At one point in time, people couldn’t just pull their phones out to see how their friends or family were doing. Those were the days when one had to deposit coins into a payphone, twirl the dial and wait for the line to connect before hearing that sweet voice at the other end of the line. To many especially college students of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, the ‘phone booth’ was not just a utility but a small quiet place of escape from the hustle and bustle of the college dorms.
Have you ever stood in front of the old college dorms and see these odd little niches with a light bulb above and sometimes a shelf where the telephone used to be? These were not just the forgotten niches; these were phone booths or phone niches which were once a vital component of social interaction in the campus. Students from all over the country flocked these booths and make important calls to their parents, report to their parents or talk to friends in the middle of the night. In an era when there was no such thing as a ‘cell phone’ these boxes were the only link with civilization.
This was the era of change for telecommunication industry, particularly in the 1960s and the 1970s. As some households started getting their private phones, the public payphones still played an important role especially in crowded places such as dormitories. Most of the students were from different parts of the country and their parents could only hear from them once in a while through a phone call. That is where these booths proved very useful. Some spaces are noisy and full of many people, for example, dormitories which are usually filled with numerous distractions. This was an advantage to students since they were able to make calls:=Having a small place to make the calls meant that the students were able to get some privacy even if it was for a few minutes.
Usually, these spaces were not big enough to fit a full door within it. Rather, they gave just enough room for you to come in, stand by the wall and make the call. It was possible to talk with someone without being an annoyance, or being bothered by people walking past the hallway. The little overhead light which is still seen in many cases was not just a functional addition. It was a time of the day when there was a brief relief from the rather intense schedule of a student’s life.
Thus, during the late 1990s and the early 2000, the simple phone booth was no longer seen in dorms as people started using their cellular phones. It went from being a community’s affair where people would go to the phone booth with their spare money to a more personal practice. Suddenly, everyone had their own personal phone in their pocket and within no time the use of payphones reduced drastically.
However, in its prime, the phone booth was not only a device for making telephone calls, it was something of a symbol as well. It was a reflection of the time when technology and communication was more structured and one had to make an effort to get in touch with someone. You could not just send a text or leave a voice message as you can do today. It meant that you get up, go to the booth, queue for your turn and if you were privileged you got to speak to someone one on one.
These are still present even if the booths are long gone as a nod to the past and to a time where people took more time to get their news. They make us recall the changes that have taken place and how rapidly they happened. The short telephonic communication that people had especially with their families now seems to be a luxury that people of today’s generation do not really appreciate. It was interaction, and although it was mostly joyful, it was the kind of joy which comes from speaking with friends and family after weeks of being separated. The feeling of waiting for your turn, the fact that you only had some time (as the coins would run out eventually!) and the rather quiet, muffled conversations that you could hear all around you – we all remember it fondly.
Still, it is possible to experience certain flashbacks, for instance, when one is walking near an old phone booth in a dormitory. You can almost feel the metallic touch of the payphone and can visualise the spinning of the dial and the wait for the ringing on the other end. It was slower though, but it was intimate, and those phone booths whether they had a door or not were like a private passage to the outside from the insulated dormitory.
When we turn our eyes to these cute corner spaces, we can’t help but feel some longing. Yes, we have the convenience of today and the means of communication is very fast but there is something appealing with these old phone booths. They were part of a larger change in how we interacted with each other, it was part of a continuing process of evolution in the way that we communicated with one another. However, they are now no longer relevant and do not apply, their existence in our dormitories to this day is a kind of an indication of the fact that the world was once a bit slower and more patient.
The next time you will be walking by one of these small niches, do not just notice it as an outdated structure, but consider it as a relic of the age when making a call was a big event. A time when light from above the booth used to fall on students dialing their way back home, with anticipation to hear a familiar voice at the other end of the line. It is a beautiful piece of history and one that should surely not be forgotten.
