Troubling times

[heliopausa]

I really like megpie71 's response to the current stunning weight of bad news and foreboding; as she explains here, she's, taken to posting daily a list of three things that have "gone right" in the world. 
So that's one thing to help stay afloat, in these troubling times: the daily good news - big, small, local, global - so long as it's good, and so long as it's news.  Worth checking out - and she's very much okay with people replying with more, too. 


sovay  recently recalled her experience of a large protest march in 2011, and her observation then that in large crowds, mobile phones (cell phones) don't work, or don't work well.  This was absolutely new to me - and set me thinking.
Of course pay phones are being ripped out everywhere, and have been for years.  I can see the inevitability of this.  But given the enormous importance of communication in times of crisis, I'm thinking we should all encourage the preservation of remaining public landline phone facilities.   (And maybe be aware of where these might be, in case of need.)

Comments

[moon_custafer]

For Toronto, I've found the payphone directory page below, but it's a bit laggy (or maybe my wifi isn't working well today) and does not appear to be easily searchable. I also don't know how recently it was updated. I found the beginnings of other payphone directories, but they appear to have been begun and then abandoned (?)

http://www.payphone-directory.org/payon-t.html#

ETA-- ugh, don't bother with that link. I looked over the numbers and addresses that loaded at all, and these are the handful I think might still work. Note that these are all payphones in restaurants and convenience stores, not on corners:
Pay phones
416-516-6625 in the 2-4-1 Pizza at 1383 Davenport Rd
416-658-1328 in the 2-4-1 Pizza at 1349 St. Clair Ave W.
416-691-0191 in the 7 Day Convenience at 2480 Gerard St E
416-462-1585 in the 7 Day Variety at 808 Pape Ave

[heliopausa]

Thank you. That seems so few, and none guaranteed after-hours access. :( We're going backwards in terms of accessible communications.

[moon_custafer]

I'm sure those aren't the only ones in Toronto -- I was starting from a list on a half-assed website.

[heliopausa]

Great pic! :) And phones did go down yesterday, in places.

[moon_custafer]

I didn't make it to the march, but AFAIK the hat did.

Slight side-track -- I noticed a few years back while reading some 1940s mystery novels that phone booths in those days seemed to only exist inside restaurants or theatres, not on corners; hence a lot of scenes where someone discovers or suffers a crime late at night, and has to run several blocks to find a diner that's still open so they can call the police.* My guess is that outdoor phone booths came along in the 1950s -- that seems to be when the fad of seeing how many people could squeeze into them dates from.

* Superman, in the Fleischer cartoons, usually changes in one of the Daily Planet's supply closets.

[heliopausa]

I like your side-track - what a good catch, for anyone writing 1940s-set historical novels now. And so Superman in the fifties was making a terrific and inescapably original use of the new-fangled street furniture. I like it!