amb@ai.mit.edu (10/11/90)
A point to consider: C&P Tel and New York Tel (Bell SOP?) put
nasty yellow stickers over the coin slot of non-working phones,
although most can still call 911; they at least would seem to deem the
911 thing a non-problem. And here's something else for you COCOT/911
obsessionists: A COCOT that I've always had a particularly hostile
relationship with (closest public phone to my house by about 0.5
miles) apparently offered absolutely no way of reaching a real
carrier. Until one day I needed to call 911 from it, which connected
me to a New York Telephone operator. Go figure.
[And a digression on the state of public telephones in New York.]
The usual cause of out-of-order Bell phones, at least around
here, is that the digestive tract of the phones, for some scam or
another, is non-functional. The new model that NY Tel uses can be
enabled to lock up the coin slot when the coin return knob is turned;
I believe that they can and will do this *remotely* if someone reports
problems, as I've seen many a phone with the metal bar blocking the
coin path which sprouted a yellow sticker a few days later. (On a few
occasions I've turned the coin return knob, which brings out the metal
shield, and heard a metallic *chonk* from the guts of the phone,
whereupon it stayed shut.) The coin phones in Grand Central station
were at one point being disabled on an almost daily basis for various
scams involving getting clueless commuters to drop their cash in a
dead phone and then using some special technique to get it out.
Luckily, New York City has an *incredible* number of NY Tel public
phones. They quote the approximate population somewhere in their ads
but I've missed it -- everything from the latest AT&T models to old
(WECo?) three slot models. (Well, I found one in the basement of a very
old building, in perfect working order with the latest info pacards.))
Manhattan -- a few COCOTS per block, a few Bell phones per square
yard. (Most COCOTS, actually, seem to get destroyed very fast. The
same is somewhat true of the Bell phones, but repair service is
great.)