The Stockade’s Antique Phone Booth

This is just one of those intriguing little articles that caught my eye while working on something else – an article headlined “‘Antique’ Phone Booth Installed In Stockade.”

Dated February 6, 1963, the Schenectady Gazette reported that New York Telephone had installed a red-and-white, shingle-roofed “antique” telephone booth at Front and North Ferry streets.

“At the request of Stockaders, the picturesque pay phone replaces a regulation, modern phone booth which previously stood at the corner. Some particularly historical-minded residents felt the aluminum booth detracted from the colonial atmosphere of the district.” While not a request the telephone company would normally accommodate, they went along with it because of the historical importance of the area. “An old wooden booth was salvaged, rebuilt and restyled to produce a booth which would blend in with the Stockade decor…
“The Stockade booth is similar to those which enhance Colonial Williamsburg, Va. And, in New York city’s Chinatown, the phone booths are pagoda-shaped.”

Photograph from a newspaper showing two workers putting finishing touches on a small wooden enclosure, with a small shingled roof, for a telephone booth in Schenectady's Stockade area. One is standing on a short step-latter toward the left wall of the booth and putting up a sign that says "telephone," the other is standing before the booth's door and holding up an identical sign in the spot where it is to be placed. The caption reads "Back to the old – Workmen install an oldfashioned wooden booth in the historic Stockade section of Schenectady in response to protests of residents that the shiny, modern one was not in keeping with the atmosphere of the area that dates back to the days of Indian raids. Working on the booth, left to right, are Robert Garner and Maynard Bellinger, employes of the New York Telephone Co." — “Back to the Old – Workmen install an oldfashioned wooden booth in the historicl Stockade section of Schenectady in response to protests of residents that the shiny, modern one was not in keeping with the atmosphere of the area that dates back to the days of Indian raids. Working on the booth, left to right, are Robert Garner and Maynard Bellinger, employes of the New York Telephone Co.”

I have no idea how long this lasted.

The Stockade’s Antique Phone Booth

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