Doom Town? More like Boom Town.
The old, gloomy nickname for Portland seems positively antiquated in these current condo-crazy days, with the influx of new residents, the continual buzz of new construction, and the evolution of our city’s straining infrastructure. And it’s come at a cost, according to many longtime residents: the disappearance of local businesses, old-growth trees, and much of that intangible Portland flavor that can’t be readily quantified.
Even the most devout old-schooler will be forgiven, though, for not lamenting the disappearance of another once-widespread element of the city: pay phones.
After all, who needs ’em? Almost everybody’s got a phone in their pocket or purse nowadays. It might take a dead battery or a stumble near an open sewer grate for you to even look up from your tiny, handheld screen and notice that the pay phones are practically all gone. Once you actually start looking for them, though, you’ll realize how hard they are to find.
I went on a modest quest to seek out Portland’s remaining pay phones—and had a surprising amount of trouble.