It’s a tale as old as the human race itself. New technologies making old technologies obsolete.
The rise and then democratization of mobile phones slowly and then rapidly made the traditional public phone obsolete. Now in LA, it is rare, but not impossible, to find someone without a mobile phone. According to the Pew Research Center, 98% of American adults say they have a mobile phone, and even a significant percentage of the Americans experiencing homelessness have mobile phones.
Given these numbers, it is no surprise that traditional public pay phone use has declined precipitously over the past 2 decades. From 1999 to 2025, the number of public pay phones in operation in the US declined from over 2 million in 1999 to about 100,000 today. A decline of 95%.
The question is: What happens to the 1,900,000 pay phones that are no longer in operation? May were removed and disposed of or recycled by the company responsible for the service. But some were not. Except in high use areas like airports or major public transit stations, phone companies that maintained the network have stopped repairing or replacing public phones as they break down or are vandalized. Many public phones that stop working are seemingly abandoned by the phone company because of the cost of repairing, replacing, or just removing and recycling the phones.
Even these phones are disappearing now. Mostly being removed when property owners repair or update the area of building the phone is attached to.
Cel phone changed how we communicate, leaving how we used to communicate in the dust. However, there is no cel phone equivalent to the satisfaction one got when slamming down the receiver on someone after or during a bad conversation.
This is a gallery of images of those phones taken over the past 10 years.
The rise and then democratization of mobile phones slowly and then rapidly made the traditional public phone obsolete. Now in LA, it is rare, but not impossible, to find someone without a mobile phone. According to the Pew Research Center, 98% of American adults say they have a mobile phone, and even a significant percentage of the Americans experiencing homelessness have mobile phones.
Given these numbers, it is no surprise that traditional public pay phone use has declined precipitously over the past 2 decades. From 1999 to 2025, the number of public pay phones in operation in the US declined from over 2 million in 1999 to about 100,000 today. A decline of 95%.
The question is: What happens to the 1,900,000 pay phones that are no longer in operation? May were removed and disposed of or recycled by the company responsible for the service. But some were not. Except in high use areas like airports or major public transit stations, phone companies that maintained the network have stopped repairing or replacing public phones as they break down or are vandalized. Many public phones that stop working are seemingly abandoned by the phone company because of the cost of repairing, replacing, or just removing and recycling the phones.
Even these phones are disappearing now. Mostly being removed when property owners repair or update the area of building the phone is attached to.
Cel phone changed how we communicate, leaving how we used to communicate in the dust. However, there is no cel phone equivalent to the satisfaction one got when slamming down the receiver on someone after or during a bad conversation.
This is a gallery of images of those phones taken over the past 10 years.
Public Phone #1, 2016
Public Phone #2, 2019
Public Phone #3, 2016
Public Phone #16, 2019
Public Phone With Mural Art, 2020
Public Phone #4, 2020
Public Phone #5, 2015
Public Phone #9, 2019
Public Phone #6, 2025
Public Phone #7, 2025
Public Phone #8, 2016
Public Phone #10, 2019
Public Phone #11
Public Phone #12, 2019
Public Phone #13, 2019
Public Phone #17, 2019
Public Phone booth, 2024
Public Phone #14, 2020
Pair of Public Phones, 2019
Graffitied Public Phone Booth, 2019
© Photography By Michael Burnham