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.