Six historic phone boxes in Liverpool city centre have been transformed and given new leases of life to become boogie boxes, with disco lights, and defibrillators. The phone boxes, five red kiosks and 1 90s box, have been adopted by Liverpool BID Company and Medicash. A seventh is in the process of being added to the collection.
Since 2008, BT has invited local authorities and charities to give a new lease of life to the iconic red phone boxes, 10,000 of which remain on the UK’s streets. In Liverpool, the re-purposed phone boxes are at the Town Hall, where there are two, Lime Street, St John’s Lane, Crosshall Street and Old Haymarket.
The phone box at the Town Hall was converted to a defibrillator in February 2020. The second telephone box had a colour changing light installed. Since then, the team has been working to explore new roles for other red boxes in the city centre, which are a historic feature of Liverpool’s streets. Over the past two months, the other four boxes have been converted, with a fifth in the pipeline.
It was only when the disco lights and the “Boogie Box” sign was installed on the telephone box at St John’s Lane that it was spotted on TikTok.
Leanne Wilks is Projects Officer at Liverpool BID Company and is behind the work, “These traditional phone boxes are such an iconic part of our public realm we’ve been working as a team to explore ways not simply to preserve them, but to give them a new lease of life. The team was quite surprised when their makeovers were spotted on TikTok, but it just goes to show how important they are to us, and why they still hold a place in our hearts.
Business Improvement Districts exist to enhance the environment we live and work in throughout the city centre, and giving a new purpose to a piece of heritage and social history, as the phone box is, allows us to enjoy them alongside a new generation”.
