Payphones Past

Telephone Exchange Names

Here is my latest paean to telephone nostalgia: My collection of Telephone Exchange Name Sightings. You don’t see too many of these in the wild any more, but if you keep your eyes open (and if you know what you are looking at) then you might find them.

I first noticed these old phone numbers years ago but my interest in them did not find focus until I pointed them out to friends and found that no one knew what I was talking about. I found that folks were looking right at these old phone numbers without knowing what they were.

A case in point involves this large sign at Millionaire Realty in Astoria (excuse me, I meant AStoria):

I thought this sequence of letters and numbers represented some kind of real estate certification. Hey great, I thought, those guys got their AS4-5500 license, they must be reputable… But no, it is not a license or certification but it is a badge of honor of a different sort. It’s an old exchange name phone number, prominently placed as almost the only forward-facing phone number for this company, proving that Millionaire Realty has been around for a long time.

Every time I spot one of these old phone numbers I feel like I’ve cracked an old code. When I do not already know what a certain 2-letter code stands for (I did not know what TW stood for, for instance) then I turn to the Telephone Exchange Name Project web site, a long-time favorite of mine which I have recently come to rely on for solving these little 2-letter mysteries.

Some exchanges are obvious (AS in the AS4-5500 number mentioned above obviously stands for AStoria) but others are not. I would have never guessed that FA4-5000 was a FAirbanks exchange, or that the NI in NI9-3839 stood for NIghtingale.

Conversely, I find that when I know an area’s former exchange names I can not look at modern phone numbers without translating them to their old format. 879-2740? Nope, I see TRafalgar 9-2740. 786-0640? Not to me. I see that number and think STillwell 6-0640.

The history of Exchange Names is well-documented elsewhere, so if you want more background on these old phone numbers, the Anti-Digit Dialing League, and other relics from telephonia past then start with the Telephone Exchange Name Project web site or visit your local search engine for more information. Keep your eyes open for exchange names! They are out there, they are far more rare than payphones, and spotting one is like finding old treasure.

Click for my collection of Telephone Exchange Name Sightings.

the payphone project