They were everywhere. At a gas station, in a restaurant, sometimes standing alone on a street corner.
Aside from that utility, for decades, Payphone played a role in popular American culture, from comics (which Clark Kent thinks will turn into Superman) to music (think Maroon 5’s brutal “Payphone” or even the Jim Claustia jerker “Operator” for a while).
About a decade ago, there were 27,000 payphones in California, and 2,100 in LA County. Currently, the state has 2,525 working public salaries remaining, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. There are 484 in LA County. There is only 149 in LA City.
Payphones are still all over – they are not working. But they remind us of the previous times when it was important to hold coins – another relic of a bygone era – in your pocket.
Juan Jacinto uses his mobile phone while selling clothes at Pico Boulevard.
Marjorie Vasquez, 17, and Brianna Mejia, 13, walk past the broken payphone.
Craig Fisher, 69, is waiting for a bus on West Boulevard and Sloughson Avenue.
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The two payphones have not been used for years.
The chicken is probably more attention than Payphone near the markets at 41st Street and Central Avenue.
Only the Payphone shells remain at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.
Outside the downtown men’s central prison, some payphones are still working, so men make the phones.
Scott Johnson, 55, walks in a Robertson Boulevard art installation inspired by Payphone, not a real phone.
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Juan Sanchez ignores the payphone to make a call. Roberto Ubeda cleans up the garbage.
The old-style telephone booth is part of the charm of Philip, an Alameda Street eatery founded in 1908.
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