![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:02 • Filed to: None | ![]() | ![]() |
Coin-operated TV chairs at airports and bus stations were a thing. Of course, this was also the era where you had to pay a dime to take a crap. I just crawled under.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:05 |
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A different era.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:06 |
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Sadly, I am old enough to remember these.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:09 |
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SEA-TAC had those into the late 1980s at least. Lower Level, North Satellite
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:09 |
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My first airport experience was circa 1990 and I remember flying a lot more than I remember the airport (PHL) but I do remember that was the pinnacle of my flying on an airplane experience. It has been all down hill ever since haha
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:10 |
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I do remember those in some form actually.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:11 |
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They hung on in less stylized form well into the 80's. Normally in homey restaurants or other dives. I’d prefer them to the not- gambling gambling games on tablets in chain restaurants nowadays.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:13 |
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I remember seeing them at ORF at least into the early 80s.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:14 |
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The ones I saw didn’t have the comfy chairs. I think they were attached to Eames Chairs.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:20 |
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It will always piss me off that those arm rests DON’T raise... especially when it’s 1130PM and your flight’s been postponed until 5AM.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:20 |
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My first airport experience was flying an Eastern L-1011 from SJU to PHL. We got the middle seats. Compared to the origin airport, PHL looked like sci-fi
space-age future at the time
, as did the aircraft
.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:22 |
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Yes they left them in the Bangor Maine airport until the 90s
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:23 |
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Tri-Star rocked it.
I wish Lockheed_Martin would take control of the Boeing dumpster fire.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:24 |
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I’m trying to remember - there was somewhere I used to see/use row chairs exactly like that routinely. Might have been somewhere in one of the mechanical engineering buildings at GT.
On a related note, Eames is still selling chairs, and not at totally insane prices.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:24 |
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My first flight was from PHL to Heathrow, on the return trip this old dude SHIT his pants!!! The flight attendant was walking him up the isle with one hand and holding her nose with the other...Unreal
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:27 |
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Most public restrooms in europe are coin-op
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:30 |
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They are probably designed that way so you can’t raise the arms and lie down. Like the benches at bus stops these days.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:30 |
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Were they still working and still coin op?
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:31 |
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I’ve been meaning to write a piece about the airport chairs. You can still buy them for your house, but they are insanely expensive.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:31 |
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Stil??
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:41 |
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Hostile Architecture aka “make the homeless go somewhere else” devices
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:45 |
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My first flight was in the early 70s on a FH-227 from CMI to STL. At the time, CMI/Willard Airport was small enough that there were no baggage carousels. T he baggage handlers just set out luggage on a platform for you to pick up. My travel experience did improved after that and I remember the 80s being somewhat tolerable.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:46 |
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Wow I think I can just barely remember seeing those but I can’t remember where, bus station maybe.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:48 |
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Typically there’s a turnstile at the entrance and you have to plop in a euro coin to get in. It pays for upkeep (they’re infinitely cleaner than any public restroom in the U.S.) and keeps out druggies and transients.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:50 |
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Ohh. I spent the night on one of those at Lambert Field [ STL] when I was 13. Pretty but not comfortable....
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:54 |
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As a European I’m not really familiar with what you’re describing. I only see those at highway gas stations.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:56 |
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Remember cigarette vending machines and telephone booths?
![]() 10/09/2020 at 14:59 |
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..... nope lol. I am young enough to remember when arcade machines were in Pizza restaurants . I was too short to see the screen :(
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:00 |
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I remember them still being at the Greyhound station in Spokane in 97 when I was 4. They still had the mounts for them on the seats for another 10 years or so
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:00 |
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Certain cities in France and England have a few pay for play WCs. Some French ones even have attendants standing there.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:06 |
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I didn't encounter a single free public restroom in Italy, and friends of mine that have spent time in France and Spain say it's similar there.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:08 |
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They still have telephone booths in my town.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:11 |
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Nope don’t remember those.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:13 |
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Yes though its probably been two decades since I’ve seen a cigarette vending machine in the US (probably more recently in Europe). And certainly the phone booths, though most of those I remember were pretty nasty.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:13 |
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I might’ve met that old dude’s son. He pissed on the floor of a SEPTA bus one night when I was returning from work
.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:23 |
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It wouldn’t surprise me if I saw them when I was too young to remember. I didn’t get on an airplane again for 15+ years and by then they were gone. I am old enough to remember ashtrays built in to all sorts of public things, like chair arms.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:24 |
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Exactly. And right now, most of them are coming to Austin. Our homeless population has swelled significantly in the last few years, and camping under overpasses, and just about everywhere else, is becoming an issue.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:26 |
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I do. I very rarely go to bars, but I think you’ll still see cigarette vending machines in bars where smoking is allowed (not in Austin). And while I very rarely see a standalone telephone booth any more, I still run across a payphone on a wall now and again.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:27 |
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I thought you and I were about the same age?
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:32 |
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I was born in ‘82. Plenty of time in airports as a kid, but I don’t recall those. I did have a dream featuring one of those portable CRT TVs a few days ago.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:38 |
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Oof. I was a sophomore in high school in 1982....
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:42 |
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Back in my day....
![]() 10/09/2020 at 15:51 |
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Civilized waiting areas, with plenty of room and no long lines?
Nope....barely a memory.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 16:06 |
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![]() 10/09/2020 at 16:34 |
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I remember seeing a few of those. I never used one though. I imagine the must've had a whopping 3 broadcast channels to choose from, when they worked.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 16:43 |
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Remember when you couldn’t just carry your own TV in your pocket?
![]() 10/09/2020 at 16:52 |
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Don’t forget UHF. I grew up with SIX channels, baby.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 16:53 |
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But you could!
![]() 10/09/2020 at 17:03 |
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We got SEVEN on a good day.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 17:06 |
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I took my TV to college, and the only channel I picked up was the local PBS station, and only because the tower was literally outside my window.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 17:07 |
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I remember them.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 18:57 |
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I think the first time I saw one was 1983 in the Salt Lake airport waiting with my mom for a connecting flight to Jackson Hole for a ski vacation. Of course she was at the gate with a book while I explored solo.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 19:40 |
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I show my age when I say I have used the airport coin- op televisions, and also owned a pocket TV that I took on camping trips. Friends would ridicule me for laughter coming from my t ent while they were in darkness and solitude.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 21:17 |
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Yes they worked until the took them out black and white tv.
![]() 10/09/2020 at 22:36 |
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There was one on the cape til the early 2010s.(empty though) at this one take out place. I used to go all the time and pull the pinball like plungers. I think it was still there because the thing was so huge to move.
![]() 10/10/2020 at 00:11 |
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I never saw one in person, but I knew of their existence. I am old enough to have flown in the back of the plane with my parents. AKA the smoking section.
![]() 10/10/2020 at 00:41 |
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The smoking section was awful. It always included at least three rows on the “non” smoking section.
![]() 10/10/2020 at 07:08 |
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I know. Try being in the backseat of an Oldsmobile with rear windows that don’t roll down for a 1200 mile drive. Not good times.
To give you an idea of how heavily my parents smoked, they bought three cartons a week.
![]() 10/10/2020 at 12:37 |
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The math works out to two packs a day. Times two parents. Yikes.
![]() 10/11/2020 at 00:05 |
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It was actually three a day for my dad, and 1+ a day for my mom. Cancer got my mom when she was 58. My dad is about to turn 68, and just quit last year when he was diagnosed with emphysema.
I've never had so much as a puff.
![]() 10/11/2020 at 00:16 |
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My mom smoked a bunch when I was young. And my grandfather smoked two packs a day for many many years and died of bladder cancer before the emphysema could get him. I smoked a fair amount of dope back in the day, and smoked cigars for probably 20 years, but have since quit. I kind of miss the cigars. It was an enjoyable process. But I had gotten up to about three a day, and that was getting bad.
![]() 10/11/2020 at 05:48 |
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Good on you for quitting.