Outdoor Phone Booths

[Gingellgirl]

I know they've gone the way of the dinosaurs, but are there any outdoor phone booths still around Detroit?

[BrushStart]

Do you actually mean a phone "booth" like the kind you sit in and close the door, or just an outdoor pay-phone? If you mean an outdoor pay-phone, there's one on Larned, just south of Beaubien downtown. That's honestly the only one I can think of.

[SWMAP]

A related question: can you remember any places that had the old style wooden booth with the accordian door. I cannot think of one outdoor place where one stood. I do remember being in some in buildings. Also the big wooden phone "stall" in Sanders on Jefferson Ave. Calls home cost a nickel?

[Brock7]

The last place I remember one remaining in my neighborhood is near the sw corner of Seven and Hayes. I haven't paid enough attention to say whether it's still there though.

[Gary]

There's one at 10 and Greenfield, saw a guy using it yesterday.

[milt721]

According to google street view, the one @ 10 & Greenfield is just a phone on a pole.

[RYANGUARD]

The Dakota Inn-Rathskeller has an inside phone booth.

[mikefmich]

A related question: can you remember any places that had the old style wooden booth with the accordian door. I cannot think of one outdoor place where one stood. I do remember being in some in buildings. Also the big wooden phone "stall" in Sanders on Jefferson Ave. Calls home cost a nickel?

I vividly remember and indoor one still alive in the mid 70's. Used to work for MichCon and we would have lunch at restaurant/bars all over the city. What is not vivid is exactly where it was or the name of the place.

I believe it was on Forest, north side of the street a littel ways east of Russell. Large two family flat style house. Restaurant bar downstairs, mom and pop lived upstairs. The son was active in the place then, it had been running for years. They had a beautiful dark wood phone booth inside....I used to marvel at it then, because by that time, few were left then.

I'd love to remember the name of that place...the neighborhood was already highly declining by that time, they had no signs outside. If you didn't know it was there, you could walk right past and not realize the establishment within existed. GREAT place to eat. The portions were so large it was hard to return to work, you wanted take a nap.

A dime phone call then, but if you were savvy with the old three hole phones [[nickel dime quarter) with the coin return button, you knew how to get a nickel call.

[Jman]

A dime phone call then, but if you were savvy with the old three hole phones [[nickel dime quarter) with the coin return button, you knew how to get a nickel call.

If you had a bobbi pin, the call was free.

[shovelhead]

You could do it with a penny too..........read about in history books.
[[Statute of limitations is up by now, right?)

[Single Malt]

There is one in front of Jim's Ice Cream on 11 Mile in Royal Oak. If your lucky, you might just see Superman in it.

[East Detroit]

There are two phone booths on the 4th floor of the Purdy library. No phones in them anymore, though.

[mcsdetroitfriend]

Michigan Central Station had a bank of them and still has a couple boxes left, no phones though

[Jimaz]

So where is Superman supposed to change clothes now? In a dumpster?

[Jimaz]

If you had a bobbi pin, the call was free.

Or a Cap'n Crunch cereal whistle.

[Whitehouse]

Here we see the real reason why Superman left Detroit; no phone booths left....

[Jman]

You could do it with a penny too..........read about in history books.
[[Statute of limitations is up by now, right?)

Wish I would have known about the penny trick as my friends and I all carried a bobbi pin with us throughout our teen years [[50's).

[Detroitej72]

The last place I remember one remaining in my neighborhood is near the sw corner of Seven and Hayes. I haven't paid enough attention to say whether it's still there though.

Would that be the phone one block south of 7 Mile, at the corner of Fordham and Hayes, by 7 Mile/ Hayes Lunch, across from Supreme Drugs?

[Brock7]

No, I wasn't thinking of that one, but the one near the coney island on the south side of 7, west of Hayes.

[grumpyoldlady]

There used to be, and maybe still are, those wooden phone booths with the folding door, on the lower level of the Penobscot Building. Can't recall the name of the cafeteria that is/was down there.

[CLAUDE G]

There is an antique one at Harper and Ridgemont behind Wallys Ice Cream. There is no phone, but the red booth is there.

The only other place I have seen an actual booth with a phone was at 9 mile and dequindre at Brays hamburgers.

[Hermod]

Depending on the size of the store, Cunningham's Drug Stores used to have one or two wooden booths [[with doors) in the store.

[stasu1213]

So where is Superman supposed to change clothes now? In a dumpster?

Superman could stop at the Metro Pc store and ask to use the backroom

[stasu1213]

I remember the freeways having phones on the shoulders. I guess the popularity of the "Mobile Phone" caused the booth phones to become extinct

[DorothyD]

Grumpyoldlady: Was that the Colonnade Restaurant in the Penobscot Building? I liked eating there when I used to work downtown. I think they had another one in the First Federal Building also.