A phone on SF's Valencia Street aims to address the political divide through conversation

SAN FRANCISCO - A social experiment is underway on the streets of San Francisco, aimed at connecting a country that at times seems so far apart. It all starts with picking up the phone. 

'Party line'

On Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District, this ringing phone hopes to connect the nation in a way many feel has been lost.

A modified pay phone says "talk to a Republican." On the other end, the phone is connected to a phone in Abilene, Texas, one of the most politically conservative parts of the country, where it says "talk to a Democrat." 

The hope is, the phone will ring and someone will pick it up. 

Pick up the phone

The phone line just opened up over the weekend and is already creating conversations.  

Steven Bednarczyk picked up the phone and began talking about one of the big issues that has split the country. 

"Politics," he told the person on the other end of the call. "All they do is divide, and we just lose."

The telephone social experiment by Matter Neuroscience is called The Party Line, aimed at creating a way to bridge a gap that has grown in this country, and has sometimes split families down political lines.  

Organizers took two old pay phones and repurposed them with a note explaining what they were doing. 

In an Instagram post, Matter Neuroscience said, "It also says the goal for this project, which is to have people from different places have meaningful conversations, because hostile political discourse increases our brains' cortisol levels and suppresses happiness."

The phone on Valencia St. is located outside Black Serum Tattoo and was placed there with permission from the shop's owners. 

A path towards healing

Bednarczyk, the caller, said there is so much rhetoric dividing the country and families, the phones may be a path toward healing. "It's brutal the divisions that this is doing and until it hits close to home, people aren't going to realize. But, this, this is kind of bringing people closer in a way."

Instead of waiting for a call, Dakota picked up the phone herself. 

"So, this is super cool," she told the woman on the other end of her call. They talked for a few minutes, and at the end of the call, Dakota said there wasn't a big political difference between them. She said the phones can help show that we have more that unites us than divides us. 

"I would also like to think that someone who answers the phone, even if they are very conservative, it would still be a human-to-human interaction and walls would be dropped, which I think is really fun," Dakota said. 

Organizers are recording the calls, hoping for connections that may show the world that even in two places separated by politics and 1,500 miles, we are more alike than different. Matter Neuroscience hopes to highlight some of those positive calls on their social media.