Good Phones

The Good Phones project looks at payphones as social indicators of a community and is working towards our goals of 1) understanding how pay phones are being used or could be used and 2) exploring the feasibility of installing a number of free phones in Monroe County, New York. 

This project started with photographer Eric Kunsman's Felicific Calculus project that chronicles the 1455 payphones left in Monroe County, New York. Kunsman pulled in digital scholarship librarian Rebekah Walker to build interactive visuals like maps that contextualize the photographs, and Dr. Janelle Duda-Banwar joined the team as a community-focused social science researcher. The next phase of our project seeks to pull in more community voices–specifically through focus groups and interviews. We will conduct focus groups with community stakeholders in the areas of public services, homelessness, community trauma, and neighborhood revitalization. Through these interactions, we hope to gain a better understanding of how payphones are currently being used, residents’ telecommunication needs, ideas for repurposing payphones, and how our project work can support these findings.

For more information, visit: https://www.rochesterpayphones.com/