Fake heritage plaques are the latest way pranksters are showing their love for Toronto.

After Toronto TikTokker Jamison Lightfoot's hilarious mock-heritage plaque detailing the sordid lore of the Queen and Spadina McDonald's went viral earlier this month, more and more have been surfacing — and they're hilarious.

One of the most recent to surface pays homage to an unlikely — certainly less talked-about hero in the city — the lost parking lot payphone at Banjara Indian Cuisine.

The plaque, which wordlessly appeared sometime during the summer of 2024, details not only the history of that specific payphone, but the history of payphones in general — for any passersby who may not remember harrowing days before the smartphone.

The plaque at Banjara. Photo by blogTO.

"In the summer of 2015, a coin-operated telephone was installed here, replacing three long-standing Bell payphones," the plaque reads.

"To make a call, users had to insert metal coins through a slot," it continues. "However, the payphone mysteriously disappeared sometime in the past year."

The plaque wraps up by stating that it was erected to commemorate "the payphones in this parking lot and their gradual disappearance from the urban landscape," ensuring that generations to come can, too, understand the agony of trying to fit an entire conversation in on only 75 cents.

The plaque is then signed off by a mysterious entity known only as the "Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit," but this isn't the first project they've embarked on in the city.

The former Banjara parking lot phone isn't actually the only payphone that's been honoured by the Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit — back in 2017, they also created a plaque to commemorate the Finch Station pay phone.

The project, along with some other guerilla art that can be found in unlikely corners of the city, is actually the work of local artist Jode Roberts and his "co-conspirators," who aim to bring "joy to the city through fun art projects."

Alongside the Banjara parking lot phone, Jode and his collaborators have also put up plaques for quotidian landmarks like a huge elm tree and a Toronto Star newspaper box, alongside other projects like adorning various objects in the city with adorable googly eyes.