When the Pay Phone Rings, Answer It

Three phone booths are back in Midtown Manhattan, but they don’t work like typical phones. Part of an art installation by Afghan-American artist Aman Mojadidi in partnership with the Times Square Alliance, when you pick up the receiver, the phone plays recordings of New York City immigrants talking about their experiences in the United States.

Those immigrants come from 26 different countries, ranging from Belgium to Bangladesh, and some describe their difficult experiences coming to this country. For example, Svetlana, who emigrated from Russia. “We came to Brooklyn, and I cried a lot,” she says on the recording. “One year, I cried.”

Others stories are more positive, like one unnamed immigrant who settled in the Bronx.

“I like New York the subway system. This country is freedom,” he said.

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman was at the project's opening last month and said the stories of immigrants have a special place in New York – and that's one reason why he's opposed to President Trump's travel restrictions.

“We have to push back, and if we can't do it at the federal level, then New York has to be the front lines for immigration protection,” Hoylman said.

Mojadidi said he wants to spur people to think about how borders affect people more than products. “Why is it that we don’t question that our tangerines come from halfway across the world, and that’s okay, yet someone wants to cross from one country to the next, and that’s a problem?” he asked.

Michele Pava of Buffalo, New York, was visiting New York City with her daughter on the day the project opened. She said listening to Mojadidi’s recordings made her think about her own immigrant heritage.

“The same way I would have wanted somebody to support my grandparents and great-grandparents, you know it's our opportunity to support somebody else's future grandparents,” said said.

“Once Upon a Place” will run through September 5, 2017 in Times Square.