As a bit of an Anglophile and an unrepentant nostalgic, I’ve been bummed in recent years to learn that the iconic red telephone box is fast disappearing from the British landscape. The culprit is, of course, advancing technology — who needs a public phone anymore when everyone is carrying a personal one in their pockets? American phone booths are an endangered species as well, but they don’t carry the same weight of cultural symbolism as their UK counterparts; I doubt anyone identifies an American-style booth with America itself, while, to many people around the world, the red phone box fairly shouts “Great Britain.”
One of the many highlights of my visit to England in 1993 — one of the experiences that drove home the fact that, yes, I was really there, in another country for the first time in my life — was encountering one of those familiar boxes I’d seen so many times in movies and television programs, seeing it standing there on the street fulfilling its function, not a tourist attraction but simply a part of somebody’s everyday life. The thought of them heading for the scrapheap of history brings an inevitable pang.
Fortunately, there are efforts afoot to save at least some of them. British Telecom (BT) has instituted an “adopt-a-kiosk” program that allows communities to buy the boxes for a nominal sum (all of one pound) and then use them for whatever purpose they wish. Some towns elect to keep them functional, with a working pay phone; others have turned them into “street art” or touristy photo spots. But the best idea I’ve run across yet was one small village’s inspired decision to repurpose their local phone box as a tiny lending library. As I understand it, it’s an informal, community-driven operation in which the residents donate books they have read and take ones they haven’t, so the inventory is constantly changing. (I guess it would actually be more accurate to call it a book exchange, rather than a library.) The box has room for about 100 books, as well as CDs and DVDs. The village now has a valuable community resource, the citizens are fully involved, and a little bit of history is still standing. And that’s what I call cool.
Wish this sort of thing happened more often here at home.
Credit where it’s due: I first read about this on Boing Boing. And there’s a more detailed article about the Adopt-a-Kiosk program here.
There are two of these booths standing in the downtown area of our suburb.
Yeah, we have a few around my area, too, mostly standing in front of antique shops and/or trendy boutiques. They’re cool to have around, but it’s a lot cooler to see them in their native environment, i.e., England…
I like the book exchange idea, too.
I myself would build a slightly off TARDIS. But I think you knew that.
Heh, yeah, actually I did know that, Steve.
But then I probably would too, for that matter. 🙂
Two thoughts:
1) If you’re going to repurpose them, I think they should either be wireless hotspots or actual (wired) internet & power connections, so someone can go into one, and plug in their phone to recharge and/or plug in their laptop to access the internet. That sounds like the modern equivalent of the phone booth to me…
2) I bet you see the British phone booth as more iconic than the American one because the American one died out sooner. Remember that scene in Superman, the Movie when Clark Kent needs to change into his cape & tights and is surprised to see a payphone at an open kiosk (without walls or a door?) At the time, it was one of the funniest scenes in the movie, because it spoke to the rapidly disappearing American phone booth (circa the late ’70s).
Brian, re: #1, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some communities are doing exactly what you suggest (recall that the communities that purchase a box are free to do whatever they want with the thing). From what I understand, mobile phone usage is much higher in the UK than here (which is mind-boggling, since everyone here seems to have one), so it stands to reason that wireless Internet access is a bigger deal as well.
Another interesting idea: I think I read in one of those articles that the boxes are used in some locations to provide privacy for cell-phone users; the box itself has no electronic equipment, it just provides a soundproof space with a door. That seems like a win-win: no one is eavesdropping on a conversation that isn’t any of their business, and no one has to listen to some guy yammering away on his phone.
Re #2, that’s a good point about full-size American phone booths starting to vanish much earlier (although out here in the sticks where I live, full-scale booths could still be found here and there until the mid-90s, and even now there are some isolated ones around; sometimes they even still have phones in them!). Still, I’m not sure that American-style phone booths were ever considered symbolic of this country, the way the red phone box is of Great Britain. Were there ever candy tins, cabinets, salt-and-pepper shakers, etc., shaped like American booths and sold to tourists? Perhaps there were, but I can’t recall ever encountering any…
Heh…I Googled “phonebooth salt and pepper shakers” and the first site that came up was the Superman Homepage, which said this:
“Superman and the phone booth have been immortalized in a range of merchandise such as statues, figurines, metal containers, posters, and even salt and pepper shakers.”
Funny…not so much an American icon, but more of a Superman icon. Then again, would the British booth be as famous were it not for Dr. Who?
That’s pretty funny about the salt-and-pepper shakers… I imagine the Superman mythos is probably the only reference point a lot of younger people have for old-fashioned phone booths these days.
As for the Doctor Who connection, I guess that might be a factor, but i really don’t think so. The TARDIS is a police box, not a phone box. Very different-looking thing, and not just because one is blue and one is red.