Love the article and the resurrection of the red phone boxes.
I have photographed them when visiting London---- near the V&A on the sidewalk next to Brompton Road - juxtaposed with a big red London bus- ---; a line of them in front of a black iron gate and church near the University of London - one with a torn sticker that said in part "Shut it down"-; and more.
But, one of my favorites is the one I photographed of the import on the Main Line of Philadelphia next to and framing gorgeous flowers in full bloom in just the right colors to compliment the call box. The latter stood outside an antique store but the proprietor sold it...who knows where it stands now. I miss seeing it.
Keep the old with renewed purpose is just a good lesson.
How brilliant! I like this new/old innovation of British phone box restoration and re-purposing for so many reasons!
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After spending three HOURS getting a new ($30) iPhone battery, I suggest making them iKiosks. Plug in a dead phone and if the problem is just needing a new battery, get one from the vending machine inside the booth... plus instructions for installing it.
Or, make them an electric car charging station ...
Or rent a few minutes of silence by shutting the door ...
How about a WiFi routers so the public can move around connected?
To manage change, you have to embrace it. When one problem solves another, life gets even more fantastic!
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I left the USA when I was 33 and moved to London in 1985. The red boxes were ubiquitous, but soon replaced by the shelf and roof desgins, and then slowly all disappearing under Apple's assault on modern life. It's nice to see them repurposed so lovingly.
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Is there anyone who has visited London and *NOT* had his/her picture taken next to or inside of one of these cultural icons? Nah, didn’t think so. This phone box repurposing is the best news I’ve heard all week.
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And how about some blue Police phone boxes?
A TARDIS for a Time Lord.
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"....Britain has a penchant for conserving its heritage, of course. .."
How true indeed.
I spent 6 glorious months last year living in London and touring this beautiful country with all the heritage.
I was particularly touched by Brits having well preserved Benjamin Franklin "home" (really a boarding house at that time) in central London. They offer tours, hold seminars on a person otherwise would have been hung in effigy at least.
As a matter of fact, just about every little village has a "hisotry" tour - which led me to remark that you feel past is here and in your face.
So, this phone box revival is just one example.
Here is a tip, skip all royal palaces and stately homes - just walk around any village or a big town like Bath or Bristol - and you are looking at history preserved better than that tv channel could ever do.
One curiosity about these phone boxes.
I wish the writer had told us the "font" of "TELEPHONE" - it is so distinctive that without it, this would be just a red box.
I know Brits would immediately tell us details of this font and it's origin.
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Now if only the blue police box could make a comeback.
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What fun!
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The Little Free Library program and refurbished phone boxes are a perfect match for one another! I’d love a classic red British phone booth in front of my house; I bet that would be far more memorable than the standard FLL wooden box!!
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I've had coffee from the one pictured in Hampstead! :) It's on Roslyn Hill and the coffee is excellent.
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An excellent article. My small village has converted both its phone boxes to house defibrillators, although we repainted them green to indicate a change of use. Recycling old buildings is something of a national hobby over here. When I get off the bus in Worcester, I see a brewery convetred to a nightclub, a theatre turned into a restaurant, a market hall into another restuarant, and a church into offices for local charities.
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The phone booths could also be used to provide a quiet space where you can duck in quickly for an important on your cell phone.
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"Defib" such an excellent idea where med help is slow to arrive as the article states. Nice to read good news!
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There is a lovely red restored K6 model in the Newport Green waterfront park in Jersey City, NJ enjoying its new life as a token booth for the children's carousel.
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En route from Kirkby-in-Furness to Keswick in 2013, we stopped for lunch at a roadhouse where the red phone box had been transformed into an aquarium with a couple of good-sized goldfish swimming in it.
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Try making a cell phone call at rush hour in Central London and you will welcome the refuge K2 offers.
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I would love to own one. I would clean it up and covert it to a salt water fish tank. It would look so cool with tropical fish swimming inside.
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If someone would just put a telephone in some of them I wouldn't have to carry a charger cable with me everywhere I go.
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On several trips to London in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most of those phone booths were plastered all over with fliers and cards for sex-related businesses. Let's hope they can keep them cleaner this time around.
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This article brought back memories of my first trip to London as a teenager. Good thing they have too many windows to become port-o-potties. They deserve a more respectful fate.
If I was able to acquire one I'd retool it into a tiny greenhouse.
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Maybe if America brought theirs back as well, we’d finally get the Superman we seek.
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Perhaps a distinctly British coral reef off the Caymans - doubling as secure lines for discussing secret offshore accounts and other covert affairs...
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What a super idea. This is a huge part of England's brand. Keepin it alive. Like the double decker busses and castles.
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Brilliant! Wonderful to see them back & in imaginative new uses.
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How delightful! I love watching how historical objects can be refashioned for the modern world.
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Not a single word or comment about Dr. Who and the TARDIS? Are we forgetting ---the stories, that grinding noise at the end of many episodes...….
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You want one of the blue boxes. There was one on Buchanan St in Glasgow for decades. And I was a Doctor fan since 1963. At one point I think it was converted to something like a coffee kiosk.
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I saw one converted as a shower years ago! I'd love one too. People are creative.
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Former urinals now selling as Empire Chic. Tenements, slums, workhouses and dead natives not included.
Going cheap: one former world power. Slap a price tag on it and sell it off! Steel industry? All yours, India. Nuclear power stations? Thank you, China. Downton Abbey box sets? Would you like that gift-wrapped, Mr USA? Pride? Certainly, Saudi Arabia. Palace guards will dance for small change, regal handshakes for a £100 fee. Free ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster when you spend over £20.
How do I get one?
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As a British Voice Over Artist, living and working in the US, I’ve been using the red telephone box for several years in my logo and branding. People tell me it makes me memorable. I know posting links is frowned upon, but search for “mike cooper voiceover callbox guy ” if you’d like to see what my designer did. I think she did some cool stuff.
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400 a month in rent. But given some of the photos it seems like the privatization of the commons. Anyone care to see a park cluttered with these "kiosks?"
Put a grow light in there and convert the thing to a miniature grow house. You'd be surprised how much lettuce, or ganja, could be grown hydroponically in such a small space.
Pruitt might want one of those soundproofed for his EPA office!
I'm trying to picture dragging someone in cardiac arrest over to that phone booth. Defibrillators are supposed to be small and portable. If it's in fact portable what's to stop a thief from poaching one and selling it on the black market?
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I’ve always wanted one. So if anyone wants to give me one, send it to my longitude/latitude.
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Phones?
How can you take a selfie with one of these things?
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Reflection off the glass?
I want one!
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We have become such a disposable/throwaway society - it's great to see a country that finds new uses for old things. Reuse, Renew, Recycle - restore....
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And repurpose!
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One really doesn’t know how good something was until someone else convinces them to throw it away. Who needs enemies with so-called friends like that?
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I have one in my home,it houses an Art Deco toilet.
Marvelous to spend a penny or two in a British Institution.
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This is an improvement; the ones I used in London in the 1908s served the same purpose but lacked indoor plumbing.
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What in 1908 did? Anything without a quarter moon on the door is a huge improvement.
Oops, typo, I meant 1980s.
And why not as a public phone booth???
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Because nobody nowadays could get the concept that your personal phone call is not meant to be heard by everyone within your shouting distances,
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Can't wait to see the new versions on Dr. Who.
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We even have a few of these phoneboxes on the UC Davis campus, along with 2 old red London double-decker buses that are part of the student run campus and city transportation service.
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Just goes to show how function in design is definitely not everything - this is a classic!
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In Great Britain many old things are coming back even the idea that they are still a powerful Commonwealth reigning the world.
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One of my neighbors used one panel as a trellis in the garden. Great recycling!
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When I Lived in South London in the 70’s, the phone booths seemed to double as pissoirs,especially on weekends. Making my weekly call home to the states was often a breathtaking experience. Dress ‘em up as swanked up port a potties...
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Multitasking when calling for a taxi home from the pub.
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I truly adore this. But they should paint a couple of them blue, as they are much larger on the inside.
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That was a police box which is already blue and no windows, not a phone box.
These things are prevalent enough here in the NY suburbs that they’re almost a cliche for anything calling itself a pub. For those who would like one, it appears that quantities have been imported and restored. Check with the purveyors of restoration bits and pieces. Be advised that some towns, like mine, may call these things ‘structures’ and possibly require a permit. Scrapyard treasures that ignite sudden desires, can often be transported at low cost using tow services. Their tilt-bed trucks can load from ground level very easily. For do-it-yourself restorations on things like this, you may find a local sandblaster who will save you tons of work.
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My thought is that they might make great little libraries that I see around my city. I keep hoping to put one together for my neghborhood - wouldn't be able to use a phone booth, of course.
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There's a lovely little children's library in our town that's in a hollow tree stump.
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Good Afternoon: Recycling done right! Might have missed this in the text, but does there exist some sort of guide listing where visitors could find these booths?
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Good question. Visit Britain, opportunity is knocking.
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Another reason why, There Will Always Be An England!
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It was always a thing to try and get as many people into the phone box as possible. this activity usually happened on the way home from the pub. Don't recall the number achieved but the door had to be shut.
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Here in my North Rockland community an Irish Pub has installed one of these iconic phone booths outside along the path leading to the entrance. It adds a nice touch and causes me to harken back to my London visits of years past.
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No one does cool like the British.
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If you can wait long enough it will come back. Just like clothes. I can't believe how many of my cloths are back in style. Never let the good ones go. Yea for the telly booths.
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Telly is Television or the Goggle Box in UK parlance. However, directions to a Dog & Bone would get you to a phone box in some parts of London.
What a wonderful idea! I love the fact that they are being repurposed in so many different ways.
I'd love to have a copy of the photo of the phone booth made into a community library and the one that was painted like it was in a garden....
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My bucket list is to own a traditional red phone booth and a red mail box. That’s it. Now all I have to do is too figure how to pay for them and have them shipped to me. The iconic phone and mail boxes, along with the London cab conjure up fond memories of time spend in England.
8
now, also, if you can figure out how to pay for a London cab and have it shipped to you...
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I can't wait for a blue phone box to make its comeback to my TV.
When does the new season of Dr. Who hit America?
2
The next thing is to bring back fish 'n chips wrapped in yesterday's newspaper instead of the hygienic wax paper that replaced it.
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At least in Glasgow the fish and chips were wrapped in white paper, before being wrapped in the newspaper to keep in the heat. And the newpapers came straight from the press.
YES!! No wonder I love the Brits!
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When they are restored, do they come with the original posted rogue advertising cards for ‘modelling services’, ‘conversational French with young ladies’, and ‘massages?
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This is brilliant and lovely. How awful to consign things that were built to last to the scrap heap. I am so glad somebody had the foresight to rescue them and others have the imagination to repurpose them. Heck, even if they stood merely as statues on street corners, they'd be lovely :) wish i could ship one to the states! I'd surprise my British husband with it!
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There are some painted pink at the Dockyard in Bermuda.
5
A crime. Post Office Red.
Luckett Vineyards, near Wolfville, Nova Scotia has a red booth out in one of the vineyards. Just decorative but very charming.
1
I´d rather prefer them to leave them functioning as what they were design for:
that is public telephones, not private businesses
4
And that would mean that the Mews were left for the horses. Rather that very pricey town homes.
Wonderful, repurposing older things with imagination. Honey, don't throw out that......!
8
Wow! Some good news for a change. I spent many an hour in the U.S. version in my youth. For you youngsters: We used to actually talk to girls on the phone.
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Brilliant!
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First, I want one! Not sure what I need or would use it for, but it would look great in my yard.
Second, for those asking why no Tardis, that's because the Tardis is Blue Police Box, not a public phone booth.
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Even so, they do seem to be larger on the inside than on the outside.
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"Not sure what I need or would use it for ..."
It's perfect for a small garden shed to store tools and the like. You could even have a (very) small work bench installed for potting, etc.
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I would make a little tool shed!
2
Fabulous photos, as usual for the NY Times. Thanks for a great article!
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I had one shipped over to NJ, maybe eight years ago. It arrived balanced sideways on a palllet. They are cast iron, and don't have a floor, but weigh close to a ton. It required a fork lift to move it. It took a good half hour for an experienced plumber to drill a hole in the back, for making it into an outdoor shower by the pool. Mounted on a concrete slab, I used gravel and a piece of bluestone for the floor, allowing water to pass through easily.
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For the first time - I wish the comments section came with photos!
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Photo please! :-)
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BT ought to ship a batch of them over here. They could easily sell as many as they liked, and for a lot more than a pound.
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I'd love one! What a great shelter for rural kids waiting for their school bus! Probably cost prohibitive to ship it though.
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Loved that article, thank you. It's great to see them being put to such creative uses.
They say that the senses of smell and memory are closely linked. I grew up in London but left nearly forty years ago, and I can now bear that out. What immediately came to mind when I saw the lead photo were the acrid, pungent odors of tobacco smoke and urine that were pretty much the norm in the Seventies. Thanks, NY Times!
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Same!!!!
1
What, none of them says TARDIS?
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That is for a blue police box. :)
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We Americans could take a page out of the Brits’ playbook when it comes to preserving historic, wholly Americana.
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Check out the Art-o-mat. A very clever artist in North Carolina recycles cigarette vending machines. I've gotten some wonderful art (for $5). There are two Art-o-mats in Boston. Others are all over the country, and even abroad.
http://www.artomat.org/
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Amys, thanks for the tip.
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Thank you for this information!
1
Why has this article not mentioned the British phone box most famous reincarnation, Dr.Who s TARDIS?
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Because that TARDIS appears as a blue police box (with public call telephone), not a red telephone box.
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Not to mention one of the secret entrances to the Ministry of Magic.
1
How can I buy one? Would LOVE to have one *if I can afford it!
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A nicely restored phone booth like this would undoubtedly have been a better idea than E.P.A. Chief Scott Pruitt's $43,000 phone booth.
It would be more environmentally friendly as well.
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And more respectable! ;-)
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He’s unworthy of such beauty.
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"....their country’s past power and glory — stately homes, the monarchy … and red phone boxes."
That power and glory began to fall apart after the Second World War.
Make a call from one of these boxes in the 1960s was about as reliable as mailing a letter from Italy. Both continued going down hill. I'm glad they've turned them into artisan coffee dispensers, even though most Londoners don't live in Hampstead.
But this might inspire the Italians to do the same with their post office.
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I used these when I lived in England during the late '60s and early '70s and they worked fine.
2
The Pusser's Store on Marina Cay, in the British Virgin Islands ,had a red phone booth on their dock. Quite a landmark.It was swept away during the hurricanes last fall. It was recently discovered in the water close to the island. As it weighs 1500 pounds, plans are still being developed to bring it to the surface.
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