Councilmember Ben Kallos, who represents Manhattan's Upper East Side and has a background in software development, says that the first priority is “making sure that phone booths remain,” rather than uprooting them entirely as might be tempting in an era of ubiquitous cell phones.

During Hurricane Sandy, which devastated low-lying coastal areas of New York City, payphones became a lifeline for residents in need of help. With cell phone networks out of commission, payphones, with their old-fashioned copper wire infrastructure, were often the only way residents in distress could call for help or communicate with loved ones.

“We have these phone booths that have become under-utilized,” says Kallos. “If you walk around my district, you'll see that many of these booths don't even have phones in them. And when you're talking about a brave new world with Sandy, we need to know that everyone has copper to the home and copper to the street corner.”