LONESOME PHONE BANK

Imagine, amongst the hustle and bustle of Grand Central Terminal, a quiet spot, a lone solitary location where no one bothers you. With over two million visitors per year, GCT is one of the busiest places in NYC. Before the advent of cell phones there would have been constant lines at these pay phones. If these pay phones could only talk, imagine the stories they could tell of people patiently awaiting their turn to call home to report a missed train, to call the office to report a late train, or to arrange a secret rendezvous.
One can only imagine how many sweethearts were called during WWII as returning troops arrived New York return safely from the war in Europe. Imagine the star struck tourist from Idaho upon arriving in Grand Central placing a call to a friend back in Boise proclaiming the presence of Mercury, Hercules and Minerva overhead in New York’s magnificent palace.

In the 1930’s at 5:55 p.m. there may have been a last minute call home before boarding the famed Twentieth Century Limited scheduled to leave for Chicago at 6:00 p.m.


The sadness of the ignored phone booths remind me of the song:
Send in the Clowns from a Little Night Music. .... This is a theater reference meaning if the show isn't going well, "let's send in the clowns"; in other words, "let's do jokes, anything to get people’s attention."  But alas, the clowns don’t come and the pay phones sit abandoned.