Who owns these derelict pay phones on Queen St.?
It’s time to call the operator on the derelict shells of pay phones that do not work and detract from the scenic beauty of Parkdale.
But trying to figure out who owns what’s left of them is a tall order.
Queen Street West, which runs through the heart of Parkdale, is undergoing the same gentrification that has transformed other Toronto areas into trendy neighbourhoods filled with multimillion-dollar homes.
Parkdale exudes an eclectic charm that is reflected in the community. But the transformation has yet to reach some of the old-fashioned pay phones on Queen West. Adam Wynne emailed to say that not only in Parkdale, but “throughout the city of Toronto, there are now pay phone bases, booths and/or cases with no pay phone device in them.
“I live in Parkdale and on an approximately 500-metre stretch of Queen West, there are three pay phone devices that have gone missing — though the bases, booths and/ or cases remain.”
Wynne went on to say he tried contacting various people, including his city councillor and Bell Canada, to have them removed, but had no luck.
“Many people consider pay phones antiquated, (but they) remain a critical piece of communications infrastructure for economically and socially marginalized individuals.
“Pay phones also provide a vital way to contact 911 without inputting coins,” he said.
I went there and found all three of the pay phones referenced by Wynne, near Queen and Lansdowne Avenue. The phones had been ripped out of two, while the surrounding box was rusted, and plastered with graffiti and stickers.
Incredibly, the third still had a phone with a dial tone. But I didn’t have the coins needed to give it a try, so I can’t say for sure that it worked.
None of the boxes used to house the phones had any information on them that identifies the owners.
Status: I started with Bell Canada, which operates many of the remaining pay phones on city streets and deserves credit for providing people without cellphones a way to make a call. Bell checked it out and confirmed “that these definitely aren’t Bell pay phones,” said spokesperson Nathan Gibson. He added that some small private companies still operate pay phones, “but we can’t say for sure who owns these ones.” He added that the owners of the private properties where the phones are located may have made a deal with the operators to allow them, but short of doing a title search, their identity remains a mystery.
If anyone has any ideas about who they belong to, please let me know.
What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. Email jlakey@thestar.ca or follow @TOStarFixer on Twitter