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Jun 22 2021 24 Comments

A concrete and fantastically old school push-button phone slide

Back at the beginning of this year, I photographed an old and wonderfully dated concrete robot. A playground addition that’s as colourful as it is retro, and if it were somehow capable of owning a phone, then the one below would be absolutely perfect.

Donated to the park in 1981 by the then Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, the slide was a gesture to mark 1.5 million subscribers in the area, along with an impressive 30,000 public phone installations. Figures that now seem as dated as the push-button replica built to commemorate them, but just like the aforementioned robot, it’s that old school aspect that makes it so appealing.

concrete and retro push-button phone slide

concrete and retro push-button phone slide

concrete and retro push-button phone slide

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. john says

    6/22/2021 at 9:27 am

    One can use the ladder, or clamber up a small hill rather than run up a large bill. Not a lot of young ‘subscribers’ might know that.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/22/2021 at 6:53 pm

      Haha, very good! I liked that one a lot.

      Reply
  2. Sean says

    6/22/2021 at 9:44 am

    Oh man this really appeals to me. What an awesome find! 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/22/2021 at 6:54 pm

      Fantastic, isn’t it? A find I was very happy with for sure.

      Reply
  3. Felipe Rojas says

    6/22/2021 at 10:02 am

    Wow! I could imagine myself as a kid just dangerously hopping over the buttons while muttering my house’s number to myself 😅.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/22/2021 at 6:56 pm

      I know eh? I do hope kids do that, although I suppose there’s every chance they don’t even know what it is…

      Reply
  4. ellen says

    6/22/2021 at 11:32 am

    Oh my! I’d love to take my son here. The color too! 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/22/2021 at 6:59 pm

      Yeah, the colour really adds to it. Enhances the the retro vibe even further. Hopefully your son would enjoy playing on it as much as we enjoy looking at it!

      Reply
  5. Paul says

    6/22/2021 at 5:38 pm

    That’s funny how kids seem to use middle and right buttons only.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/22/2021 at 7:02 pm

      Ah yes, I hadn’t noticed that. Maybe a secret number to call other concrete phones…

      Reply
      • Paul says

        6/22/2021 at 8:24 pm

        World would be better with more concrete phones.

        Reply
        • Lee says

          6/23/2021 at 8:29 am

          It really would.

          Reply
  6. Richard says

    6/22/2021 at 8:30 pm

    Really cool! It could use a paint job, however.

    I am old enough to remember when push button phones were an advancement over rotary ones. Of course, these were all connected to the wall by a wire. You had to sit/stand in one place in order to use them. How many inconvenient was that?!?

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/23/2021 at 8:36 am

      Great, isn’t it? To be honest, I like that aspect, and the cracks. Either way though, I do hope they stick with the same colour when they inevitably do re-paint it.

      My biggest gripe with rotary phones was when you called someone and the line was engaged. Dialling once was fine, repeated dialling not so much…

      Reply
      • Richard says

        6/24/2021 at 9:21 pm

        True that the cracks make it seem old.

        How ‘terrible’ that you had to re-dial sometimes on a rotary phone?!? Also inefficient that it could not remember the number to re-dial for you!!

        Reply
        • Lee says

          6/24/2021 at 9:25 pm

          Haha, good call, I really have been spoilt by modern technology!

          Reply
  7. Adam says

    6/23/2021 at 10:52 am

    Further afield, if you ever find yourself in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and in the mood to capture a similarly themed playground feature, 小月縄田公園 is *the * place, assuming you’ve not already been there and got the T-shirt!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/23/2021 at 4:22 pm

      Brilliant. Thanks a lot for that. Now that really is something special. Surely the daddy of all concrete phone slides!

      Reply
      • Adam says

        6/26/2021 at 7:24 am

        You’re very welcome.
        *** Thank you *** for all your wonderful photos.
        Next time I find myself on the Jōban Line, guess where I’m going…?!

        BTW, in case you’re not aware of this photo exhibition, it might be of interest;

        https://ginzaline.com/2021/06/25/tokyo-shores-36-views-from-the-other-side/

        Reply
        • Lee says

          6/26/2021 at 3:09 pm

          My pleasure. And yeah, it’s definitely worth a little diversion.

          Ooh, cheers for that. Nice one. Somehow that had completely passed me by. Still time to get out there before it ends too.

          Reply
  8. cdilla says

    6/23/2021 at 8:47 pm

    Another wonderful find.
    This encompasses so many of the things I find captivating – and Iam hovering over the buy button for a Nippon Telegraph push button phone… must resist.
    I wonder if kids playing there ever pause at the top to answer a call on their mobile.
    2590 is definitely someones PIN 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/24/2021 at 9:19 am

      Thanks. Very happy indeed to have found this. After seeing it first on Google Maps, there was always a danger of it being a bit of an anti-climax, but it didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Quite the opposite in fact.

      When I got there, a bunch of little kids were playing on it. Way too young for phones of their own, but also way too young to have any idea at all about what they were playing on. Not that they enjoyed it any less of course.

      So, which phone did you buy?!

      Reply
      • cdilla says

        6/24/2021 at 6:45 pm

        I was looking at this one https://tinyurl.com/ybjukxcp but £140 was too much. The seller is from Japan so I thought I’d look through their other listed items. There are 16,789 of them – I may be some time 🙂
        Seems they are a business (Goyokiki) who buys and ships Japanese stuff for you. I use a similar service from WhiteRabbitExpress myself for those times we either can’t visit, or our baggage allowance isn’t up to the task 🙂 They are also useful for getting things in advance for you to pick up when you arrive – like ghibli museum tickets.

        Reply
        • Lee says

          6/24/2021 at 8:28 pm

          That is a lot to look through. Yeah, a bit pricey, but it is a lovely thing. Perfect colour too.

          Ah, interesting. I wasn’t aware of such services. Very useful. Saves a lot of hassle, and wasted time. Hopefully they have all survived the pandemic.

          Reply

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