RIP: Say goodbye to New York City's last payphone as it gets carted away from 7th Ave (video)

Image: Tooykrub / shutterstock.com

New York saw the end of an era on Monday when its last public payphone was plucked from 7th Avenue and carried away (video below). Outdoor payphones made their US debut in 1905, and by 1925, 25,000 of them lived in New York City alone, according to Wikipedia. Some of Hollywood's most memorable panic scenes took place in front of a payphone, including American Psycho, The Birds, Rosemary's Baby, and Taxi Driver (see clips below). And on a rainy day in New York, you could always count on nearby shelter when glass booths were all the rage. But all good things come to an end, and with the new era of hyper germ awareness and ubiquitous cell phones, there's sadly no more need for the quaint but useless coin boxes that were once part of the New York landscape.