Last public payphone removed from Manhattan streets
I hadn&#x27;t thought about pay phones in a long time until early in the pandemic, when I was listening to the Phoebe Bridgers(<i>) song &quot;Kyoto&quot; that includes they lyrics<p>&quot;You called me from a payphone &#x2F; 
They still got payphones &#x2F; 
it cost a dollar a minute&quot;<p>and I realized &quot;holy shit, when was the last time I saw a pay phone?&quot; And I don&#x27;t know the answer to that question. It </i>might* be a weird one I saw at the end of a bar in a remote pub in Northumberland in the summer of 2019, in an area with dodgy cell service. I have NO idea when I last saw a real Ma Bell style pay phone anywhere.<p>(* Like most middle-aged men, I&#x27;m a fan. You laugh (I assume), but there was a definite non-parent adult contingent at her concert here last weekend. It seems weird for a south-of-30 songwriter tied very much to a certain sort of Millennial life to resonate so much outside the most obvious core demographic, but here we are.)