Response For 'No More Pay Phones?' From The New York Times Upfront Magazine

       Many things have more meaning to others, than they do to us. When reading this article, No More Pay Phones?,  I realized that little things have much more meaning. In this article, the red "telephone boxes" are starting to slowly disappear and this is a treasured item in the United Kingdom. Nowadays, everyone carries a cellphone around with them which means calls from pay phones are bound to decrease. They've decreased by 80% in the past five years. 
      
        In 2002 the UK contained 92,000 public pay phones, but now only about 48,000 exist. Unfortunately, fewer than 10,000 of the classic red booths are left in London. In the US we have about 240,000 versus the 2 million that existed in 1999. A Londoner says that although he hasn't used public pay phone in 15 years, he can't imagine his city without them. He proceeds to say that losing pay phones, is like New York without the Empire State Building. This goes to show how much meaning things have. In my mind, I could care less if pay phones were taken away, but New York would probably look very different without seeing one once in a while. 

        Luckily, for Londoners, these red telephone boxes are being recycled. People have recently compared them to going the way of the dinosaurs. One of these classic phone booths was turned into a couch. They've become much more. From ATM's to small libraries. Just because they haven''t been used often doesn't mean that they're worthless. Little things like this have much more meaning even if they don't mean much to you. The article led me to thinking what things in the US do we occasionally use? Would they mean a lot to us if they didn't exist anymore? Would we try to recycle them because they have some sort of meaning? 

Works Cited
Scholastic. "No More Pay Phones?" The New York Times Upfront Magazine 24 Feb. 2014: 5. Print.

Final Poetry Assignment

    Undercover City 

Street lights

Cool stores

All you see is pretty

But you've never realized

New York could be so petty

Under the attractive things

is a world you never expected to meet

Chaos will greet you

Some may enjoy meeting you

Yet, some may not like you

Might try to fight you

Maybe you just look soft

Maybe you're being tested

And everyday, someone new is getting 

Arrested

You've heard bout cyberbullying

Well, it gets worse out here

So be careful who you're friends with

Never know when trouble is near

Don't talk to strangers

Here, I may sound silly

But you never know what'll happen 

Some are always willing

To harm you

Because smiles become fake

but you get what you get

and take what you can take

It's not all bad

That's not what I'm saying 

But New York's like a game

And you're the one playing