Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds light and variable.

A few weeks ago the New York Times took note of a huge cultural shift. It was the removal of the last phone booth in the city of New York. I dare say you would be hard pressed to find any kind of phone booth in any city or town now.

When I first got to New York in the early 70’s there were still phone booths like Clark Kent used to change into Super Man. Ask your grandparents if you need to understand this.

They lent the illusion of privacy and locked out the rain or snow. I think the dial phone still cost a dime to use. They slowly gave way to push buttons and the open phone stand and which offered little coverage and no privacy whatsoever but they took up less room and evolved into banks of phones from only 2 to many more in a line. The cost to use them evolved as well. My shoulders still ache from the need to carry a change purse filled with quarters to call my answering service and later my answering machine which I could beep into to retrieve my messages.

When I started living in New York and could barely afford to be there I first shared a flat with a friend of a friend. Paul allowed me to sleep on a cot in the living room until I got going a bit. I moved on to live in the fabled Rehearsal Club which only housed girls who were starting out in show biz of one avenue or another. I did not yet need an answering service because I had no agent nor any job. I got my first job while living at the Rehearsal Club and we girls were lucky enough to have a wonderful woman, Addie, who took care of answering the phone and the front door during the day. It was she who would post on a bulletin board any messages one might receive while out for the day, from boyfriends to auditions, to “call home”. Addie was our lifeline. At night we answered it ourselves by whoever was nearest.

Addie posted a message for my first Equity job-rather to call for news of my audition which landed me my first union job.

Once I was “started” it was essential to call in either to the Club or to an answering service to see if a call needed to be returned to an agent or casting agent. The phone both was our “office” on the street. All actors, back in the day, knew where to “good” booths were. This meant they were clean, private and had some level of grace.

Now you can explain to your children and grandchildren that there was a time, long, long ago when one could (if appropriately dressed) casually walk into Tiffany’s and head to the back right corner where TWO phone booths lived. You could sit down, it was quiet and it was a delight. One could, upon finishing the calls, go up to the Ladies or Gentlemen's restrooms which were pristine and gracious.

Many hotels had decent phone booths and lobbies that one could linger in but that was before a general clamp down on such things-well prior to 9/11 but certainly nonexistent now.

Even some diners in the city had an available phone on the wall.

But last month the last phone both was plucked from the streets of NYC and with it went a era of bumping into friends at the various booths, then the half shell booths.

Now we are on our cellphones constantly, It is no longer the actors who are always on a phone waiting for an audition. Nope, now all of us seem to be tethered to the palms of our hands whence the phone resides.

I felt a lump in my throat when I saw the picture of the last phone being lifted onto a truck because it sent me into a tailspin of nostalgia. Now people show up at Tiffany’s in shorts and tee-shirts and graciousness has left the building. Maybe it is better to have cellphones but now there is no backup plan if yours dies. The phone booth is gone.

What in the world will happen to Clark Kent?

Joyce Reehling lives in Pinehurst. She retired from New York after a 33-year career in theater, TV and commercials.

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