Need juice? Mobile-charging phone boxes planned across London
This week’s best city stories from around the web explore an initiative to transform phone boxes into free mobile-charging hubs across the UK capital, critique New York’s proposed ferry network, celebrate sidewalk gardening in LA and discover the world’s first artificially-cooled outdoor plaza…
(story from The Guardian online)
I’m sure I woke yesterday to the news that the UK phone box design had won an award but I couldn’t find a recent story – this link is older news but still relevant
Design Museum adds red phone box to collection
And some more phones on tv…
Arrow
Fortitude
Bones (S2 I think)
As a former librarian I warm to this story.
Phone box library closure threat angers residents
Book lovers who turned a red phone box into a makeshift library are angry after BT threatened to shut it down due to health and safety fears…
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple
Transparent
X-Files, John Doe
The Intruders
The Intruders
Toast of London (after losing his mobile at an audition)
Ok so I understand why I see phone boxes in older tv shows and films, but they are still a feature in many current plots such as The Blacklist (USA), The Code (Australia) and Being Human (USA). You’d be forgiven for thinking that the popularity of the mobile phone would mean that the phone box would disappear from many cultural products, but not so.
The Blacklist (S2)
The Code
Being Human (USA, S3)
The X-Files – The Amazing Maleeni
The X-Files – Trevor
The X-Files – Roadrunners
The X-Files – Surekill
Perhaps I watch too much TV but here are some more from the past.
Dark Skies (1996)
Noah’s Castle (1979)
Don’t get locked in after dark…do you really want to trust that this phone works?
Headhunters (2011)
Utopia (2014)
A single man (2009)
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I work/volunteer at the British Museum. Out the front are a few phone boxes and often there will be tourists standing in the open door of the booth getting their photos taken. I don’t know if the phones in the booth work but I think the iconic nature of the boxes is of far more value that the functionality, specifically in a popular tourist location.
Here is a celebrity getting her photo in a phone booth. It works for everyone I guess…
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