Get To Know Your Neighborhood Call Box

Have you seen D.C.’s old call boxes? They were once part of an elaborate communications system to call emergency services when few homes and businesses had telephones. The boxes (blue for police, red for fire department) were locked, and the keys were only held by nearby merchants who had to be summoned to the scene.

Inside the box was a wheel you could turn to send a telegraph key specific to that box. That way the responders knew where to go. This system was used in D.C. as recently as the 1980’s, with 1,500 call boxes at its peak.

Now, hundreds of them have been transformed into tiny art museumsaround the city. One of the most interesting installations is by local artist Charles Bergen who retrofitted eight call boxes with cast-iron sculptures of notable women from D.C.