June 15, 2007
I noticed a dime on the sidewalk yesterday, and regret that I did not stoop to pick it up. Because some hours later on the C train a bit north of 86th Street, an elderly gentlemen with a cane and a collection cup inquired rather irately of passengers why they could not be bothered to donate "even one dime" to his cause. Such episodes recall numerous intriguing tales about this smallest of American coins, stories which were mostly written in the 1980s. Off I went to TimesSelect, which news blogs gleefully (or gloomily) noted yesterday has a mere 741,000 subscribers—only 30% of which are paid subcriptions. Since 60% of subscribers receive it free with their print subscription and 10% receive it free as educators and college students, that makes for a vast underutilized archive.
One dime represents two nickels, i.e. the cost of two refundable deposit bottles or cans, a truly green recycling business that many impoverished inhabitants of our city spent upwards of 12 hours daily engaged in. On March 19, 1985, Jeffrey Schmalz wrote about unclaimed deposit-bottle money: But a large part of it - one state study estimates about $60 million a year - goes unredeemed. And therein lies the debate: who should get that money? ''Nickels - millions and millions of nickels - have flown out of the pockets of our residents,'' said Henry G. Williams, the state's Commissioner of Environmental Conservation. The beer wholesalers were infuriated by the new deposit law. The attorneys pounced on the governor: Robert J. Malito, a lawyer who represents the New York State Franchised Beer Wholesalers Association, asserted that the Governor was saying, ''Let's tax the beer and soda drinkers of New York.'' ''So why doesn't he just come out and say that?'' Mr. Malito said. ''I estimate there will be an 8 to 12 percent increase in beer prices if what he wants goes through.'' Mr. Malito said beer sales had declined 5.6 percent in the state since the bottle law went into effect, ''much of it the result of the the law.'' Would such declamations today would be seen as laughable? Hardly. News outlets—especially Upstate—have gone ga-ga over Governor Spitzer's proposal to boost the deposit to a full dime, which the GOP-led state Senate has rejected for years.
One dime also symbolizes the Dime Savings Bank, which like so many other venerable financial institutions (e.g. Chemical, whose stripped-off signage is once again visible on the façade at Varick and Canal Streets) has nearly vanished in this new ATM-everywhere banking environment. A nice story about Gridlock Sam from October 21, 1985 took place in gridlock heaven, better known as Midtown, where "don't block the box" and "Gridlock Busters" signs were once the rage: ''Fifty-five seconds,'' said Mr. Schwartz in admiration, as he timed the towing of a red Renault from in front of the Dime Savings Bank on the east side of Fifth Avenue, where parking, standing and loading is forbidden. ''That one car was holding up 600 cars an hour.''
Dimes, of course, were extremely useful for those archaic devices located all over our city known as public pay telephones. Much hullabaloo ensued once the utility formerly known as New York Telephone declared its phones would henceforth demand quarters, not dimes. For conspiracy-theory fans, it was little coincidence this Orwellian edict was issued in 1984. On September 28 of that momentous year, we learned that Rise in Pay-Phone Rate Brings Rise in Vandalism, no surprise to denizens of a city where protest against inanimate objects is simply regarded as the hallowed Constitutional right to petition the government for a redress of one's grievances. Writing of dead phones on 42nd Street, the Day by Day column authors noted: Once they had served in the army of 6,000 outdoor telephones in Manhattan. Now they were victims of vandalism that the company says has increased sharply since June 29, when local calls rose from 10 to 25 cents. The death of the dime phone call was first reported in mid-June, recalling another famous dime charge out of New York history, the subway token: The 10-cent call from a pay telephone in New York State, started when postage stamps cost 3 cents and subway rides a dime, will end June 29. Some curious dime lingo and trivia from the same article: A call from a pay phone, whether by a dashing commuter, a traveling salesman or a person with no phone of his own, has been 10 cents in New York since 1951. Before that, the pay call had been a nickel since 1906, when the first pay phone was introduced in New York City. The 10-cent call is so much a part of the culture that on the streets of New York, the phrase ''drop a dime'' is synonymous with calling the police to turn someone in for a crime.
Moreover, the authors diligently reported not every phone was converted immediately: There are 81 pay phones in New York State where a local call can still be made for a nickel. They are operated by the independent Taconic Telephone Corporation in an area from Berlin to Stephentown, N.Y., along the Massachusetts border. Some months later—November 24, in fact‚—it seemed that The telephone company knows of more than two dozen dime-size pockets of resistance left in New York City. One is floating at sea. Of the 78,787 coin phones in the five boroughs, 78,760 have been converted since June 29 to require a quarter for a local call. But there are still a few places where 10 cents will do. Most of these phones are in establishments that have either closed or are temporarily shut for renovation, according to Tony Pappas, spokesman for New York Telephone. Another is on a United States Coast Guard cutter. The phone company plans to convert that one when the cutter, the Dallas, returns to Governors Island. ''They can only use it when it's plugged in at the dock,'' Mr. Pappas said. There may also be some retooled phones (complete with stickers demanding 25 cents) where one can still use a dime. In such cases, Mr. Pappas acknowledged, ''there's something wrong - and nobody will ever call Repair to tell us.''
It was around this time that the legendary phrackers, hackers, phreakers, lamers and crackers began to emerge, and telecommunications would never again be the same. The legendary Kevin Mitnick, it was reported, sought revenge on a doomed fellow by rendering his mother's home phone into a pay phone. Similar stories came out of Queens—a poor mother would hear the recording "Please deposit 25¢ for the next three minutes" every time she lifted her handset. Readers of the deliciously-diabolical Legion of Doom journals or Blacklisted 411 and 2600 Quarterly know that recorded sounds of a quarter being digested by a payphone would sometimes trick payphones into allowing free calls. Around the same year, Chinatown residents were frequently observed at all hours of day and night lined up at payphones waiting to make ultra-cheap calls using stolen calling-card numbers obtained by shoulder-surfing, a now-obsolete sport. Meanwhile, Kevin Mitnick—like many former imprisoned geniuses trained in the black arts—is now a security executive. In any event, T-Mobile to go users can still make a call for a dime, assuming they buy 1000 minutes for $100. You get one minute for one dime.
Fears emerged later that year the subway fare would go up a dime, from 90 cents to the dreaded dollar. Such fears emerged again this week, when the subway fare, now two dollars, could perhaps rise again in the future. (Subway-fare increases are always good assignments for the Metro desk editors to dole out, akin to butterscotch candies.) In November 1985, Reagan demanded his tax plan not be nickeled and dimed to death, a catchy phrase still with us today. The next month these beloved coins reappeared in a sad profit-and-loss report: ''Look at how prices have gone up,'' he said. ''They can make $150,000 without even moving in. Whether you get passbook interest or money market interest on the $50,000 deposit doesn't interest these people. That's nickle [sic] and dime stuff compared to the profit they make.'' The next month, January 1985, was a blessing for beleaguered token-booth clerks: ''It saves time - I don't have any change at all today,'' said Frank Cuervo, a token clerk at the IND station at Eighth Avenue and 42d Street. Until the fare rose to $1 from 90 cents, Mr. Cuervo said, he would begin his day in the booth with a stock of 1,500 dimes. Q: Remember tokens? Or those token-booth clerks, many of whom (according to signage underground) nowadays can be found "helping customers" on the platform and can be recognized by their "burgundy blazer vest"? (Comment: Only the MTA could concoct a "burgundy blazer vest"—just as only the MTA could concoct signage such as "Exit middle of plat" instead of the more obvious "Exit mid-platform".)
Public officials didn't just kvetch about dimes; they also apparently used them for gratuities: The Lion's Head served as an unofficial headquarters for Norman Mailer's mayoral campaign. It was a place to which meetings of the Village Independent Democrats, including Ed Koch, often adjourned. ''The waitresses hated to see them coming,'' said one regular. ''Koch tipped a dime. He ordered ice for his seltzer on the side so he'd get more seltzer.''
Nothing remains a dime a dozen, and by September 1986, our city's despised parking meters bade farewell to the dime: The last of the dime parking meters in New York City disappeared yesterday. The passing was in Brooklyn, on Kingston Avenue between Montgomery and Crown Streets, where workers changed the last seven of the city's 10-cent meters to accept only quarters for an hour's parking. ''It reflects the rising cost of maintaining the meters,'' the Commissioner of Transportation, Ross Sandler, said, ''and the value of parking.'' ''But it's still a bargain,'' he added. ''Where else in New York City can you rent a 20-by-10-foot space for a quarter?'' Indeed, more than 20 years later this 25-cent bargain still remains. But plastic will probably kill off the quarter, just as it demoted the dime to lowly status. Just as you can now make a ten-cent purchase at Duane Reade with your debit card, you can also now buy a quarter-banishing NYC parking card, assuming you choose to park where these cards are accepted.
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Posted on 6/15/2007
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