I have a question about old phone numbers

I second that - what the hell did that mean - how would you actually dial a number that began "Lexington" etc -

The names -- a mnemonic device -- represented the first two digits of the phone number.

The prefix would be LEX and then the number. Hence LEX-1234. This is how we got the 7 number system. Then the letters were changed to numbers and then they added the area code. I remember when the area code came into being. I was very young. People didn't call long distant unless it was a real emergency. The way it is now I call long distance whenever I want to chat.

Me three. What the fuck was the significance of all that? On an episode of the Simpsons from the early 90s, there was a phone number that started with "KL5", and a character read it aloud as "Klondike 5".

Now you understand how dialing with a pencil came to be.

Same question. I know before I was born, phones were not private yet, you were on a party line for the whole block or neighborhood. I think some Lucy episode referenced that once.

I always thought it had something to do with that, but I could be totally wrong.

Way back, you couldn't dial the number so just got an operator and told her you wanted LexingtonXXXX or whatever. Later, when you could dial it yourself (with a pencil) you used the first two letters of Lexington as your numbers. For example, I had a number that began "Frontier" and it became 377-XXXX. Now I don't know if all modern phones have corresponding letters and numbers though my landline phone does. Hmmmm.....

No, R3. Only the first two letters. It was always written like KLondike 5-1212. When we switched to all digit dialing, it was 555-1212. Same dialing sequence.

R4, K and L are on the #5 button, so basically KL5 is 555, which is the generic prefix for fictitious TV/movie telephone numbers.

For those of us old enough to have used them, what was your prefix? Ours was DRake 6-.

My, there are some younguns on tonight.

It seems like two people who were there when this wackiness was going down have tried to explain it, but I am no closer to understanding it.

Why exactly did you need a word to represent the first few digits of the phone number? People really had that hard a time remembering the letters? Why did you need the letters? The numbers weren't good enough?

Utterly bizarre.

That's right, R9. I hadn't picked up on the 555 thing. I'm just still not understanding why letters (or whole words used as mnemonic devices) were necessary at all.

Different areas of town were located by the exchanges--mine was JEfferson--but no, you did not spell out the name. It was just a reminder to you for the first two letters because they represented numbers on the keypad. So the JEfferson numbers in my neighborhood meant your number started with 5 and 3.

You would tell a friend, "My number is Jefferson 1-0000" or spell it to them as "Jay Eee 1-0000."

I think this held true until the early 70s. The names disappeared then and phone numbers became strictly numerical. Remember also, for local calls, no need for the area code. You just dialed seven digits.

You had a station (Klondike) and all of the numbers in its district started with KO. Then they went to all digits.

My childhood home phone numbers were ATwater 2-3405 and WYman 2-5327. Phone service was divided up by exchanges called Atwater, WYman, KLondike, etc. As mentioned upthread, before dial phones, the operator who placed your call routed your call by exchange name. When telephone call routing became automatic, the first two letters of the exchange name became the first two numbers of the phone number. The above-mentioned WYman number became 992-5327. Phones began to appear with numbers and letters to facilitate calling.

Ralph Kramden's phone number.

Bensonhurst 0-7741

They were easier to remember. It's been fifty years, but I still remember my grandma's number, TUrner2-0133, and my aunt's number, TAlbot5-2703. The only other numbers I can remember are my social security number and driver's license number.

Thank you, Rs 14-16. I'm starting to understand.

I'm really old and lived with my grandmother in the rural south. She had a "party line" and her phone number was 7848. Just four numbers. And her ring was one long and two short. There were three other families on the same line, and when other people's phones would ring, she'd try to sneakily lift the receiver and sit there and eavesdrop on their conversations. (early 1960s)

Ma Bell used names, I think, because it gave people a general idea of where you were geographically. My JEfferson number told people that I lived in the center of town. It was a locator of sorts.

Oh and a city number then was Fleetwood 3-2183 or some such, and the F and L would be the first two numbers you dialed (well, the numeric equivalent.)

I think the phone company didn't think people could memorize seven numbers so they used the alphabetic memory device of some name to represent the first two numbers.

R20

Happened on party lines in the big city as well. I can remember picking up the phone, hearing someone having a convo and rather than hanging up as one was suppose to do, listening in. Even when phone lines became private, you could still occasionally pick up the phone and listen in on someone's convo. Used to call that a "crossed line".

R17

From IMDb, The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 17: "The Babysitter"

The original title of this episode was "BEnsonhurst 3-7741". But after filming, it was discovered that that was an actual working number. To avoid the real-life users of the number from being called by viewers, the number was changed to BEnsonhurst 0-7741. The cast had to re-dub every mention of the digit "three" with "zero" and the title was changed.

Operator, I've been dialing Murray Hill 7-0-0-9-3 for the last hour and it's constantly busy. I don't see how it could be busy that long. Will you try it for me?

Sorry Wrong number

Call me, honey, and I'll explain it all for you...

C'mon...Pennsylvania 6-5000 doesn't ring a bell?

Sherwood and Gladstone. Sh3 1523 and GL31523. It was easy.

Dial "M" for Murder.

R27, is that why BUtterfield is spelled with a capital U? I always wondered about that. At first, I thought it was a typo, but it's written that way everywhere.

So it really comes down to the telephone companies thinking that people couldn't memorize seven-digit numbers?

My parents said that back in the 1950's they could make local calls with just the last four digits (and later five) of the numbers and the lettter prefix was just for non local calls; much like not having to use the area code for local calls in a city all in one area code.

I lived in the Sherwood area so my number was SH-6-0858. My cousin's was Glencourt, so GL-4.

When I was a young'un my mother or father (telephones were not for children) would lift up the receiver, then click down on the cradle twice to signal the operator that a customer wished to place a telephone call.

All the town knew the operators by first name, so one would simply say "Irene, get me George down at the store." Irene knew who George was, and the call would be connected.

Should one wish to telephone long distance, it was similar to making an appointment. It could take as long as twenty minutes for the various lines to be connected, as your local operator would need to contact the next operator and so on. When the connection was made, the operator would ring you back.

R32

It comes down to manually call routing versus automatic call routing. In the days before automatic call routing, the operator manually routed your call to an exchange (such as has been mentioned upthread). The exchange then manually routed your call to the phone number within the specific exchange that you requested. If you wanted to call KLondike 6-5432, the operator would manually route your call to the KLondike exchange. The exchange would then manually route you to the number you wanted 6-5432.

Automatic call routing and direct dialing made the above obsolete for local calls.

I lived in a rural/suburban area where the numbers started with ULrick, apparently the original owners of the local telephone exchange, eventually bought out by Pacific Northwest Bell.

It was also for the benefit of telephone operators r32.

R(18) I have a similar memory of granny's number, JAckson 23234

All you Broadway queens, what was the song that had this telephone number in it. "PLaza 04433."

BITD, our exchanges were DEwey and HOward. My house had 2 separate lines, because of a family business. Both numbers rang on the same phone, we could tell which one it was because there were 2 distinct ringers. To answer either we turned a little plastic knob on the phone. Gee, "modern" technology sure was wonderful.

Did the operators THEMSELVES ever listen in, not just the other people on the party line?

Bell System didn't permit operators listening in, but if for some reason they did hear a conversation "during the course of business" they weren't permitted to repeat what they heard. Of course, they'd tell other operators, but not friends.

When I was a kid you sometimes heard people still say GL9-1212 but everyone dialed 45.

But at our summer place a phone was a luxury. Our neighbor often used our phone if he had a hot tip and needed to place a bet. But we were on a party line and if we had an emergency and someone else was using it we had to pick up and ask them to release it.

This was early 70s.

[quote]All you Broadway queens, what was the song that had this telephone number in it. "PLaza 04433."

"It's a Perfect Relationship" from BELLS ARE RINGING.

Incidentally, that song could've worked ten years ago, during the early stages of online chatrooms before the advent of webcams or Skype.

[quote]I'm in love with a man / PLaza oh double-four, double-three / What a perfect relationship / I can't see him, he can't see me... And yet I can't help wondering what does he look like? / I wish I knew / What does he look like? /

r40, a hyphen always followed the exchange name. It's PLaza 0-4433.

Do operators still exist?

Exchanges where I grew up:

CLifford

YEllowstone

MUlberry

ATlantic

We were Edgewood back in the day.

I'm not even THAT old (44) but I remember when I was a little kid we moved from the city to the country. Where we moved was so rural they still had party lines and private lines weren't even available. My mother had to teach me our "ring" but it took me a long time to learn it and sometimes answered the phone (they didn't like me answering but I was always running to answer because I thought it was exciting!) calls of other people.

I can remember talking to a friend and one of the little old ladies on our party line butting in and telling us she needed to make a call. Scared the shit out of me because she'd clearly been listening. Private lines finally became available when I was about 9 or 10.

Way before I knew what "gay" really meant, a slightly older friend told me that her mother's first job was as an operator in the "city" and she'd overheard a long distance conversation between Jim Nabors (who was there staying in a hotel) and Rock Hudson and that they were both gay. I've often wondered what she overheard!

r46, Dial Zero and see if someone answers. Years ago "Operator" and "Information" (now Directory Assistance) were separate groups. Now in some parts of the country, an Operator completes calls and also looks up numbers. Twice as much work for the same salary.

R50, back in '92, a friend was over and double-dig-dared me to prank call the operator, so 12-year-old me dialed "0" and as soon as the operator answered I sang, "We're the one for you, New England! New England Telephone! (Part of the NYNEX family.)"

She was not amused. She scolded me and read my phone number aloud and threatened to send the police after me. I quickly hung up and ran up to my room and hid in my closet. I was so scared! haha

When I lived on the Southside of Chicago, many of the exchanges referenced local attractions. MIdway was for the Midway in front of the U of C where the 1893 World's Fair was held, MUseum was for the museum of Science and Industry, and UNiversity was in honor of the University of Chicago.

So the youngsters understand, it was totally random which prefix you had. You might be Midway and your next door neighbor would have a University number.

During her heyday, Joan Crawford had her very own private prefix; the starting number was CUnting-1-6666.

r53, Joan didn't have a "Prefix." CUnting is an "Exchange Name." If she had a "Prefix" it would've been 286.

It told you where you were calling. WH was White Plains NY, BE was Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. MU was the Murray Hill section of Manhattan.

[quote]I think some Lucy episode referenced that once

It was in one episode and it was there because on the radio show "My Favorite Husband," it was a running gag, Liz (Lucy) couldn't get on the line because this lady was always on the line gabbing. Then Liz would have to think of a clever way to get her off of it.

r33 That was correct, we could do that until 1971 were I lived.

But it wasn't like that all over. Many people are surprised to learn I lived in Will County, IL just over the border from Cook County, IL (Contains Chicago) and we didn't have 911. We had to call a seven digit town number for Fire, Police or ambulance.

I guess it was the same in England, tho there seem to only have been 4 numbers after the word instead of five? This thread finally helped me understand the three old timely phone number references in this scene from the film Absolute Beginners (hurray! now I can time travel and will know how to call David Bowie!)

One thing people have to remember is that, in the olden days, you had a "local calling area" within which your calls were free. Outside of that you either paid for "message units" or, farther afield, long distance, which was prohibitively expensive for most.

As was pointed out above, the prefix gave you an indication of where you were calling, and it was much easier to remember the names of the exchanges that were free to call. Generally, at least where I lived (SF East Bay suburbs) each city or area used one named prefix, and if it was large enough, had multiple "third digits": e.g., YEllowstone 3, 4, and 5 could all serve the same city. And if you lived in an area where the YEllowstone city was part of your local calling area, you knew immediately rather than having to look it up like we did later when they converted to all-digit dialing.

I grew up in the North Shore area of Chicago. Our number was HIllcrest 1-6873

My grandmother lived on East 76th and her number was BUtterfield.

I had two different exchanges growing up:

LYceum 7 and VErnon 8.

I always thought some of the other exchanges were a lot fancier:

TErrance 9 and PEnmark 5.

So that is why on the Andy Griffith Show, they would always say "Sarah get me so and so" when they picked up the phone instead of dialing.

I always thought that the point of it was to help people remember the phone number.

More sort of stylized/personalized, at a point when remembering phone numbers seemed like a very foreign thing.

For us pop culture kids born in the late 60s/70s and after, fascination with the minutae of it all probably meant that yes, we WOULD remember all of that. But early on, it was probably easier to get people to remember numbers by mixing them with words.

[quote]For those of us old enough to have used them, what was your prefix? Ours was DRake 6-.

Ours was CHerry-2 then ATlantic-4.

The first phone I ever used looked a lot like this one. Our phone had no dial at all on it. You simply picked up the receiver and an operator would say: "Number please?" and you would give her the number being called.

Our number at the time was only four digits, 2598, and the numbers being called were also only four numbers each. You had to ask for the "long distance" operator for calls outside the area.

Our exchange when dialing with a pencil came into our lives was (OL)ympic x-xxxx then eventually it came to be 654-xxxx.

Using area codes was a big thing when it first came on the scene..."All those numbers! You have to be a mathematician to make a phone call these days!"

Hello, Operator? Yes, could you please connect me to CUNT 6-8800?

Pennsylvania-6-5000!

On an episode of "All In The Family" Edith makes a call and is surprised to see the exchange name transfers into numbers, and giggles about it.

I saw this episode as a re-run in the late eighties, and that was the first time I understood what all those Klondikes, and Merryhills were about.

In my old neighbor hood the exchanges were named for b. Our number was Bigelow4-8906. Bigelows was a dry cleaner in the neighbor hood. My friends was Decatur X-XXXX the Decatur being a rug company. Our summer cottage had no exchange it was just 4 numbers.

In the early 70s, my aunt had an antique telephone with no dial, just a crank. My uncle retrofitted the phone line so it could plug into the wall, and you could use it as an extension. You could still get an operator by turning the handle and she'd place a call for you. As kids we did it a few times but got yelled at because I guess it cost a lot of money for an operator-assisted call rather just dialing it yourself.

MOntrose 9

In Manhattan, didn't it reference what part of town you lived in, some more desirable than others like PLaza 9 or BUtterfield 8? GRamercy was also one I remember.

r69, in another episode Edith asked Archie to have a friend called her. She said "RAvenswood 8," he interrupted, "Edith I know our number." There were several RAvenswood exchanges serving Astoria where they supposedly lived.

Ummm...people? I think we've exhausted discussing the terribly complex world of old telephone numbers and should move along.

Mmmmmmm'Kay?

When I was a kid, our phone number in Springfield, Mo was UNiversity 6-7770 or UN 6-7770

That's nice. Now please die along with that useless information.

r73 Along with BUtterfield on the Upper East Side, LEhigh, REgent, and RHinelander were prized exchanges.

Exchanges like TRafalgar were on both sides of Manhattan. TR 3,4&7 Upper West, TR 6&9 Upper East.

YUkon was in Midtown East, Upper and Lower East, Lower West Side, and Staten Island depending on the next digit.

r75/77, if the thread is too tedious, skip to the next message. We all thank you.

When I moved to a new neighbood in a large city on 1975, my phone number began with LOcust. I still have the same number all these years later, but LOcust is long gone, replaced by the numbers 56X-XXXX.

Beachwood 4 5789

Mine was DIrty WHore 69.

In Chicago the pre-911 numbers for fire and police were FIR-1313 and POL-1313.

Does anyone remember the old joke about reading the phone book?

Hello Central, Get me Doctor Jazz

R7 - FRontier7 wasn't Madison, NJ by any chance?

We were MErcury5 in Chatham; my aunt was JEfferson8 in Morristown.

r86, FRontier 7 was in Madison. People in Morristown were angry when JEfferson was assigned. They wanted WAshington because of his connection with the town. New Jersey Bell had no clue to their history.

My number was COcksucker6-6969.

This thread has rescued TelCo guy from his anonymous, horribly lonely life.

Now he has...FRIENDS!

BOwery 6-2000?

No one remembers dialing POP-CORN for the time? Maybe that was just a local thing where I lived.

We were GRover 5.

ATlantic 8 was another.

A friend was JUpiter.. I think 6.

When I was a small kid, I had to memorize my phone number. Using Grover 5 was easier to remember than 475. Everyone memorized their phone numbers in a kind of sing song voice.

This Wikipedia article includes AT&T's list of recommended standardized prefix names.

OP, it's one thing being young and all "golly gee wilikers" about something as simple as this.

You're just coming across as stupid. That is not cute.

[quote] Using area codes was a big thing when it first came on the scene..."All those numbers! You have to be a mathematician to make a phone call these days!"

True. I remember being in the fourth or fifth grade in my tiny elementary school. We had an assembly during which an "important guest' explained that our four digit phone numbers would now require three more. I guess we were supposed to take this information back to our parents.

Our exchange was NOrmandy. Some of the kids were confused because they thought the phone company was changing the name or our town.

For some reason, it amused us to pick up the receiver of the kitchen wall phone and dial our phone number, then quickly hang up. Our phone would then ring. It annoyed the shit out of the telephone operator. One of the rings we answered would have her at the other end, yelling at "you kids!"

SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

[quote]No one remembers dialing POP-CORN for the time? Maybe that was just a local thing where I lived.

Yes...in San Francisco.

In New York you dialled NER-VOUS or MEridien 7-1212.

In London you dialled TIM.

I always think of that old song, BeachWood 45789...you can call me up for a date, any old time.

Whoops, great minds, 81.

R97

Hissssssssssssssssssss!

My mother still has the 1960 New Orleans white pages because it lists the phone numbers and addresses of Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw (and his infamous SM dungeon location in the Quarter) and all of the other New Orleans conspiracy figures.

When my friends from college come down to see me, I arrange tours of all the addresses. They love it for some reason.

Tonight, I think I'll call Lee Harvey Oswald's old number and see who answers.

What are the addresses and numbers r102?

When I was a kid in the early 70s my grandmother had a party line. You were not allowed to answer the phone until it rang a few times and you could hear the ring pattern and know it was for you. She never got over that habit of letting it ring a few times, even once she got a private line.

For some reason, I've always been an area code nerd. For those of us dialing with a pencil, "area codes were initially assigned based on the volume of telephone calls made in each area. The most populous areas were assigned the area codes that required the least time for dialing using a rotary dial telephone.

The densely populated areas of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit had large incoming call volume and were assigned the shortest area codes (212, 312, 213, and 313, respectively). A sparsely populated area of rural Texas received area code 915. Area codes which covered an entire province or state received the less-desirable '0' middle digit."

In the 1990s, widespread use of cell phones hastened the upgrade of the switching systems for area codes from the standard '0' or '1' as the middle number, to being able to use any number 0-9. We went from area code 717 to 570.

i have a question about your tight ass OP.

Can some kind elder gay from Chicago find the old telephone number of Richard Speck? I'd like to see if he'd like a blow job.

I am old enough to remember it, but phone numbers in my town were FUlton5 or 6-XXXX. The elder gays and straights used to refer to that. I do remember my great grandmother having a party line.

Ours was ATlantic 5-1817. It's the only number my parents have had since they first got phone service in 1960. When they're gone, I'm going to see if there is a way for me to keep it, maybe port it to a cell phone. It would kind of make me sad if, after all these years, someone else had our number.

R108 When my mother died and I called to have her landline disconnected, the person I spoke with asked me that, since she'd had the number for almost 40 years, would I like to have it transferred to another phone or line. Unfortunately, I didn't have anyone in the area who needed a new number, so I let it go.

That is what annoys the fuck out of me today, when people have 1800-eatymydic or some shit...there are no letters on cell dammit....

Yes, there are. Do you have an iPhone, R110? Pull up the keypad; the letters are there.

Also remembers dialing POPCORN in San Francisco to find out the time.

I don't need to decipher a phone number just tell me the numbers....

R10 my prefix was DA 8. which stood for Datun 8.

Ahhhh back in the Bronx again.

My family has an old fashioned "I LOVE LUCY" phone. It weighed a ton!

Some of this has to do with coding that people, not in the business, do not tend to observe.

I've watched plenty of movies and television shows where a zip code's beginning may or may not have been in sync with reality.

With U.S. zip codes, the New England states plus New Jersey begin with the number "0." Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania begin with the number "1." And it proceeds further where, eventually, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington being with the number "9."

I've seen movies and television shows where a shown zip code did not sync with the state that was being mentioned.

A lot of viewers do not observe this just as they don't catch on with "phone numbers" (which are stranger because, in the U.S., they're not and never were as smartly organized by comparison to the U.S. postal system).

Please, for the love of God, explain what dialing of POPCORN?

Ptown still had 4-digit dialing until 1979.

In the SF area, the prefix to call to get the recording telling you the current time was 767. That comes out to POP on the phone dial. In reality, as we found out, you could dial any four numbers after 767 and still get the time, but we always said POP-CORN because it was easy to remember.

I think the weather number was 936- (for WE-ather), but I'm not positive.

R116

The phone company provided a service to tell people the exact time. In San Francisco, you dialed POPCORN (767 2676) to find out the exact time. It was probably POPCORN because it was easy to remember.

Do time and temperature numbers still exist?

Oh! Now I get it, thanks! I used to call the Boston number every morning, because the time was followed by the temperature. Another low-tech thingy made obsolete. By the modern age!

Boston's time & temp number went dead a few years ago.

very nice of you to ask, but the age old response about google it, are you too young to have heard that , and why do you care to begin with. ok, just had to get that off my old hairy chest .

In Pittsburgh, the telephone number for Duquesne Light's time-and-temperature is 412-391-9500. hMy mother worked as telephone for operator for the old Bell System. SHe would give telephone numbers by the exchanges. In Pittsburgh, some of the exchanges were : EXpress 1 (downtown), GRant 1 (downtown), HAzel 1 (Hazelwood), HObart 6 (Mon Valley0, NOrth 4 (Mon Valley) ORchard 2 (Mon Valley), PLymouth 1 (Mon Valley), VA 3 (eastern suburbs) and UNderwood 3 (Westmoreland County)

Pittsburghers who listen to Pirates games can sing the number the for a local home improvement company, HA 1 ...

CAstle 2. Southeastern Massachusetts

I remember being able to make the phone ring to either test the phone ring or to prank someone at home by dialing or pressing 5716 then clicking the hang up clicker and entering 5716 again then hanging up. A few seconds later the phone would start ringing.

In NYC, the phone number indicated the neighborhood the person lived in. For example, the Ricardos lived in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan, so Lucy's number was Murray Hill 5-9975. So to get them you would dial 6(M) 8(U) 5-9975.

r33, I grew up in the 1970s and we could do that. If you were dialing someone in the same exchange as you were, you just dialed the last number of the prefix and then the four digit phone number.

For example if your number was 789-4657 (and we also had a 789 prefix), we would just dial 9-4657

When I was a kid in the early '90s, my brother and I would talk to each other from different parts of the house. For instance, I would pick up the phone downstairs, and he would pick up the phone in our parents' room and we would have a conversation about the most mundane things. In the pre-cell phone era it was pretty cool to be able to talk to each other without being directly nearby. We didn't have Walkie-Talkies (our parents were very strict) so this was the next best thing. We improvised a lot. We also weren't allowed to play with toy/water guns, so we would squirt Windex bottles at each other.

I just think the letter-number combination was so sexy.

Call me at Butterfield 9-3307

Ring me up at Plaza 9-4301

OL(ympia) 6 4690 Wilmington, De.

It's weird that I can remember my family's number from the 1960's, but I cannot remember my number from cities I have lived in during the last 25 years. That means I'm old, really old.

R124, HAzel-1 (421) is the preferred phone exchange in the north of Forbes section of Squirrel Hill. JAckson-1 (521) is considered lower status, as it is more common south of Forbes.

R127, didn't the Ricardos and the Mertzes live at 623 East 68th Street? That's the Upper East Side. Murray Hill is the East 30s.

r132, yes. Technically, the Ricardos number should have been Bloomingdale 5-9975. But when you hire California writers to write a New York show, all you get is mish mash.

(I think they didn't want people to think Bloomindale's store, so they used the Murray Hill code).

The Ricardos would have been in the East River.

I still have my grandmother's black desktop telephone that has VIctor 6-XXXX printed in the inner circle of the rotary dial. The thing weighs about forty pounds.

Was BLoomingdale an exchange? I never lived on the UES, but I thought I'd heard every Manhattan exchange.

Obviously R156 never phoned Kitty Carlisle.

TRafalger, 87 was the original prefix for all the great Upper West Side neighborhoods in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Most of the great old building lobbys still have that prefix for their original numbers, billing phones, and long term residents. When I bought my apartment, it still had dial phones with a yellowed round piece of paper under plastic in the middle of the dial..

That's TRafalgar, R138. And I was more fond of EXeter-5.

Foxcroft. FO9...New Jersey.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Love your story r49. Imagine overhearing a conversation between Hudson and Nabors and working out that they were gay. It would have been delicious gossip at the time.

Who'd have thunk this thread would get to almost 150 responses so quickly!

r114, your Exchange was spelled DAyton.

r124, my father was a HObart 6 in the Pittsburgh area! I think his area was called Mifflin township.

Dear mountain of lazy people:

You're on the Internet. Any of the lot of you could have found this out with a google search. I only say this because about a dozen of you appear to have found an old phone and now can't function.

So glad someone asked this. I'm middle-aged but didn't know.

We were CItrus4-XXXX

R146 doesn't realize that this is a DISCUSSION board. Sometimes personal anecdotes are far more interesting, informative, evocative and amusing than Google.

r146, no I will not get off your lawn.

Thanks R142. When I got older, I always wanted to ask my friend's mom what she overheard. Was Rock telling Jim about the latest twink wannabe actor he'd banged? Was Jim telling him what a cunt Ruth Buzzi was on the set of "The Great Space Coaster"?

R124 Does the Duquesne Light number still work?

That wouldn't surprise me. Pittsburgh does love its old rituals (and its old people).

AT&T discouraged exchange names with two words. People dialed Murray Hill as MH and Park Ridge as PR. Many who couldn't spell dialed UK for YUkon, MO for Missouri, and VA for Virginia.

r136, you're right. No BLoomindale 5. A dialer would reach ALgonquin 5 in Chelsea and the West Village.

Those old numbers sound so complicated and confusing. I still don't get it.

This is for you R155

No, ignore that one R155, try this instead.

wasn't the first 3 letters, was the first two. however if 2 words, like Murray Hill, it was the first 2 letters MH. My number was Homewood5 xxxx Or HO5 xxxx

I bought a Western Electric 300 set off eBay with the number HOward 8-2820. Where is that?

What, no love for 867-5309?

Sure that HOward was a prefix in a lot of towns and cities, but did find it on google in Alton Illinois.

NYC wasn't 100% dial until 1960. CIty Island 8 in the Bronx, HOneywood 6 and TOttenville 8 on Staten Island were the last exchanges where Operators said "Number Please."

what do you mean 100% dial?

Had a party line in the mid 60’s with 3 other neighbors. Spent hours listening to their inane conversations.

bump

Ours was KIngswood

R164, but were they GROOVY-inane? It was the mid-60s, after all. Any specifics?

R163 Read the last part of the sentence at R162.

So Ma Bell never made an instructional video on how to properly dial with a pencil?

[quote]if 2 words, like Murray Hill, it was the first 2 letters MH.

No, it was MU, not MH. In Manhattan, anyway. By the time I lived there, it was 68.

R149, some people just don't get the "having a conversation" concept.

Yes, R152, you can still dial 391-9500 to get time and weather. You just have to add 412 on the front.

I answered my own question at R152 and yes, Pittsburgh's number still works. It also gives the correct date.

(Some of those toothless fuckers out in Fayette and Butler counties probably need this to survive!)

From the Atlantic Magazine

It's only 65 Fahrenheit degrees in Pittsburgh today! WTF.

wow, you guys are really old...

You're complaining, R175?

wow, R176 is really perceptive...of the obvious...

R177, I'm in NYC. I just dialed the number to hear the time & temperature in Pittsburgh and was surprised. It's rather cool and mild in NYC today, too, I just didn't think it would be mid-60s over in the old Pgh.

To get the correct time we dialed TI 6-1212. For the weather report, it was WE 7-1212.

I remember when we went from 7 numbers to 10. We had to use what had been our area code, then dial the number you wanted. It was over a weekend, and no one had been warned it was taking place. I guess TPTB figured if they told us ahead of time, there'd be a whole lotta' bitchin'. IIRC, no one was all that inconvenienced.

I remember when I was a kid, when ships sailed to far they fell off the edge of the Earth.

r181, did your phone number begin with COlumbus 5?

Remember when Lucy said, "That's my phone ringing, it's the Home Show calling me."

And Ethel says "I have sufficient."

Who is the "I have sufficient" queen here, and what the fuck does it mean?

[quote]Had a party line in the mid 60’s with 3 other neighbors. Spent hours listening to their inane conversations.

In England, I guess before digital, we used to get cross-lines all the time.

You'd dial a number and suddenly you'd be listening to two people talking...usually fraus gossiping.

Oh, the fun I had..."Did you REALLY?" "No!"

People would say 'Get off our line!' and I'd say "NO!"

I must have been in my late 20s...just kidding.

When I was a kid we had a dial on our phone and we had to call the operator and say "Pearl, get me Bessie, her number is two shorts and a long."

That meant two short rings and a long ring. We didn't have your fancy schmancy letters and numbers.

It was horrible, static connections, gossips listening in, 1 foot cords and we had to stand up to talk. AND WE LIKED IT.

You like it?

Liked it? We LOVED it.

R186= bloodsucking Medicare Queen bankrupting America. Time to die, you old fossil.

meds, r189, meds.

Die Grandma! Die!

When I was a kid my old Manhattan # started with Oregon. You only dialed the OR. My grandparents' # started with Canal so you only dialed CA at the beginning.

I miss those. They were charming, a la Butterfield 8.

Remember in the good old days you could call 411 and get information for FREE or get an operator to interrupt a phone call if it was important or at least you'd tell her it was or they could check if the phone was really busy with people talking or if the phone was off the hook, like if you were worried about an elderly person.

Also people would call long distance person to person when they arrived somewhere so everyone back home would know they were safe. The person they'd call would say, no, so and so isn't hear and the call cost nothing.

Remember when it was all Ma Bell?

I remember my mother trying to call into a radio show to win a contest. You had to be the first caller so she would dial all the numbers except the last number, then she would dial the last number and keep her finger there. Then when the DJ said "first caller", she'd release the dial for the last number. I thought she was the smartest person alive.

Yet she'd never win.

R52 ...I'm from the Southside and my phone number was MIdway 3-1212. Thanks for the memories.

OP: Yeah, you had to spell out ALGONQUIN on a rotary phone that you dialed with your pencil.

Crossed lines was very important in movies.

I'm one of the few people I know who uses my landline nearly every day

Me too R198. Don't own a mobile.

Me too, R198.

I have a cell phone for very occasional use. I don't even know the number, so don't ask me for it!

People get alarmed if you don't give them a cell phone number. They want to be able to track you down wherever you are.

[quote] People get alarmed if you don't give them a cell phone number. They want to be able to track you down wherever you are.

You know that just because a phone rings, you are not in any way obligated to ANSWER it, right?

My NY phone exchange coincidentally did correspond to a three-letter word: 777 = SPring 7.

[quote]What, no love for 867-5309?

No, not really.

A better one was 6060-842...

[quote]My NY phone exchange coincidentally did correspond to a three-letter word: 777 = SPring 7.

That's not a coincidence.

If you'd been issued the number pre-1966 it would have been SP 7-

After that 777....somewhere east of Fifth in the Spring Street vicinity.

How could any clod have a cell phone for 'occasional use' anymore. My 70 year old Mother has a cell phone and texts and uses all the features that are available. It is so annoying that people won't stay up to date with technology. R200, shame on you.

When I was growing up near San Diego, it was very much a status symbol to have a GLencourt exchange, which you could only get if you lived in La Jolla. Although exchanges were long gone by the time personalized license plates came around, one of my high school friends had one that said GLNCRT4, which only us local snotnosers would understand.

[quote]It is so annoying that people...have a cell phone for 'occasional use'

With all the things going on in the world today, and this is what annoys you? Sheesh!

Shame on me?

Don't be ridiculous.

I work from home and talk on the phone and stare at the computer all day. When I go out I don't feel the need or desire to talk on the phone. Nor do I take my ipad.

If there's some sort of emergency, I'll take my cell phone.

But otherwise my cell phone is kept in the car as you need it sometimes for (very expensive) parking, in fucking London...which is a pain.

Cell phone carriers are like little lemmings. So tiresome and boring.

They are always rudely staring at or fingering their phones.

I'm with you, R208. I worked at a job for 22 years where the majority of my time was spent answering a telephone. The very LAST thing I want to hear during my leisure time is the sound of a phone ringing!

So many pearls, so few hands to clutch them.....

No, R205, shame on YOU for being so annoyed over NOTHING.

Has anyone gone home after work and dialed 9 to make call?

I have a question.

Is your daughter mulatto?

People didn't have to memorize lots of numbers in olden times. Social security numbers came about after the telephone. It was believed that people couldn't remember long numbers, so phone numbers were given letters for an exchange that was a word. It was believed people could remember the word, then use the first letters and then 5 numbers.

Call Murray Hill 7 -7500

That's Murray Hill 7 -7500

CALL NOW,

Operators are standing by to take ypur call!

The house on Bank street (NYC) has always been 989-xxxx. It's a landline. Reading all this I've asked, I've seen old books. The landline phone went in in 1960 as YUkon-9. A two-letter exchange system of seven dialed digits prevailed in New York. Back then a grandmother on Leroy Street was WAtkins-9, another on Sutton Place was PLaza-5. PLaza-8, CHelsea-2 and CHelsea-3 were in the Village. TRafalgar-4 and SUsquehanna-7 were uptown west. LEhigh-5 was uptown east, as was BUtterfield-8. ATwater-9 was way uptown east. All that changed after the 60-'s. Area codes kicked in, three more digits were added, and much later a 1 before the area code added another digit. Not like the "the old days" I've heard of where some states had only a 5-digit dial system, and some small towns had only 4 in the local telephone exchange. But in the 90's in the city you punched buttons. The first dial phone in a shop window I saw I couldn't understand how it could work, it had no buttons! Such is progress. Today in the Village even to call across the street now you have to punch in an 11 digit number.

Diamond (DI) 3-2005.

A friend explained to me once why you do not need to dial "1" before the area code on a cell phone. I hope I get this right and make it clear -- with landline touchtone phones, the numbers are transmitted as you push the buttons (or, in the olden days, as you dialed the numbers). So you have to preface your dialing with "1" to let the system know that a 10-digit full telephone number (i.e., with area code) will follow.

On a cell phone, the entire phone number is transmitted at once, after you press the "send" or "call" button, so there's no need for the "1" to prompt the system as to what is following.

r219 is correct.

r217 the house at 72 Bank was home to Marion Tanner, whose nephew wrote "Auntie Mame." The exterior was seen as the home of "Kate and Ally."

r213 Never did that, but for a year after I got out of the military, I'd invariably answer the phone by stating my former Air Force rank and last name. Old habits die hard.

Oddly enough, my phone exchange as a kid was Murry Hill. Mu8-3348.

I was JUniper 11139 in northern KY.

My number was

PED-FILE

Sorry to bump this old thread, but I just came across this 1978 New York Times article bemoaning the loss of letters in exchange numbers, and I recalled this thread vividly. Anyway, the writer sounds like a snob.

[quote]Are no vestiges of status to be left to us?

[quote]Who's Who seems to be letting just anyone in these days and Mercedes Benzes have all but lost their exclusivity. Everybody wears Gucci shoes and Bill Blass belts and Yves St. Laurent scarves, and Freddie Laker permits all of us to go to England. And now we're told that come August they'll be taking away our meaningful telephone exchanges, the ones with letters, the ones that distinguish us from others.

[quote]No longer, says the New York Telephone Company, will we be able to drop BUtterfield 8 or RHinelander 4 or PLaza 5 exchanges at parties and expect appreciative stares. No longer will it be apparent, when you say BOuleyard 3, that you live in the bucolic shadow of the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills Gardens. And Dry Dock Country will no longer be distinguished by REgent 7.

[quote]It's all part of the phone company's gradual changeover to seven‐digit numbers that began some time ago. The conclusion of Phase One will be marked by distribution of the White Pages on Aug. I; Phase Two, the final phase, will come next Feb. 1 when the next set of Yellow Pages are given out. Neither volume will contain numbers listed with lettered exchanges.

Continued...

[quote]Imagine an O'Hara Book: ‘288’

[quote]So if you want to call George Balanchine, forget TRafalgar 4 and dial 874. You'll get Robert Motherwell not at SAcramento 2 but at 722, Ben Camara not at SUsquehanna 7 but at 787, and Paddy Chayefsky at 873 instead of TRafalgar 3.

[quote]As the letters disappear, so will some attendant recognition. It is difficult to imagine buying a book by John O'Hara called “288,” or seeing movies with titles such as “Dial 6 For Murder.” Nor does it sound sensible to recommend seeing a film starring Jimmy Stewart entitled “Call 66 777.”

[quote]BUtterfield 8 and Murray Hill 2, RHinelander 4 and PLaza 5, REgent 7 and TEmpleton S are all desirable East Side neighborhoods, but who will know where 288, 682, 744, 755, 737, or 838 are?

[quote]The Plaza Hotel will no longer be PLaza 9 but 759, the Pierre not TEmpleton 8 but 838, the Sherry‐Netherland not ELdorado 5 but 355 and the ALgonquin not MUrray Hill 7 but 687.

[quote]A Loss or a Gain?

[quote]“It must be understood,” the phonecompany man said, “that people are not getting new numbers, they're just losing their letters.” He said that the conversion began about 10 years ago and that about 75 percent of the city's numbers had already become sevendigit combinations.

[quote]“What's the novelty?” he asked. “Around the country, 98 percent of the numbers are all‐digit numbers, and outside of the United States, letters are almost unheard of. Besides, we think we're alleviating some confusion. How many people do you know who confused ‘I’ with ‘I,’ or ‘0’ with ‘Operator'? How many people didn't know whether to dial MOtt Haven with an ‘MO’ or an ‘MH'?”

[quote]Because of the increased telephone load, he said, “ We probably would have run out of numbers,” and he suggested that by the 1980's,“We may even have to go to more numbers, access numbers, to get from one borough to another.”

[quote]Post Offices Chance in Aueust

[quote]The last few answering services that use letters to designate which part of the city their answering area covers will no longer have such identification. Radio City Music Hall, the last bit of Rockefeller Center to have a Circle 6 number (CI 6‐4600), has already begun answering its phone with “246‐9600.” Various local post offices around town are the last government offices on any level to have lettered exchanges, and in August, they will go, too.

[quote]Perhaps hardest‐hit is the Rhinelander Florist at 867 Madison Avenue. Its owner, Frank Tomaino, who has had his shop — and his numbers — for 43 years, has a unique brace of prestige exchanges, both a BUtterfield 8 and a RHinelander 4. He will lose them both, and he is sad.

[quote]“But what are you going to do,” he said, “tight the telephone company? It's so big. How much longer have I got to go?

[quote]“I'm 75. So I guess I'll live with it.”

R3. remember "false calls" when someone wanted to let people know he had arrived safely?

I hate when companies spell their phone numbers out in letters.

My number was 2 shorts and a long.

When I was a kid in the '70s, you could dial 8088 and then hang up to make the phone ring.