{"id":16564,"date":"2025-11-15T22:19:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/?p=16564"},"modified":"2025-11-15T22:19:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:19:51","slug":"these-were-our-cell-phones-back-then-large-heavy-and-bolted-down-you-didnt-have-to-carry-them-around-they-simply-waited-on-the-nearest-street-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/?p=16564","title":{"rendered":"These were our &#8220;cell phones&#8221; back then: large, heavy, and bolted down. You didn&#8217;t have to carry them around\u2014they simply waited on the nearest street corner."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is a wonderful and very apt description of the telephone booth (or payphone)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They truly were the &#8220;cell phones&#8221; of their time, with these unique characteristics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Large and Heavy: Many of the early models, like the classic yellow telephone booths in Germany or the red cast-iron booths in Great Britain, were massive, weatherproof, and firmly anchored in the ground. They were more like a small building than a device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bolted Down: Vandalism was a major problem, which is why the phones and the booths themselves had to be extremely robust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Waiting on the Corner: You had to go there to be reachable or to make a call. This often created a social element, as you had to queue at popular locations, especially in the evenings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This era of communication stands in stark contrast to today&#8217;s mobility. You had to arrange a time, \u201ccall from the phone booth by the post office at 6:00 p.m.\u201d Waiting for the call, searching for the right coin or phone card, and the intimacy of the small glass booth are nostalgic memories of a time when communication was a conscious act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, many of these old booths are repurposed as bookcases, art objects, or even mini-offices, continuing their role as public meeting places in a new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What memory do you most strongly associate with the old phone booths? The search for change, the sound of the coins being inserted, or the often missing phone books?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a wonderful and very apt description of the telephone booth (or payphone)! They truly were the &#8220;cell phones&#8221; of their time, with these unique characteristics: Large and Heavy: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16566,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16564\/revisions\/16566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tastyfood.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}