Here Are Eight Women You’ll See on Cast-Iron Boxes Around DC- A new project has turned unused emergency-call boxes into works of art

While the use of emergency street phones in cities has declined in the past century, you can still find abandoned, cast-iron call boxes around DC. Thanks to the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, the rusted ringers have been restored—and then some.

In advance of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2020, the city unveiled eight refurbished call boxes with bronze relief portraits to honor prominent women who helped to shape the capital’s history. The figures include blues-and-gospel musician Flora Molton, the co-founder of the DC Statehood Party Josephine Butler, and longtime Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.