The Great Phone-Out

It was as if someone wanted to expose the vulnerability--and perhaps the ecological interdependence--of a highly mechanized urban society. Nobody knows who did it, but by the end of last week, at least seven fires had been set to New York Telephone Co. property in the nation's largest city. Fortunately, only the first did real damage. Blazing late last month, it destroyed a major switching station in lower Manhattan. Until service can be restored, 170,000 phones in the surrounding area were silenced and some 300,000 New Yorkers were deprived of a vital electronic part of the urban environment.

The hardest hit were businesses that depend on phone orders. "I might have to go under," said Ralph Annunziata, manager of a delicatessen that accounts for half of its sales with phoned orders. Florists cut off from Florists' Transworld Delivery complained that they could no longer say it with flowers; with their phones dead, funeral parlors in the area reported that business was "dying." Pharmacist Sanford Eidinger also had to contend with "people who come in off the street with prescriptions for all kinds of things." Apparently, addicts with stolen or forged prescription blanks were quick to take advantage of the fact that pharmacies could not call doctors to check the orders.

Liquor Store Operator Joseph Schoen expressed a widespread fear: "I can't call for help." To deal with emergencies, the telephone company brought in mobile units and quickly restored service to the three hospitals, ten fire houses and two police precinct stations in the zone of silence. Ma Bell also set up 379 temporary pay phones in the 300-sq.-block area. Extra police cars cruised the phoneless area with their rooflights flashing; anyone who had an emergency message could stop them and transmit it by police radio.

Modicum of Merit. A good Samaritan spirit prevailed, and many New Yorkers volunteered to help sick or elderly neighbors, and even waited in line to place calls for them at one of the temporary pay phones. Doctors in the area transferred to working answering-service numbers, and regularly sent nurses to pay phones to get messages. Editor Lyla Aubry compared the phone-out to "the electric power blackout of 1965: it made us feel closer together."

As always, there were some Manhattanites who found a modicum of merit in phonelessness. "No dance lesson salesmen, no bill collectors, no heavy breathers," said Gidon Gottlieb, professor of law at New York University. "Silence, it's wonderful."

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