Astute New Yorkers may have noticed a series of relics reappearing on city streets in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Public payphones have shown up in Brooklyn, at South Elliott Place and Lafayette Avenue, and along Metropolitan Avenue near Havemeyer Street. In Manhattan, they\u2019re at Second Avenue and East Houston, and at Ryder’s Alley and Fulton Street.<\/p>\n
The payphones are part of a promotion for director Darren Aronofsky’s new film \u201cCaught Stealing.\u201d The film, which is is set in 1990s New York City and features celebrities including Austin Butler, Zo\u00eb Kravitz and Bad Bunny, tells the story of an ex-baseball player who gets caught up in the world of organized crime. The phones dispense carefully curated local cultural recommendations to those who pick up the receiver and take a moment to listen.<\/p>\n
Really, it\u2019s less direct movie-marketing than an homage to New York, Aronofsky\u2019s hometown.<\/p>\n
“Everyone’s been like, \u2018What the f—\u2019 is this?'” Aronofsky said in a speech at one of the payphone-recommended events on Monday. He sipped out of a shot glass of whiskey poured for him out of a gasoline can in a Mars Bar-looking box truck parked outside of a Brooklyn metal shop. \u201cThat’s been the big question of the night, and I think the best answer is that it doesn’t need to have an answer, because that’s what makes New York City the greatest city in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s event invited people to experience \u201cMechanofsky.\u201d Dan Glass, co-founder of the fire-featuring music series Mechasonic Sessions<\/a> coined the portmanteau to refer to a run of Aronofsky-funded performances leading up to the release of \u201cCaught Stealing\u201d this Friday.<\/p>\n On Monday, \u201cMechanofsky\u201d attendees included a mix of cast members, Butler among them, and folks who\u2019d heard about it via payphone.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the great things about New York is that magic that we have all had in this city, when you just stumble through the looking glass into a totally insane experience. And that’s kind of what we’re trying to create,\u201d Aronofsky said at the event. \u201cI wanted to remind everyone why we adore this place.\u201d<\/p>\n To do this, he tapped underground experience designer extraordinaire N.D. Austin, of Chelsea water tower speakeasy<\/a>, decommissioned freight line shipping container speakeasy<\/a> and desolate East Williamsburg speakeasy<\/a> fame.<\/p>\n They\u2019re frequent collaborators: Austin previously worked with Aronofsky on a more-love-letter-to-New-York-than-film-promotion scavenger hunt for his 2017 film \u201cmother<\/a>!,\u201d which sent participants around the city and ended with many receiving tickets to the movie\u2019s premiere.<\/p>\n \u201cN.D. Austin is an artist who summons mystical winds from beneath the pavement and transforms reality into surreal wonder. I begged him and his team to collaborate on this gift for our neighbors,\u201d Aronofsky said of their current collaboration.<\/p>\n Aronofsky asked Austin to make another scavenger hunt, but their timeline was short and Austin wasn\u2019t sure it\u2019d be possible. But Aronofsky was insistent and persuasive, Austin said. And Austin knew a guy.<\/p>\n The artist Jordan Seiler already had a functioning network of public payphones<\/a>, and thus was born the \u201cNY Portal Authority\u201d \u2014 a network of four public payphones that, each day, dispense four carefully curated NYC cultural recommendations to those who pick up the receivers.<\/p>\n The phones’ recommendations have included the New York Earth Room, a permanent indoor sculpture composed of dirt; Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery, a 115-year-old deli on Houston Street; a dance party at Rubulad<\/a>, a landmark Bushwick DIY space; and, of course, Mechanofsky.<\/p>\n Although their long-term future is uncertain, the phones will remain and continue offering recommendations for now.<\/p>\n How is all this related to \u201cCaught Stealing,\u201d again? Many Sony executives would also like to know.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve been doing this whole press tour for this movie and everyone’s like, \u2018New York sucks right now,\u2019\u201d Aronofsky said Monday, shortly before Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene H\u00fctz took the stage alongside a variety of flame-throwing instruments. \u201cThis is pure evidence that New York is still alive and thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n