"The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink."
Fran Lebowitz, writer
Superheroes may use phone booths to change into spandex, prostitutes may use them to place calling cards, and hooligans occasionally abuse them as urinals, but the impetus for the first payphone initially sprang out of an individual's desperate need for the use of a telephone and not being able to find one.
Conscious of this need, U.S. inventor William Gray devised the first coin-operated pay phone in 1889. It was a post-pay machine so the money was paid after the call to an attendant. Demand for .the device was not immediate, but he managed to interest telephone companies, hotels, and shops. As people traveled more, the need for public payphones grew, and Gray's idea fueled the demand for household telephones.
Phone booths have undergone more design changes over the years than the actual phones themselves. Early indoor booths were often luxurious, crafted from wood like mahogany and carpeted inside. In London England, the red public phone kiosk, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1926, became an iconic feature of the city. Across the Atlantic in New York's Chinatown one booth was even designed in the form of a pagoda.
By 1998 Gray's invention had reached its peak with 2.6 million payphones in the United States alone. This figure is now in rapid decline because of the growing popularity of mobile telephones.
