That was a fun outing. A train from Port Authority ti Broad Channel, then a Q52 back to Elmhurst. In between I spotted an old NYNEX payphone carcass, which was totally unexpected. But mostly just checked out the area, up to Sunset Cove Park, which looked like it needed a trim but otherwise it’s a cool space. Great views though the day was slightly foggy/smoggy.

ALmost had a crisis today. Got part way to the R train when I realized I’d forgotten this phone into which I presently type these words. I could imagine getting thrugh a day without it but there is a phone call I need to make today and I typically do not use work-related means to communicate with the outside world.

So I went back for it, meaning I had to alter the commute back to the old way, which means a whole lot of stairs and no guarantee of getting a seat.

Upon arrival I found that this keyboard, a trusty Logitech K380, was spazzing out, typing 4 and 5 letters at a time when all I needed was one letter. I fixed it but I’m not sure what worked. You can reset the keyboard but that did nothing, so I rebooted the phone and that seems to have fixed it. I hope this phone is not showing signs of age. It’s been over 36 months now, which I know because the insurance policy was automatically cancelled after that period of time.

I do not really want to be here anymore, in this job, but options are few. I had abrief moment of think I did not want to be anywhere at all. Gone. That possibility tickles itself inside me sometimes.

I got LinkNYC Radio back up and running. After years in the hopper it is finally starting to sound like I had in mind for it to sound. Sounds of full conversations and street noise were recorded in the early days of the program, when calls lasted 4 hours. Unfortunately a Skype API glitch caused many hours of those recordings to be silent. LinkNYC Radio.

Speaking of LinkNYC, in a bit of Smart City news that will be of interest to absolutely nobody, the kiosks now allow access to NYC311 for the first time in what I think is about 3 years. As with so many elements of the program you have to ask “Why would anybody want to do that?” Who would submit a 311 complaint from a clunky, very slow terminal on the sidewalk? I tried one just for gits and shiggles and gave up when the screens took minutes and minutes to load.

I activated a free month of LinkedIn Premium for the sole purpose of reaching out to someonw who was involved in the development of the AT&T Payphone 2000. I’m hoping he can point me to some evidence of the existence of the predecessor Public Phone 1000.  It has been elusive, meriting only passing mentions in primary sources but never a photo or much else about it. I will likely be ignored but it’s worth the attempt.

I’ve been revisiting the LinkNYC world again, after paying it little mind, at least compared to previous visitations into that silly “Smart City” canard. There is not much smart about it, I was also revisiting the coverage of my stupid prank from 2018. I was really bummed to see what Gothamist has done with their coverage of that. I think there were 5 articles. They are not behind a paywall but they do require an email address now, which essentially erases most of it from the search engines and archive.org.

More disappointing is that they, or somebody, deleted almost all the comments. If you GOthamist much you know the comments are often more entertaining than the story being commented upon. In this case they were my inspiration to keep going with that project. With most of the comments gone the only ones remaining make the stories look like they were total duds, but they were not. I honestly don’t care all that much but it’s kind of annoying. I was never entirely impressed by the final wrapup in which my identity was revealed but the buildup was fun. I’ve always been on the fence about whether that whole pursuit was a peurile waste f time or if I hit the bullseye I wanted in by demonstrating what a poorly designed and poorly planned piece of street furniture the LinkNYC product is. THere were changes made to the function of the phone feature, which I actually kind of regret. Calls can go on indefinitely but only if you repeatedly tap the screen when prompted “Are you still there?” The prompt pops up every 2 or 3 minutes, I think. That further ruins the already miserable experience of making phone calls from those things. I think but cannot confirm that they also lowered the volume on the speaker, yet another way to make the calling experience awful.

One safety I might address if I had any kind of activist streak in me is the fact that if you call 911 from one of those things the dispatcher has no idea where you are. The old payphones and their exact locations were included in the 911 databases. In fact one of those datasets was supplied to me and published to my website. But with Links you have to explain to the operator where you are because every single one sends out the same Caller ID. That was not the case in the earliest weeks of the program, when every single kiosk sent a unique 646 area code caller ID. I remember thinking I could continue the Payphone Project listings and provide useful content by doing what I did with the payphone listings but it was not to be.