Pay Phone Murder Mystery
A fascinating new interactive murder mystery art project that uses NYC’s pay phones as its medium:
WMMNA has a thorough overview of Canal Street Station and an interview with artist Ryan Holsopple.
Holsopple launched a public pay phone who-dunnit that invites people to make a toll-free call from any public pay phone in Canal Street Station and solve a murder mystery.
Set in the maze of tiles that make up the station, the Canal Street Station game puts participants in the shoes of a private investigator, as he searches the depths of Canal Street Station for a young French woman that may have committed a murder, or may be a figment of his own imagination.
Players are asked one simple riddle that can be solved by refrencing a subway map on the platform, the answer has to be entered into the keypad when they hear Niki (alias Tajna Tanovic) say the words, “Canal Street Station.”
“If you answer the clue correctly you hear her say, ‘Great Work Detective!’ Niki then tells you a more difficult riddle that takes you to another platform in the station. The riddles become increasingly difficult as you walk the creepy corridors of the Canal Street Subway station finding the answers,” explains Ryan Holsopple. “You can start on any payphone, but no matter where you begin you will eventually end up on the same platform in the end of the mystery, when you answer the final question, you are told which train to exit the station on to take you to the last stage of the mystery.”