The end of the era when New York removes the last public payphone New York

This week New York removed its last public payphone, stopping the release of the relics of a more analog time.

On Monday, municipal officials removed the last city payphone located in the Midtown area. New York City began abandoning payphones in 2015 along with officials referring to need for digital innovation.

“As a native of New York, the farewell to the latest street payphone is bitter because of the prominent place they have occupied in the city’s physical landscape for decades,” said Matthew Fraser, commissioner of the New York Office of Technology and Innovation. in the statement.

“Just as we went from horse and buggy to car and from car to plane, digital evolution has gone from payphones to high-speed Wi-Fi kiosks to meet the needs of our rapidly changing daily communication needs.”

With more than 6,000 public payphones Once active throughout New York City, public phones have been constantly replaced by LinkNYC stands, a free-standing kiosk that provides Wi-Fi, a mobile charger, and free calls to extension phones for all users.

LinkNYC booths also function as digital billboards for advertising, art displays and public announcements.

Several private payphones remain in New York City, including four full-fledged phone booths known as “Superman Stands”although the city authorities are such not sure they work.

The last of the state payphones will not end up in the landfill. Instead, he will go to the New York City Museum, reported Gothamistto be part of an exhibition about what New York was like before the advent of computers.