The dead TVs of NYC [Resources_Geek life]

EVERY JANUARY AT CES, IN LAS VEGAS, IEEE SPECTRUM editors find themselves strolling through enormous cathedrals of television: Multistory facades of luminescent images flood the eye from screen after screen. At press conferences, the manufacturers try to outdo one another with razzmatazz presentations as their latest wares make their glitzy debuts before heading out into showrooms around the world. Photographer Tom Starkweather is interested in the utter antithesis of what happens at CES. He recently published Screen Saver, a hand-bound book featuring oddly compelling photographs of televisions discarded in the streets and yards of New York City. Devices that would have once been the literal center of attention now lie abandoned, with the images on their screens formed only by the reflections of their surroundings. (Starkweather has also chronicled the fading presence of the pay phone.) Spectrum senior editor Stephen Cass spoke to him about his fascination for the public fate of yesterday's technologies.