Right. Corrected.
Funny 'cause today I asked myself the exact same question when I saw two homeless guys being busy around a pair of German Telekom payphones, which is where I realized that these appliances still existed, albeit wondered whether the two guys were using or robbing it, while in the second case, someone would have had to be using it first.
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there used to be one in Death Valley, i think. i probably read about it here, lol
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AFAIK, in ATL they remain only at the MARTA (transit) stations, which makes sense and is comforting to know that I’m a few blocks from being 100% sure of making an emergency phone call if needed.
I was always lousy at remembering phone numbers. Perhaps because the area i grew up at in Venezuela would autodial the area code if you were making local calls so realistically all i had to remember was 5 digit numbers. When i made my way to college i was glad i had my trusty Casio Databank watch, which allowed me to put in contact information for people (names, emails & phone numbers). I no longer have that watch but i sure do want one in case i ever am without access to my phone. These days the only number i actually know is my own, seriously.
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I was DJing a daytime gig for my friends breakin’ crew a decade ago and afterward a dad excitedly rushed the stage with a bunch of youngsters so he could show them what records were, which was awesome (the current boutique vinyl renaissance hadn’t happened yet.) I got into it and gave them a hands-on demo and took the stylus off the tonearm to show them up-close and explained how it fit in the groove but nowadays the CD player used a laser (remember those?) It was really funny. The kids had no frame of reference. They were curious but naturally a bit shy, but the dad was ecstatic.
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my vote remains the same strategy as when I didn’t have a cell, a slip of paper with numbers written on it in my wallet
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The Emergency Call Phone in a building that I used to frequent was connected to a normal phone line that could make Long Distance Calls. (LD costed $$$ those days too)
Great fun as I figured this out in the mid-80’s when cell phones were big and expensive.
I would call a co-worker upstairs while I was riding the elevator using the “you’ll never guess where I’m calling you from!” line that everyone who just got a cell phone used to use.
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I can remember phone numbers from 25 years ago and I can remember my own cellphone number but I can’t hardly remember anyone elses - but it makes sense since I’m using contacts nowadays and not the underlying number.
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I wonder if the old “red box” still works. It used audio beeps to indicate money dropped in, but you had to drop one real coin in to activate an internal switch.
I made one 25 years ago, from a Hallmark recordable greeting card. I called my home from the payphone, the answering machine answered, I dropped a quarter into the slot. I went home and played the recorded beeps into the greeting card. Then I went to the payphone, dropped a quarter, and pressed the play button on the greeting card while held up to the receiver to make it think I was paying for a long distance call. It worked! I only tried it once.
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Quicker to keep track of other human beings around you, any one of which might let you use their cellphone in an emergency. (Yeah, it does assume not everyone is an asshole.)
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I know some people who have a three-digit number. Plus the area codes, which is four or five numbers long, in one case three.
I also have an email address which is just two characters plus the domain of one of my universities.
And I’m very annoyed that I didn’t pay for the two-letter domain name I had reserved in the early nienties, when I thought I wouldn’t need a own domain anyway…
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I know my husband’s number because back when we were dating I heard his voicemail message recite it very, very frequently. I’m dead certain he doesn’t know mine, though. (Even though we have the same numbers as when we met.)
I’m a person who knows my own SSN and both current and (annoyingly) most recent previous credit card numbers, so possibly number sequence memorization just comes easily to me.
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It also assumes that the mobile network(s) are not down in an emergency.
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We have a payphone outside the library. It has been sold to various companies at least 3x; right now it it owned by someone in CA; I have no idea how they maintain it.
Yes, I did assume a ‘personal’ emergency. A larger scale one, with mobile networks down, likely means there would be more important things to me than finding a landline phone, public or otherwise, for my personal needs with such urgency, and if it is a ‘structural’ emergency then who knows whether copper will be any more viable. But yeah, I did assume that.
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I need to find my acoustic coupler. 
Oh yeah, story about those payphones…
When they first installed them in school, replacing the classic nickel-dime-quarter coin slot phones, and jacking the price to 20 cents, the dial was locked out until you put money in, but the hook switch was live.
You could make calls for free by rapidly tapping the hook switch to simulate a rotary dial. They eventually fixed that, but it was good to be a geek.
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Was that how did they did phone sex back then? 
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