Say Your Final Goodbyes To Our Payphones

Following up on my April 10th article about the 8 payphones slated for removal in downtown Hudson, titled "He Failed.  It Took Me One Phone Call To Succeed," there was some welcome activity today on that front.  The worthless, graffiti and sticker covered phone stall on the sidewalk in front of City Hall on Warren Street was finally removed this morning.  An employee for the contractor working on ADA updates inside and in front of City Hall told me that "National Grid made sure it was good to remove," and the contractor chopped it off at the base.  In regard to this phone, it appears that the timing of my getting this ball rolling a few months ago was fortuitous. The phone had to go to make way for an ADA compliant wheelchair accessible parking space in front of 520 Warren, I believe.  The remaining 7 payphones look like they will be gone soon, too. 

I then happened upon two National Grid workers and a worker from the company which owns the 8 phones, PTS Providers, gathered around the old payphone in front of the County Courthouse on Union Street.  Today, National Grid and the PTS worker are in the process of making sure that the 8 phones are without electricity any longer so that the phones can be removed "safely and properly in a few weeks," according to the PTS worker.  This is exactly what I was told would happen when I spoke with the PTS Regional Manager months ago.

Good riddance?

This was not difficult to make happen.  However, DPW Superintendent Robert Perry, with a $114,000 salary, told us all years ago that it was difficult, if not impossible, to figure out who owned the phones so that they could finally be removed.  Mr. Perry and City Hall had little, if anything, to do with what is finally happening.

Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual to mourn (or celebrate) the passing of these relics, even if we have learned to live without them?  There is something to lament about a world without PUBLIC payphones, isn't there?