Moshe Cohen sent two e-mails, one with a photo of himself attached, to his wife in Israel. Then he called home.

The sales and marketing director, who was sightseeing after a business trip to Mexico, didn't use a cell phone. He didn't use a laptop computer. He used a phone booth on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 46th Street.

"It's amazing," Cohen said while using what is billed as the nation's first outdoor Internet terminal. "It's taking [away] the burden of carrying a handheld e-mail device - and I can do it on the street while I'm touring a city like New York. Very nice."

Anyone from secretaries to tourists can check or send e-mail or click onto almost any Web site (think parental controls) from the terminal, which is encased in a vandal-proof yellow console and beside a regular pay phone. A built-in camera allows users to instantly transmit a photo of themselves to friends and family.

The cost: $1 for the first four minutes and 25 cents for each additional minute, payable by coin, major credit card or, coming soon, a prepaid calling card. A regular call to anywhere in the world is only 25 cents a minute and can be made while the Internet is being used.

The Internet phone is made by TCC Teleplex, one of the city's larger independent operators of outdoor pay phones.

Dennis Novick, the company's president, said TCC will evaluate the response for 30 days before rolling out more terminals in Manhattan. If all goes well, Novick hopes to have 100 operating citywide by next year.

"We think it's going to be very strong," Novick said moments after Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, with plenty of help, sent the terminal's first e-mail.

"I think it's terrific," Gotbaum said. "The problem for me is that I'm just learning how to use e-mail. I'm not very good at it. But I can see that it has tremendous possibilities for everybody. I mean, you can send e-mail on the fly."