78. Let’s Exchange Names
The author telling her broker to “buy and sell”
©Photo by her dad, the late Jack Margulies
ORegon-3-9833
©by author, all rights reserved
I conceived this blog while on Astra Navigo’s site; his blog was about his home state, Oregon.
I have never lived in Oregon, but I will always remember my first phone number:
ORegon-3-9833.Before all digit dialing, before we lost our phone and geographical identities, before we got lost in digits and binary codes, we had telephone exchanges; they put you on the map, they gave you a reference point in the huge communication universe, which then consisted of… the telephone.
It was sometime after “Upstairs, Downstairs,” when Hudson, the butler, would answer the ringing wall phone with ‘Halllooooo? May I ask who is calling?’ “
It was even after the age of “Lassie” when Gramps would pick up the earpiece, yank the crank and yell into a mounted mouthpiece,“Jenny, Lassie’s sick, get me Doc Weaver.”
But, it was before the internet, it preceded computers, it was well before Nintendos, and all the technology that followed.Between 1910 and 1960, telephone exchanges were in their prime—but not in prime numbers.
According to Telecom News, this is the progression:
•·First telephone numbers are just names
•·Depending on exchange size, two, three or four digit numbers assigned to subscribers
•·Two letter prefix codes assigned to four digit numbers (Circa 1928 to 1958)
•·In larger cities three letter prefix codes assigned to four digit numbers (Post WWII)
•·Seven digit, all number dialing begins phase in. (1958)
•·Nearly all of North American telephone network converted to all number dialing (1985?)
•·Some party lines remain, with single digits like Rodeo Creek Number 8
When I was growing up in the, ahem, 1950’s, we had one black phone located in the front of our apartment.There was a rotary dial; for the benefit of you young’uns, it was a circular disc with 10 round cutouts into which one placed one’s index finger corresponding to the appropriate letter of the alphabet and number, and rotated the dial. In the center of the dial there was a central windowed disc through which one could view the number of one’s phone.Our exchange, ORegon-3, placed us on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.Other exchanges in our area were: YUkon-7, CAnal-8 (I still remember the number of friends of my parents’; CAnal-8-2109 (“Canal eight, twenty-one-oh-nine”).My friend Linda’s exchange was SPring-7.I knew a MUrray Hill-8, an ALgonquin-4 and so many more I can barely think of them all.
Further downtown, the OR, was referred to as ORchard-4 [for Orchard Street].Uptown, my boyfriend’s exchange was LOrraine-9.He was at the northern most tip of Manhattan, Washington Heights, where his fellow exchange was WAdsworth 4.His neighborhood was close to The Bronx, which had its own set of landmark exchanges, as did every borough of the city.
In fact, every neighborhood had one or more exchanges; there were thousands of them.
In Manhattan, there was the famous BUtterfield-8 (made famous by the Liz Taylor movie), but in Brooklyn, at my grandma’s, the exchange was BUckminister-4.And let’s not forget the Marvellettes song, *BEechwood-4-5789, or Glenn Miller’s PEnnslyvania 6-5000. Exchange names, as they were called, are part of communication history.
I have a particularly nostalgic, sweet memory involving exchange names.
In the late 1960’sI was a college student at The City College of New York which was in the upper region of Manhattan, in Harlem.In those days, my children, people didn’t have cell phones. About the only thing they had that was portable was a radio, which they held to their ears to listen to static enhanced AM rock & roll, or the ball game. Therefore, if one needed to communicate, one would utilize a (gasp!) public phone.City College was full of old wooden phone booths.Rarely was a phone vandalized or out of service.And true to rotary form, each one had a printed number in the center window beginning with the exchange ADirondack-4.
One day I went into a booth to make a call.I picked up the receiver and was poised to insert my dime into the slot when I noticed that the phone company had come by and the printed insert now read: 234. ADirondack was gone. Every phone booth on campus had been ravaged by Ma Bell.
Soon after, I entered the booth to make a call, and lo! Someone had replaced the phone company’s damage with a handwritten ADirondack-4, and completed the entry with a hand drawn flower or a teensy clipping of a magazine floral motif. (It was the age of flower power, if you recall.)
War was waged between the phone company and the ADirondack-4 mystery man, the man with a flower.
Back and forth the disks went; ADirondack-4, then 234. Each time I went into a phone booth I was excited to find the disc brought back to its appropriate, AD-4 state.
I don’t know who won the battle of the ADirondack-4 war that year.Of course, for quite a while we have not enjoyed the old historical, elegant name exchanges; they are gone along with 10¢ pay phone calls, and the cheap lunch: 15¢ hotdogs, knishes, 6-ounce Cokes, and pizza.
But I do know this: the person who was going toe to toe, word to number, with the telephone company was a very special person.I didn’t know him at the time; I was studying speech pathology and he was in the school of architecture.
We got married in 1976.
*BEechwood-4-5789
Do you remember your phone exchange?
- Absotootley, it was__________and I lived in________
- Um, er, yeah, kind of ; at my great grandmother’s house.
- Never heard of exchanging anything but lousy Christmas gifts
- What’s a rotary dial?
- We only used 2 cans and a string
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Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to know anything about names for numbers like KeyStone 4578,. such things were references in Perry Mason television episodes and movies with people like Humphrey Bogart and Carry Grant.
But I remember Paul Drake going into the pay phone and telling the operator he needed to be put through to KeyStone 4758 or such. I grew up with a rotary dial phone and had very strong fingers from getting fast at dialing the numbers. Remember the portable A.M. and A.M. F.M. Radio’s of the mid 1960’s early to mid 1970’s, Transistors I think they were called, and you used to sit in your bedroom or stand in a phone booth for hours catching up with friends, you actually talked to, you knew people’s tone of voice back then. Was it so long ago? Thanks for the memories. |
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What a good blog! I remember telephone exchanges.
The pediatrician I saw in Little Rock was MOhawk 4-3304. In my home town, it wasn’t necessary to dial anything but the last four digits of the number. Our exchange was 256. It wasn’t until I left home and was in college in the 1980’s that it became necessary to dial the 6 prior to the four digits. Our old number was 4630. I still remember my grandparents’ telephone number in their Philadelphia, PA suburb: 215-LA5-6213. |
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strongwilledwoman wrote on Jan 12, ’08
I recall just picking up the phone and the operator would come on and ask what number you wanted. I was lucky to find an old phone book my mother kept and it still had the three numbers code in it. no exchanges just the 3 numbers, and if you wanted to call out of your area you had to ask for long distance.
I also remember party lines, and you could pick up the phone and hear others conversations…..I guess its like the FBI now. |
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Now I know why I keep saying KeyStone, my old number in the house I grew up in was KeyStone 4-0550. Funny how we hold onto some things, when we never used that system. Guess it came from the fact that my mom and the neighbors talked about how it used to be KeyStone.
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lauritasita wrote on Jan 12, ’08
I remember that picture of you, hee, hee !!!
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Those telephones certainly added excitement to mundane calls. I still become heartsick when I visit the Science Museum in London, with its collection of domestic electrical appliances from the early 20th centure onwards, and also suddenly rather horrified hat I still remember them in use.
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sanssouciblogs wrote on Jan 15, ’08
Do you remember your exchange?
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Comments
(20 total) Post a Comment
I have lived in Michigan all my life. I clearly remember my mom saying dial AV for Avenue for the first 2 numbers of either our phone number or my aunts, we didn’t live that far apart. You know I forgot all about that. We had rotary dial phones. I remember trying to talk privately to a friend or boyfriend and stretching the phone cord and my dad would get really mad because it would be so stretched out. Remember when the rotary dial was on the receiver, that was way cool at the time, I remember my cousin had one. Now, kids are spoiled, with their cell phones and all. I actually took my daughter’s cell phones away because they were misusing them. They were for emergencies and they were calling each other at night from their bedrooms. Can you believe that??? Sheeeeeshhhh!!!
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 12:07am (EDT) Remove Comment
Did you grow up near Forest Hills near The Tennis Courts, and Lets see if this Name means anything to you. Who is Harriet?
Saturday June 9, 2007 – 09:45pm (PDT) Remove Comment
Although I recognise the song, I never understood the “exchange” part till now! LOL! I DO however remeber rotary phones and even when they were phased out, and we had a black and white television set for the longest time when I was a kid too!( born in ’68! )Thanx for “edumacating” me on the exchange system!smiles!
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 12:12am (CDT) Remove Comment
You can’t analyse analogue en-masse for big brother, but digital can be filtered by computers holding stock piles all phone calls for 6 months or longer if required. Type in or say something wrong and you are on the watched list. Live here in the U.K. and you are mapped as well. Won’t be long before we get reminders about breathing hard. That double ring you get when the auto line checker goes off is a puzzle. Is it a double ring? Is it one ring, and a feedback to check they have sound- your sound? Don’t laugh that standby TV light could soon be a camera. lol not.
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 11:40am (BST) Remove Comment
Information overload!! I’m dialing 911 for someone to come take me away!!YaHooooooo! Great blog Sue, and very interesting! I knew this Dick Tracy decoder ring would come in handy if I held on to it long enough:) Hmmm…rotary phones, I remember those! you could actually see the numbers you were trying dial!!!
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 08:49pm (CDT) Remove Comment
I remember rotary phones & phone booths but I was not familiar with the exchanges. How interesting! Beautifully written post, Sue…as always! And, the little girl in the pic…well, what a cutie. 😉
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 09:02pm (CDT) Remove Comment
oops…meant to say rotary dial phones. lol
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 09:03pm (CDT) Remove Comment
Oh, how I remember rotary dial phones – R-7732–the “R” for rural phone, 773 for the route we lived on and 2–we were ring #2. LOL! Sue, you really know how to bring back memories. And my Dad also got mad for me and my other 8 siblings stretching out the phone cord. No privacy in our house–the phone was in the living room. I still have a rotary dial phone here in my office, but it is not in use. It keeps the cats busy though! Bill—you may be right about the standby TV light, but I really hope not!
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 09:34pm (CDT) Remove Comment
I remember dragging the phone into the closet for privacy! When we got extension phones in the bedrooms it was such a big deal!!
Sunday June 10, 2007 – 10:36pm (EDT) Remove Comment
Oh, dear, dear…rotary dials…we had one of those phones back home, in communist Romania, we were the only family in the neighborhood that had a phone, so everybody was coming to us to give phonecalls…I loved to dial all sort of numbers, just to see the dial turning and running back…great times, but all gone…now everything is digital…10-cypher phonenumbers, etc…
Monday June 11, 2007 – 10:42am (CEST) Remove Comment
I was in BRI- something because I lived in BRIghton. Then I lived in 273 (still Brighton), after that I’d have lived in 0273, then it would have been 01273. And no one cares what town I live in now they just want my postcode (ZIP).
Monday June 11, 2007 – 04:20pm (BST) Remove Comment
“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.” ~Doug Larson
Monday June 11, 2007 – 09:15am (PDT) Remove Comment
When i was a kindergardener in Milwaukee, Wi, many moons ago, we had to memorize our address and phone number. I still remember both, the phone number was LI(Lincoln)1-1103! We also moved a lot, and I remember having party lines at a couple of our residences-what an inconvience that was!
Monday June 11, 2007 – 02:45pm (CDT) Remove Comment
YEP! It’s fun to remember: TRojan 8-2846, the exchasnge from the mascot of our local high school football team. Out in the wilderness we had a 4-way party line. Everybody had a Morse Code sort of ring–ours was 3 shorts, my Grannie’s was 2 longs & a short. I got in trouble for playing a Beatles record over the phone to my friend JoAnn, who was in love w/PAUL. I was in love with GEORGE. I still like phone numbers that spell something out, easier to remember.
Monday June 11, 2007 – 04:09pm (CDT) Remove Comment
Forgot to say how cute the photo is,too, & a great memoir of a blog; it really got me reminiscing… To call my grandma, I had to dial her number & then hang up. Then her distinctive ring would resound, against all 4-year-old logic. I was already bewildered & intrigued by technology.
Monday June 11, 2007 – 04:13pm (CDT) Remove Comment
Thanks for so many fabulous memories! The following jingle for a moving company I think… “MElrose 5-5300” Now think about this; how many kids who are not visual learners can learn through auditory modalities? All these years later, and I can still jangle my brain and sing the jingle…
Monday June 11, 2007 – 08:14pm (EDT) Remove Comment
It’s extraordinary that you have to explain a dial phone now. It’s like record players and those reel tape recorders: so fresh in my memory, but young people have no idea what they are.
Tuesday June 12, 2007 – 08:02am (BST)
When I was little we didn’t have one just at the corner grocer then when we moved to Canada we had one and it hung on the wall but we had our own number and all.I remmember when my mom wanted to call my grandma in germany she would call them amd tell them when she would call back and they would have her there.Oh the memories.
Tuesday June 12, 2007 – 08:41am (PDT) Remove Comment
This was interesting, AND sweet(about meeting your special person), but while I DO remember rotary phones, I only recall phone NUMBERS, not exchanges/names. In a way, I wish it were like that today, though… I kept our old(heavy!) black rotary phone for quite a while–still used it in the dining room after my daughter was born(1995 to 1997 we still used it), but I remember becoming more and more irritated at it’s slowness(you had to wait for each number to circle back on the dial before dialing the next number). Part of the beginning of my/our super fast-paced lifestyle now. 🙁
Wednesday June 13, 2007 – 07:40pm (EDT) Remove Comment
My first telephone number was, Walnut3 – 8597. Hahahha
Tuesday July 3, 2007 – 10:42pm (CDT) Remove Comment