From North to South throughout Italy all the structures will be gradually dismantled telephone booths with equipment, a symbol of past years and a generational cult.
Telephone booths, a symbol
Goodbye to the iconic telephone booths that allowed us, before the advent of cell phones, smartphones, internet and phone centers, to get in touch. After more than seventy years and about three years early, a historic era is ending which has made Italians feel closer to their families and loved ones.
The first telephone booth in Italy appeared in Piazza San Babila, Milan, in 1952. Shortly after they spread throughout Italy, used to communicate. There was even a queue, we made an appointment every day. How many love stories were born, flourished and ended up inside those booths and public telephones.
The boom occurred in the seventies until the nineties. Since 2009 the decline began with the widespread diffusion of cell phones.
Those phone calls fueled the desire to feel and be together for a few minutes which often turned into hours. How many jokes! One felt free to use them because they guaranteed anonymity. And then what to say, how beautiful the tokens were, later replaced by telephone cards, which have now become collectors' items.
And what about the many films, many of which are very famous, which have seen telephone booths as the location of the most beautiful scenes?
The dismantling and removal
Object now in disuse, witnesses of a bygone era, pieces of history of the last century that have a lot to tell and tell us, the telephone booths by the end of 2023 will be decommissioned and dismantled as no one uses them anymore and they are often subject to vandalism . Today most telephone booths are often reduced to waste receptacles, used as public toilets. A mapping shows that some have more than one telephone, which means 35.994 handsets.
It is estimated that the Tim that manages them will dismantle over 16.000 telephone booths throughout Italy. They will remain, yes, in places "of social interest".
TIM plans to maintain telephone booths in places of social importance such as hospitals, barracks, prisons and, probably, mountain shelters.
Reuse proposals
Many nostalgics, lovers of these now vintage objects, do not want the cabins to be removed and have thought of a useful and creative reuse: already in many parts of Italy, some of these cabins have been used as small city libraries from which to take free books. Or to use as urban planters using recycling. Great Britain has preserved these symbols. We hope that in Italy some of these cabins will remain the memory of what has been, witnesses of passing history but at the same time they can have a second and more flourishing life.
cover photo of S. Portale
