some fifty years in the future, in a society that would have no recollection whatever of that quaint construction into which people once stepped — and closed the door — for the purpose of reaching out and touching someone when away from home. But when a bunch of i-thingie-clutching specimens reach out to touch “it,” they are in for…well, just listen.
And, as I have chosen to imagine “Ma Bell” as a proud and very classy dame, I think her indignation at what replaced her could be considered…oh…entirely understandable, her actions…most definitely, appropriate (said he with wicked, curmudgeonly, glee).
About the photo up top…
It was a June afternoon in 2017. In the company of Gisela, a photographer friend, I was headed toward my first shooting at the 9/11 Memorial and its inspiring pools, Freedom Tower, and the Oculus transportation center. She had journeyed over from New Jersey and I had met her at the Wall Street Ferry Terminal. The morning’s overcast had given way to brilliant sunshine, and we lost no time in making our way through Brookfield Place to our targets across the way.
So, while the unusual placement of a telephone booth in the middle of the atrium did strike me as odd — its purpose only later researched and appreciated — the priority for Gisela and myself was to quickly transit to our destination, lest the lovely sunlight disappear behind the clouds. Fortunately, it didn’t and we enjoyed several hours of happy shooting…with nary a thought of disappearing telephone booths.
©2021 Steve Ember
You may view more of my photos (including telephone booths where I can still find them) by visiting my web site and clicking on “Photography,” or by dialing me up in your browser (even if it’s on a glossy slab clutched in your hand on a Subway platform) at my little photographic pied a terre in cyberspace.
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Most of my photographs can be purchased or licensed by contacting me via my web site.
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