Part community service, part nostalgia, and part art project.
That's how Mark Dank describes PhilTel, a project he is organizing to bring old-fashioned pay phones to Philadelphia neighborhoods — with a twist being that they will be free to use for calls in North America thanks to the internet calling.
"Some of the people in the community around this project, they really like the idea of an old pay phone," Dank said. "They like the aesthetics of it. When it comes down to it, a pay phone is a rugged-ized, hardened device. It's a piece of urban furniture that you can put on the street."
