+
upworthy
Community

Philadelphia is taking the city back to the past by reinstalling pay phones

No quarters required!

Pay phones; phone booths; Philadelphia; PhilTel

Philadelphia is taking the city back to the past.

Remember when calling your parents, a tow truck or a friend when you were out and about meant digging in your pocket for a quarter to make a pay phone call? Well, a Philadelphia-based collective, PhilTel, is jumping into the past with a modern twist, by installing free-to-use pay phones throughout the city.

Of course, the pay phones that many of us grew up were removed from public places years ago. There no longer seemed to be a need for them when most people had a phone in their pocket or in their hand. But it's easy to forget that not everyone has or wants that luxury. For some people, staying that connected all the time can be too much and for others, it's simply financially impossible to own a cell phone.


Cell phones are expensive, and when you add the cost of a phone plan or paying for minutes, they quickly become out of reach for many people on fixed incomes or those experiencing homelessness. PhilTel's aim is to help close this gap by making phones accessible to all. There's only one catch: You have to leave the quarters at home!

person holding black android smartphonePhoto by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

That's right, the phones will be free to use and that includes making nationwide calls. For the people of Philadelphia, that means a lot less asking strangers to use their phone if your battery dies or you accidentally lock your phone in your car. According to opensource.com, Mike Dank, the co-founder of PhilTel, said, "Philadelphia in particular has a lot of payphone use, even as payphone companies have been steadily removing phones from service year after year."

Dank continued, "Residents who rely on these phones are being increasingly marginalized and if this trend continues, many will be left without a communication platform they need to carry out their lives."

This isn't the first time pay phones were added to a city in the age of cellphones. PhilTel was inspired by a company called Futel in Portland, Oregon, that has a similar program.

men in black coat using a pay phonePhoto by arj. on Unsplash

The phones are not new, they're actually refurbished pay phones and will use a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to connect callers. If you're in Philly, you'll be able to use one of these free pay phones as soon as December 17, when the first one gets installed at Iffy Books.

While this is a wonderful solution for those that need access to pay phones for day-to-day life, one has to wonder if the name will get updated. I mean, they're not really pay phones anymore. They're free phones or just public phones. I don't know about you but this little detail is going to live in my head rent-free for a while.

True

After over a thousand years of peaceful relations, European semi-superpowers Sweden and Switzerland may finally address a lingering issue between the two nations. But the problem isn’t either country’s fault. The point is that the rest of the world can’t tell them apart. They simply don’t know their kroppkakor (Swedish potato dumpling) from their birchermüesli (a Swiss breakfast dish).

This confusion on the European continent has played out in countless ways.

Swedish people who move to the United States often complain of being introduced as Swiss. The New York Stock Exchange has fallen victim to the confusion, and a French hockey team once greeted their Swiss opponents, SC Bern, by playing the Swedish National Anthem and raising the Swedish flag.

Skämtar du med mig? (“Are you kidding me?” in Swedish)

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

A boy told his teacher she can't understand him because she's white. Her response is on point.

'Be the teacher America's children of color deserve, because we, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids. We are responsible for the future of this country.'

Photo by John Pike. Used with permission.

Emily E. Smith is no ordinary teacher.



Fifth-grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your ordinary teacher.

She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that's all about inspiring children to learn more about their world ... and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone, and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies.

Smith is such an awesome teacher, in fact, that she recently received the 2015 Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.

Keep ReadingShow less

Gabriella Bonham wins Diane Sweeney's car.

As the old saying goes, there are no pockets in shrouds, and even though Diane Sweeney loved her 2016 Volkswagen Beetle, she couldn’t take it with her to the great beyond, so she chose to have some fun with it after she passed away.

A month before she died suddenly, on July 7, 2022, she told her nephew Rick Ingram that she wanted to give her car away at her funeral and it didn’t matter who came.

"She told a few of us her wish,” Ingram told Fox News. “I remember it clear as day. She said, ‘Whoever comes to my funeral, I want them to have a chance to win my Volkswagen Beetle.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Diane, I'll make that happen.’"

Keep ReadingShow less
Identity

75-year-old ‘hip-hop granny’ impresses and inspires with her dance moves

Ms. Stephanie didn’t even start formal dance lessons until she was almost 30.

Ms. Stephanie bringing it at her hip-hop class.

Stephanie Walsh isn't your average hip-hop dancer. At 75, "Ms. Stephanie" is still able to hold her own on the dance floor, popping and locking with people a third her age, and she loves it.

When you see her dance—and her enviable muscle tone—you might think she'd been a trained dancer all her life. But she actually didn't take any formal dance lessons until she was almost 30.

Walsh told Growing Bolder that she had wanted her daughter to dance when she was little, so she got her ballet lessons, which the daughter hated. Realizing that dancing was her dream and not her daughter's, Walsh took her kiddo out of ballet and started classes herself right away.

She had always loved to dance and developing her skills only led to more and more dancing.

Keep ReadingShow less

Dad got a lesson from his young daughter in wedding etiquette.

Some kids are natural born leaders, and one adorable flower girl is a prime example.

A video created by the Lomelino Family and shared by weddingz.in on Instagram shows a little girl in a fancy red dress talking to her dad about the wedding in which she's to be a flower girl. Clearly, she has done her homework and put a lot of thought into how her role is supposed to go—as well as anticipated where it might go awry.

For instance, she tells her dad he can't call her name when she's walking down the aisle. Obviously, Dad's got a reputation. And when he asks if he can call out, "Princess!" instead, she full-on womansplains weddings to him, complete with a classic patient-but-exasperated brushing bangs away from her face move.

Keep ReadingShow less
Canva

Jamais vu is the opposite sensation of déjà vu.

Most of us have heard of déjà vu—that strange sensation that you have already experienced something as it’s happening in the present moment. A large portion of the population, 97% according to one study, can attest that they have felt a sense of déjà vu in their lifetime.

However, we can also have the exact opposite sensation, though very few people know the name for it.

Jamais vu—which in French means “never seen,” again opposite to déjà vu meaning “already seen”—occurs when something familiar suddenly feels completely, utterly unfamiliar.
Keep ReadingShow less
Identity

6 beautiful drawings by LGBTQ inmates that illustrate life in prison

Their artwork shows their strength, resilience, and talent.

"Acceptance" by Stevie S.


Tatiana von Furstenberg laid out more than 4,000 works of art on the floor of her apartment and was immediately struck by what she saw.

The pieces of artwork were submitted from various prisons across the country in hopes of being featured in "On the Inside," an exhibition of artwork by currently incarcerated LGBTQ inmates, curated by von Furstenberg and Black and Pink, a nonprofit organization that supports the LGBTQ community behind bars. The exhibit was held at the Abrons Arts Center in Manhattan toward the end of 2016.

"I put all the submissions on the floor and I saw that there were all these loving ones, these signs of affection, all of these two-spirit expressions of gender identity, and fairies and mermaids," von Furstenberg said.

Keep ReadingShow less