Events
The new “Tell-A-Booth” lets you pick up the phone and leave an anonymous question or message for the column.
The Love Letters phone booth, presented by the Boston Public Library, was installed Feb 12. Go in and share. Kelly Chan/Boston.com
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Perhaps you’ve noticed a massive Love Letters logo in the Boylston Street window at The Boston Public library.
The Love Letters phone booth, presented by the Boston Public Library, was installed Feb 12. Go in and share. Kelly Chan/Boston.com
What’s it doing there?
Well … we have a phone booth now.
(I’m squealing with excitement, even though you can’t hear it.)
This is the story:
In 2024, I took a long walk. The weather was nice, and people were smiling. I think I had a good iced coffee.
Whatever the reason, I thought, “Maybe the world can be good.”
During this walk I also thought: “Wouldn’t it be cool if Love Letters had a phone booth?”
If you’re asking, “Huh? What does that mean?,” hear me out:
Phone booths have long been magical to me, mostly because of cinema.
I’d see a phone booth as a kid and think, “That’s where Clark Kent changes into Superman.”
In the movie “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Bill and Ted use a phone booth to travel through time.
“Doctor Who.” BBC WORLDWIDE, BBC AMERICA
I haven’t seen “Doctor Who,” but I’ve heard he can do plenty with a phone booth.
In the comedy “Anchorman,” Will Ferrell’s character, Ron Burgundy, tells a friend that a phone booth is a “glass case of emotion” — because he’s crying inside of it.
Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”CBS via Getty Images
It’s one of my favorite comedic moments in cinema, and it is also true! Phone booths have always seemed to offer privacy and anonymity.
Why not have a phone booth that takes you straight to Love Letters? At the very least, it would give people a spot to vent. To say, “Hey, I’d like to share my feelings, because human relationships can be confusing.”
When I took that long walk, dreaming of a Love Letters phone booth, there was only one place I wanted to put it: the Boston Public Library.
Libraries are just as magical as phone booths, to me. They’re where we go to share and receive stories.
Libraries are where we can get emotional about everything, from a fictional character’s plight to an upcoming exam that brings us to a quiet room to study.
Libraries are where we keep records of past experiences. They help us find a path out of loneliness — for free.
They’re where we seek answers.
Not long after my walk, I called the library staff and told them my phone booth idea. I was thrilled when they said, “That sounds … very cool.”
Within about a year, the library had hired the American Repertory Theater set team to design and build the phone booth. Within another six months or so, The Boston Globe and Boston.com had figured out a way to make an old-school payphone call an anonymous Love Letters phone number.
On Friday, we moved the phone booth from the American Repertory Theater shop to the library, ready for use.
The Love Letters phone booth, presented by the Boston Public Library, was installed Feb 12. Go in and share. Kelly Chan/Boston.com
The Love Letters Tell-A-Booth, presented by the Boston Public Library, now stands at the 700 Boylston St. entrance of the building. It’s ongoing and available for your questions about your relationship life.
The basics: You go in, pick up the phone, and choose from a set of options.
The main goal is for you to leave a question. Or simply share feelings.
Talk about friendships, family, in-laws, first crushes, last crushes, marriage, divorce, partnership, communities, and more – whatever you want. If your voicemail is in the form of an anonymous, answerable question, I’ll take it on in the column.
The phone booth has been up and running since Friday, and I’ve already received dozens and dozens of messages.
They’re about everything from romantic love to frustrations at work.
One guy went in and left a message telling me he doesn’t have a problem, but really wanted me to know he loves his girlfriend. “She’s beautiful,” he said.
One person said, “Um, I’m a college student. At what point do you start calling someone your friend? What if you have class with them, see them sometimes (but not all the time), and you don’t really hang out?”
I will answer that one, for sure.
I am already learning so much about what’s on the minds of people around Boston. And to the person who seems to have left me a performance of Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine,” thank you. It was very “Emma Stone in ‘Easy A’” of you.
Please know: I do not think this phone booth will solve the loneliness epidemic. I do not think it will solve the problems of the world.
I do hope it makes people feel like they can share, and reminds us that we all have questions about connection.
I hope it’s fun.
After you visit the booth, check out a book. Ask a librarian for a good one.
Librarians, like advice columnists, are also here to help.
Now, some links:
The Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham spoke to divorce lawyers for relationship advice. It was a great way to mark Valentine’s Day.
This is a Big Day weddings story about a couple who accidentally ran into Paul Revere (For those who don’t live around Massachusetts: it’s the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. People are in costumes all over Boston. Running into some person who looks like Paul Revere is bound to happen.)
Julia Kallis and Kyle Higgins were swarmed by a group of strangers in Colonial costumes just before their Dec. 6 wedding at the Omni Parker House.Thomson & Thomson Photography
This is a recent Love Letters question from an IT project manager who wishes there was some way to project manage one’s love life.
Helpers all around
Last week I spoke with teens at the 826 Boston Writers Room at the Boston International Newcomers Academy in Boston.
The public school, according to its mission statement, “is focused on welcoming students from immigrant families and preparing them for college and career.”
826 Boston, a writing organization for young people, runs one of its Writers Rooms from there, helping kids write cool stuff – and then get published for real.
The teens and I talked about the history of advice columns, and about how to write stories about the way people love. (We did discuss the actual wedding that happened during Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance.)
As I left the building, I realized these kids already knew plenty about how to help others through writing. They have an advice board where they give tips to new students to help them start a good experience.
It was a lovely morning.
I’ll leave you with a picture I took of their wall of advice.
– Meredith
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