Man, am I impressed! 3-4 channels? When we got our first television (a
Zenith round screen), we got a grand total of ONE channel. People would go
wherever there was a television set and watch test patterns and comment on
them (“Gee, yours is clearer than ours!”). I was born and brought up in
Utica, NY, and the closest city with another television station was
Syracuse, 50 miles away, but, being a bigger city, they had TWO channels. It
was years before we could pick up Syracuse stations, and when we finally
did, it was as if we could pick up China.
Phone numbers in Utica were 5 digits; ours was 4-0230. Syracuse, that
megalopolis to the west, had numbers that were both 5 and 6 digits long.
When I was about 12 or so, we were given exchanges to precede our current
numbers, so my number became RAndolph 4-0230, which eventually became a
rather blah sounding 724-0230. There was always something impressive about
RAndolph (other exchanges were REdwood and SWift, depending on what your
already-existing number began with). Also, on those rare occasions when you
called another city, it always SOUNDED different when it rang. It’s great
that I can now call anywhere in the country for nothing, but we’ve lost some
distinctiveness with that. All numbers are seven digits long (when, because
of cell phones, extra lines, etc., will we finally adopt that eighth
digit?), and the ringing sounds are all alike unless one travels overseas.
Où sont les neiges d’antan???
-Larry
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Music Hunter
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 6:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NY City Phone exchanges; was - Tone-Arts Records
I remember being the 1st family in the neighborhood to get a television.
A little 6" round screen Olympic. Folks came from all over to see it like a
rock star. I think we got 3-4 channels in the beginning.
Jay Sonin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 6:31 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NY City Phone exchanges; was - Tone-Arts Records
> You know, now that you guys have got going on this riff, I do remember
> letter-number phone numbers being exchanged even when I was old enough to
> notice such things, which means early 70's. Our home number where I grew
> up was 967-2652, and I definitely remember my parents giving it out as
> WO7-2652 and me being told to remember that before going to kindergarten,
> which would be circa 1971. I also remember when we started saying
> 967-2652, shortly after that. I'm not sure if that coincided with an ad
> campaign for area codes and 10-digit dialing or what. I'm pretty sure area
> codes and 10-digit numbers were in force before then.
>
> Where I live now, the long-time exchange was 279, and you still notice on
> old-timers' fridges and walls that they just have 4-digit numbers written
> down, the assumption being the first three numbers are 279. In the case of
> "newer" numbers like my home number (issued 1994), that would be written
> down 8-XXXX (since the "newer" exchange is 278). I noticed this same trend
> up where my wife grew up, where the exchanges were 376 (6-XXXX) for the
> immediate town and 377 (7-XXXX) for most of the surrounding farm land.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 11:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NY City Phone exchanges; was - Tone-Arts Records
>
>
>> Hello, Peter,
>>
>> I grew up in Forest Hills--my family owned the same home from 1921 until
>> I sold it in 1981.
>>
>> When I was moving in 1981, I found a record (telephone bill) from the
>> 1930s, IIRC, that showed the telephone number to be BOUlevard 8076.
>>
>> When you ended up dialing that, it was 268. One step that seemed to have
>> occurred in the 1940s or 1950s was the splitting of exchanges (might have
>> occurred sooner).
>>
>> If you notice the "U" in BOUlevard is "8" so when they went from
>> BOUlevard to BOulevard 8, the original numbers did not change. They added
>> at least a BOulevard 3 and one other number, but it escapes me--I think
>> it was BOulevard 1, but I'm not so sure as I am of BOulevard 3.
>>
>> As an aside, someone moving into the neighbourhood did not like getting a
>> phone number that started with "BO" when he used deodorant, but that's
>> another story.
>>
>> In the 1950s we also had LIGgett numbers, and those became LI4 numbers,
>> and then 544--an overlay, in a sense of the 26x numbers.
>>
>> I had 268-8076 until about 1975 when I wanted more features and had to
>> change my number as the 268 exchange was running on old equipment. The
>> 520 exchange was another overlay and I suspect was an ESS.
>>
>> I took a step backwards when I moved to Aurora, ON, the first time in
>> 1981. I had the original 727 exchange and, at that time, you could dial
>> people in that exchange by merely dialing four digits. At that time it
>> was in the 416 area code and dialing Toronto was long distance.
>>
>> I did not get touch tone until I moved to Glendale California in 1983 and
>> got a number in the 213 area code. That was changed within a year or
>> three when the 213 code split off the 818 code.
>>
>> When we moved back to Aurora in 2004, no 727 numbers were available. We
>> have three numbers (one line) in the 751 exchange and my business line is
>> in the 713 exchange. Now this is in the 905 area code but Toronto is a
>> local call (and the monthly rates are higher, but the calls are cheaper).
>> Interestingly, while calls from the 905 area code to the 416 area code
>> are local, calls within the 905 area code across different "spokes"
>> radiating from Toronto are toll calls...so our cell phones are 416
>> numbers.
>>
>> What is interesting about this is how soon memory fades about how things
>> were and how technology used to be operated. I'm seeing this already with
>> our magic sound reproduction boxes that appear to many to be arcane magic
>> rather than simply a former, pervasive technology. I recall most of my
>> friends knowing how to mount a cartridge in a turntable. Fewer knew how
>> to align a tape recorder...but some did.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
>> Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
>> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
>> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>>
>
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