Homeless in Vancouver: Payphones still have something smartphone users want

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      Overnight apparently, a crack team of…well, crackheads possibly, assailed one of the last payphones in the Fairview neighbourhood and put it out of commission—for, like, the 8,000th time.

      In the course of the vandalism, the pedestal base of the payphone was targeted and the front facing sheet of aluminum, held on by four tiny bolts, was ripped free at three points.

      This exposed some of the phone’s highly-sophisticated 1970s-era electrical system and further revealed a hidden secret that some people, at least, might get a charge out of knowing about.

      An unlikely place to charge your phone

      The pedestal base of the payphone includes a standard three-prong electrical outlet.
      Stanley Q. Woodvine

      Perhaps the most interesting thing about the wiring that supplies power to the antiquated payphone is that it includes a standard three-prong 15-amp duplex electrical receptacle—the kind found in any building.

      It was wrong of someone to damage the payphone kiosk in the first place and it would be wronger still to “steal” electricity from the phone company.

      So I didn’t stop and test the exposed electrical outlet but I have no doubt that it will be live as long as the payphone is receiving power.

      My understanding is that every other payphone kiosk of this style will be identically so-equipped—with one electrical outlet in the pedestal base and another outlet hidden inside the illuminated top of the aluminum hood.

      It is mildly ironic to note that as homeless people and non-homeless people alike are constantly scrambling to find public outlets to charge their smartphones—the homeless out of last resort and the non-homeless so they can keep checking their Facebook status and playing Pokémon Go—that these payphones—made obsolete by smartphones—secretly have the one thing that all smartphone users want, namely publicly accessible charge points.

      In any event, it’s not much good knowing this now, given there are only, what—10 payphones left in all of Vancouver?

      Stanley Q. Woodvine is a homeless resident of Vancouver who has worked in the past as an illustrator, graphic designer, and writer. Follow Stanley on Twitter at @sqwabb.

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