What a subway payphone looked like in 1932

Remember subway payphones? If any still exist today, I can’t imagine they get much use—or that they actually work. Back before mobile phones, of course, they served their purpose.

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The first public telephones appeared in New York City subway stations in 1911, according to Time magazine. What that contraption looked like I wish I knew.

But you can get something of an idea of it by looking at this 1932 photo of a payphone inside something of a phone booth at the former IND station on St. Nicholas Avenue and 155th Street.

[Photo: MCNY X2010.7.2.5359]