In this day and age, pay phones are really just taking up space. 

They're big, useless hunks of metal that remind us of darker times, before Instagram, hashtags, and celebrity Twitter wars. 

And most of the time, anyone who hangs out in them is undoubtedly engaged in questionable activities, and rarely actually making a legitimate phone call. 

But thankfully, the days of pay phones are slowly but surely becoming a distant memory.  

Thanks to LinkNYC's mission to replace 7,500 pay phones with free wi-fi and phone charging kiosks, the machines are now up and running along Third Avenue on the Upper East Side.

The kiosks are located at at East 60th, 66th, 68th, 69th, 77th, 80th, 82nd, 83rd, 84th, 85th 86th, 87th, 90th, 91st, 92nd, and 95th streets, though those at 66th, 84th, 85th and 86th streets are not yet online.

The machines include touch screens that guide users to make phone calls, browse the Internet, charge their phones, and place a call to 9-1-1 by pushing a single red button.

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The wi-fi signal can also be accessed within a 150-ft radius of each kiosk. 

The service is totally free, but users do have to register with an email address as well as agree to the terms & conditions, which will likely be read through about as thoroughly as those offered by iTunes.

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Though the kiosks currently only exist in Gramercy, the Easy Village, and the Upper East Side, LinkNYC is working its way up to the projected goal of replacing more than 10,000 kiosks city-wide. 

While we're slightly concerned about this venture aggregating the whole walk-and-text issue, we're mostly just happy to no longer have to ask the disgruntled bartender to charge our phones behind the bar. 

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