Wednesday Writing & #ThursdayDoors: Phonebooths — & Real Steampunkery Tech

Posted on by Teagan Riordain Geneviene
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Call-me-Fred at Unsplash
Hello, all. I hope you’ve had a great week so far.  Autumn weather has finally come to my neck of the woods, and it is more than welcome.  Although it only just arrived, so the leaves on my big mulberry tree haven’t started turning to gold yet. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that worthwhile writing doesn’t have to be fiction, despite the fact that my heart is with fiction. My nonfiction “Author Tool Chest” collection began as something basically therapeutic. During the past couple of years, I’ve become more dedicated to it.
Granted, it was a prolonged nightmare when Amazon’s KDP essentially suppressed the paperback of Real Steampunkery Tech: True Contraptions of the Steam and Diesel Eras, I was so exhausted from dealing with them that I never formally announced or promoted the book. So, the “writing” aspect of this post is a warning that perseverance is an essential component of writing. I’ve missed participating in Thursday Doors.  So, I’m doing a dual-purpose post.  I’m starting with the “twofer” image at the top of this post — a bus door and a phone box door!  What a great find. Thank you, “Fred” whoever and wherever you are.  This post ties to that latest nonfiction book.  It’s a reference book that mostly focuses on quirky inventions and their inventors. I avoided anything well known.  However, some of the information I had previously amassed on the telephone was quirky enough that I included it.

Phonebooth Doors

US telephone booth La Crescent MN 2012 Wikipedia
US telephone booth La Crescent MN 2012, Wikipedia
Does anyone remember that inevitably dirty metal frame, and the way the doors resisted and screeched?  The tattered phonebook hanging from a chain — if you were lucky enough that the book was actually still there.  Ages ago I worked for a company who made payphones.  They were constantly targeted by vandals.
Public telephone room, Miami Florida, 1925 Wikipedia
Sometimes the phonebooths were inside hotels or other public places.  They were usually located against a wall, with several booths.  Sometimes the individual stalls had doors for privacy, sometimes not.

Here’s a snippet from my book related to telephone booths.

Telephone booths or payphones.  These tiny structures were furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user’s convenience.  They had a door to provide privacy, and windows to let others know if the booth was in use.  Typically the user stepped into the booth and closed its door while using the payphone inside.  Some were inside public places with several along a wall.  Others were set up outside.
Hull K6 white payphone UK 2006, Wikipedia
The first telephone box was opened in 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.  One had to buy paper tickets called which allowed for a few minutes of talking time.  William Gray is credited with inventing the coin payphone in the United States in 1889 with developer George A. Long.  The first telephone booth in London, England was installed in May 1903.

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Some booths were nicer than others, like the one below. Although the phones are long gone from this one in the Marin County Courthouse in San Francisco.  Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building, so one would expect all the details to be nice.
Peter Hartlaub, The Chronicle
I encountered one very unexpected phonebooth.  All the calls from this one are one-way. It’s a “wind phone.”  Wikipedia describes it as unconnected telephone booth in Ōtsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, where visitors can hold one-way conversations with deceased loved ones. Initially created by garden designer Itaru Sasaki in 2010 to help him cope with his cousin’s death, it was opened to the public in the following year after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami killed over 15,000 people in the Tōhoku region. The wind phone has since received over 30,000 visitors. A number of replicas have been constructed around the world, and it has served as the inspiration for several novels and films.
Wind phone in Ōtsuchi Japan 2018 Wikipedia
Wind phone in Ōtsuchi, Japan 2018, Wikipedia

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Thanks for opening this door.  Friendly comments are encouraged.  Hugs!

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I must include the obligatory shameless self-promotion.

Real Steampunkery Tech: True Contraptions of the Steam and Diesel Eras

No. 1 New Release “Real Steampunkery Tech” 09-18-2024

(Immediately after that “No. 1 New Release” of the e-book, the trouble with the paperback ensued…)

Universal Purchase Links

This is a link to everything in my Author Tool Chest series. E-book:  relinks.me/B0DHC6JFVT Paperback:  relinks.me/B0DHD9BSJB

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Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. It’s hosted by Dan Antion.  Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

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No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

All images are either the property of the author, or used with permission, or from free sources.

Copyright © 2024 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

All rights reserved.

69 thoughts on “Wednesday Writing & #ThursdayDoors: Phonebooths — & Real Steampunkery Tech”

  1. I like the classic photo of Nikola Tesla… quirky inventor, indeed! His impact has been so under-appreciated, unfortunately. And a lovely collection of phone booths. It’s hard to believe how they are now but a connection to the past.

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  2. I really enjoyed the history of the phone booth and the booth in Japan is such a wonderful and novel idea to help others deal with their grief. Phone booths in Hong Kong are all but gone, but they were being used as hotspots for free wifi when we were there a couple of years ago. I’m sure they will be gone all together soon. What a lovely post, Teagan.

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  3. I LOVE your trailer for this book. I find phone booths fascinating, although they are getting harder to find. When I visited an old building in Spain, that used to be a monastery, the confessionals had been turned into phone booths!

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    1. Hi, Darlene. That’s funny about the monastery. Thanks about the trailer. I wanted to find music reminiscent of the theme of the Murdoch Mysteries TV show theme, but I didn’t find anything even close that was available to me. I appreciate the feedback that the video works. Thanks for opening this door. Big hugs.

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  6. I love that wind phone! I may set up one of my own. I used to stay at a fancy hotel one weekend a year for a mystery convention held there; they still had their phone booths so patrons could have privacy for cell phone calls. Isn’t that brilliant??

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    1. That would be a fun thing to have, Marian.
      That was a great way to repurpose phonebooths. I ran across a company (a “cubicle farm” office) where they had made phonebooth-like things for workers to be able to take/make a cell phone call privately. However, those weren’t pleasing to look at, and the door was hard to see. So I didn’t use it here. Thanks for opening this door. Hugs.

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  7. What a wonderful idea the windphone is.
    We still have a few working phone booths in the city. My daughter has one outside her building. But they have removed most of them to put in things you can plug your phone into. I’m not sure how they work, I’ve never tried one.
    I’m glad you finally got your book published! congrats. (K)

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  8. Terrific post, Teagan.

    Congrats on the book… or should I say finally being able to promote it!

    Love the whole phone booth thing, dangling book and all. The older ones are so cool in design.

    However, the wind phone is a gem. We need some in Toronto!

    Hugs!

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    1. The wind phone is such a charming idea, Resa. As a kid, I was just fascinated by the idea of phonebooths. Even the ugly, dirty, dinted steel ones in my area. The beautiful ones from the 1920s and before are even more interesting to me, because of the contrast to the ones I knew. Thanks for opening this door. Hugs.

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  12. Hi Teagan, the wind phone is a very novel idea. I don’t know if the concept would work for me. I think writing would be easier for me. I struggled with the print version of my latest book too. Amazon has changed its rules. It think it’s for the better but it did challenge me.

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  13. This is such a nostalgic post, Teagan. Of course, we live in the world of smartphones and WhatsApp, but sometimes I and Sarah miss the old days. I remember me visiting my father’s shop (he ran …uh…not sure what to say…a convenience store? I suppose). The one where you get toothpaste, soaps, chocolates, and all those mix bag items. I would climb up the chair and put my tiny finger into that “zero” hole and just dial it because zero would take the longest time to get back to its place. You get what I’m trying to say.

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    1. Haha. Thanks for sharing this delightful story, Sharukh. I can easily imagine child-you climbing around and dialing that phone. When I was in my “tweens” and teens, radio stations had call-in contests. If you were caller number ___, you won a prize. At first nearly everyone in my rural area had rotary dial phones (like you described). We used to try and force the dial back around, to make it go faster. They were so slow that you had to guess when the DJ was going to issue the invitation to “call now”, so that you could start dialing before they said to call. It was the only to have a chance at being quick enough. LOL. And no, I never won anything. Thanks for opening this door. Hugs.

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      1. I was a contest-freak during my childhood days. I would participate in Coca Cola contest, Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate contest, Nestle products, 7-Up contest and whatnot. I’ve won plenty of times. Before I met Sarah, I also won an Airtel sim card contest and my prize was a Couple Holiday Package in Goa, but I had to bring in my wife to collect the prize. I was single then, so I asked my colleague to act the part and she can take the prize, but she was single as well. However, she came and was so good at pretending that all I had to do was sign and get out with the voucher. Eventually, I gave the voucher to one of my friend’s brother who had a girlfriend. They both enjoyed the stay for 3 days.

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  15. A very informative post, Teagan. I spent most of my working life in phone booths at hotels, airports and even on the street. It was the only way to stay in touch or to provide the bosses with updates. My first cell phone was in 1991 and that changed things forever. I did spend some time supporting the payphone group at Pacific Bell (Before AT&T takeover) I remember asking someone what a gorilla cord was. It’s the handset cord attached to the payphone in prisons. It was resistant to being torn off the phone and shorter so it could not be used as a weapon. Funny what your post reminded me. Thanks and hugs.

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    1. Small World Syndrome reminded you. John, that’s around the time I was working for the little payphone company. They were doing work for part of Pacific Bell, across the country in TX. For a while I had the dubious distinction of being the recorded voice on Texas prison payphones. Haha.

      Many thanks for commenting. Hugs.

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  16. Old phone booths are cool. I don’t know if there is a single phone boot left in Albuquerque. “Real Steampunkery Tech” is a really fun book.

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  17. I love the British iconic Red Phone booths, and the big red double decker buses. It’s really fun to ride one on top in the front seat. My other favorite phone booth is Dr. Who’s Tardis, now I’m adding that lovely white one in the garden too. 🤗

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  18. I regularly used phone booths as a teen and didn’t think anything about it. Now as an adult I think about all the germs on those phones, lol. They didn’t look anything like some of the nicer ones in your pics. Hugs to you and the Scoobies, Teagan!

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    1. Haha! The idea does have a big eeeewww-factor now, Teri. When I was about 12, we collected the numbers of several payphones across town. We’d call them and if another kid answered we’d talk with that random kid. Hugs back to you and Bond.

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  19. I love the idea of the “wind phone.” I can understand why so many people have visited it, as a conduit for talking to lost loved ones. Also, congrats on “Real Steampunkery Tech” becoming a #1 new release. Very cool!

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  22. What a gorgeous post, Teagan. I love the video and phone booths are wonderful, even if there are very few left. Some are put to good use (to house defibrillators or mini-libraries), and some people collect them, it seems. I love the idea of the wind phone as well. Thanks for sharing this, and I look forward to reading your book. Big hugs.

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  23. I love the video, Teagan! I also love the book. I know how hard it was for you to get the paperback copy out the door. I’m glad you kept at it. This is a book that deserves to be flipped through. I hope you have great success with it.

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    1. I always thought your red telephone boxes were the coolest things. Well, except for Dr. Who’s TARDIS. 🙂 I realize that some places here had pretty ones in the 20s and 30s, but the only kind I ever saw were dirty, dinted, metal things. Thanks for opening this door. Hugs.

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  28. ab ; solutely fascinating;I’ve loved telephone booths ever since the first Superman used them as his quick change room where he could switch back and forth to Clarrk Kent; I’ve written a few telephone booth poems

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