Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

The other day I was at East Cambridge Piano, at 343 Medford St. Somerville. Hey, if Malden Auto Body can be in Everett then I guess East Cambridge Piano can be in Somerville.

The old building is across from that gutted concrete shell of a structure on Medford St. behind the new high school project. Let’s call it near the soon to be T stop at Gilman Square. A stone’s throw from where The Paddock used to be. How’s that for directions?

East Coast Piano man and Somerville High School alum, Jim Nicoloro says, “The building was built in 1893 for The Knights of Malta, an Italian fraternity. Frank Sinatra was a Knight.” Cool!

Anyway, the grand old sturdily built building is a true example of turn of the century architectural opulence. It was built to be fancy and showy. Huge stairways with carved wooden banisters lead up to the third floor piano store. As you walk through a keyboard player’s paradise, with the newest digitals, uprights and, of course, sprawling, majestic grand and baby grand pianos, there it is! A real old fashioned, rotary dial wooden phone booth! A real blast from the past.

I opened the wood and glass folding door and went in and sat down. When I closed the doors the light came on. And the phone line is still hooked up! Jim called his business number and sure enough it rang!

After I posted a picture of me goofing around in the phone booth, the comments were quite clever. “Was that the phone booth from The old Jumbo Lounge … or Khoury’s?” And “Susquehanna 2222,” a Three Stooges reference. “Did you see Clark Kent?” And this classic Back To The Future inspired remark: “Where is that? I need to call Marty McFly!”

Phone booths like this used to be everywhere. Restaurants, bars, stores, street corners, and anyplace where people were. I bet you’re thinking of one that you remember … maybe Woolworths? That emergency dime (later a quarter) that we kept in our pocket or shoe was to call home if you were going to be late after a night out at Khoury’s or The Jumbo, or some other place you weren’t supposed to be.

When we were growing up in good old Somerville decades ago, phone booths and pay phones were our only connection to our parents, friends and pretty much the whole world before the cell phone took over our lives.

Well into the 1990’s, if you made a call from the pay phone at Redbones’s BBQ in Davis Square, the caller ID read “The Coronet.” The Coronet was the bar/lounge’s name before it became Barnaby’s and finally Redbones.

Massachusetts increased pay phones from a dime to a quarter in 1997. Since then, phone booths and pay phones have become a dying breed. A neat relic for sure.

I had fun in that phone booth at the piano store. It’s always nice to see a genuine piece of our past. Seems like it was just yesterday that I may have phoned home to fib to my dad that we got a flat tire leaving Friendly’s and I’d hopefully be home in time to watch Johnny Carson’s monologue with him.