The Red Phone.(The Talk of the Town)(ordinary New Yorkers talk with ordinary Iranians)

On a blustery recent Saturday morning, a small group of volunteers gathered at the entrance to City Hall Park. They set up a folding table and laid out four old-fashioned red telephones, which were marked with the numbers one through four. They unfurled a banner that read, "U.S. and Iran: It's time to talk!" Another banner, draped across the front of the table, announced, "Direct lines to Iran."

The antiwar group Enough Fear had set up the call session as a way for ordinary New Yorkers to talk to ordinary Iranians, although the event's location, chosen by the Parks Department, guaranteed that, apart from a few bargain hunters shopping at Century 21, most passersby would be tourists. The "ordinary Iranians" at the other end were volunteers, recruited from the organizers' Web site, who would be sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring. Five young Iranians--four men and a woman in a black head scarf--began dialling numbers from a list in front of them.

Ali, a student, called Azad in Tehran and waited for a connection. "Allo?" he said, when Azad picked up. "Allo, salaam. . . . I'm Ali, the interpreter," he said in Farsi, and added, half jokingly, "What are you doing at home on Ashura?" Ashura is one of the holiest days in the Shia calendar, commemorating Imam Hussein's martyrdom, and many Iranians attend self-flagellation ceremonies and passion plays at mosques. Other volunteers, meanwhile, handed out flyers, on the back of which a number of questions were listed as an aid to conversation: "How old are you?" "What are your hobbies?" "What is the weather like there this time of year?"

An older woman was the first to get on a phone. "Hello, Azad!" she said loudly into the mouthpiece. "My name is Caroline." She chatted in English with her Iranian counterpart. "Your English is fantastic!" she exclaimed. "I'm a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother who loves peace!" She nodded. "And who would you want me to vote for?" she asked, in response to a question about the elections. "We're supporting Obama--is that O.K.?" The line to Iran, a crackly connection, gave out.

Patty, a middle-aged woman visiting from upstate with her husband, picked up a different phone. "Are you worried there might be hostilities between our countries?" she asked, enunciating the words slowly. "That's good," she said. ...