Call box of duty: Cops remember the call boxes that kept them connected John Kelly When Answer Man was a wee Answer Boy, a favorite game was cops and robbers. The neighborhood urchins would ape what they’d heard on TV, which meant at some point someone on the law enforcement side would bark, “Calling all cars! Calling all cars!” into an imaginary radio. Last week in this space, Answer Man wrote about a time before radios, before cars, but not before police or firefighters. These first responders responded with the help of call boxes: cast-iron boxes that allowed communication via telegraph line and, later, phone lines.