Philadelphia, a city of two million, has a fair share of payphones on its city streets, at least in the Center City area I visited a few weeks ago. In the photo essay at the end of this story I share 43 up close photos from Philadelphia’s Center City payphones, which range in condition from fully functional to utterly abused and abandoned. A majority of abandoned phones appear to have been left by Verizon, though several anonymously empty payphone enclosures could have been left behind by other payphone service providers.

Most of the curbside and building line payphones I saw were owned by Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS), the California based company that acquired payphone assets from the likes of Verizon, AT&T, and other larger telcos that abandoned payphones altogether several years ago. PTS is now the largest payphone service provider in the United States.

PTS acquired a lot of Verizon’s payphone assets but not all of them. A functional PTS payphone frequently stands next to an abandoned Verizon phone, such as this one at the corner of Market and 13^th Streets.

Verizon branded payphones such as this abandoned wreck of a phone litter the corner of Market and 9^th Streets.

NewTel Payphone Operations, the New York City based company that owned several of the public telephones I spotted in Atlantic City last year also owns a fair number of Philadelphia’s outdoor payphones. NewTel’s phones are garishly blanketed with stickered notices encouraging passers-by to use their phones to call toll free numbers. The reason for this is that “toll free” calls are not really toll free. Calls made from payphones to toll free numbers earn the payphone operator roughly 50¢ in what is called “dialaround compensation,” a fee which is mandated by the FCC. So if you want to help out your local payphone service provider without spending a nickel of your own money you can try dialing one of the toll-free numbers that appears on payphones like these. Of course you might not have much luck these days, since many companies which own toll-free numbers have blocked calls that originate from payphones.

Two payphone companies which were new to me include Quarter Call and Vail Communications. I spotted one phone owned by Quarter Call outside an Xpress Food Mart on 8th Street. I was not especially surprised when, moments after spotting this payphone, an individual walked up to it and deposited a quarter to make a call. Contrary to conventional wisdom people still use payphones.

I spotted another woman the next day using a PTS payphone on Market Street. I commonly see people using payphones in New York City and was interested to see if the same would be true in Philadelphia.

Vail Communications, based in Oreland, PA, appears to be a family-run operation. Like most payphone service providers Vail Communication has no Internet web presence of which to speak.

There probably used to be a payphone where Patco Call-For-Aid Stations stand today. This one was spotted at the Juniper/Locust station in Center City. Phones like this do not exist in New York City’s subways, but “Call For Help” buttons which activate intercom systems would appear to fill the need for access to emergency services for those without a cell phone or in a station with no wireless signal.

Click through the photo essay below to see more detailed pictures of Philadelphia’s Center City payphones.

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