Did Anyone Not Have One Of These In Their Kitchen's?

[panthera]

annoying area codes in the windy city by the lake the call m

It is just as bad over here in Europe. I had the same number for 10 years. Got ISDN, had to get a new number. Ok, let my clients know, was a hassle, but thought that's it for the next 30 or so years. Hah!
Got a new digital exchange for our part of the city, new number (ja, I know - how can ISDN require a new digital number? Don't ask...)and informed all my clients. Three numbers in 18 months, ok - no fun but I survived.
Moved my office two blocks down...was told I had to have a new number, because this part of the street was not yet digital. A wiser man than before, I asked when it would GO digital...at the end of the year...this was October...
Oh, I said, no way. Give me the new number now. "Geht nicht" they said. Fifty phone calls later and I know not how many letters and faxes, I finally get a woman on the line who says: Well, we will just set up a call-forwarding from your current number to the "new/old" number for 6 weeks then transfer your "old/new" number to the new digital exchange in January.
She did, they did and my clients were able to keep the number until...well, actually today.
I think the reason the telephone companies do this is simple. Not having any friends - and having been hatched, not born of mortal woman - they never get private phone calls.
Oh - we had a beige wall phone from WE. It got zapped by lightning in the late 70's else my folks would still have it. Solid, well built, worked.

 

[jasonl]

My old number in Chalmette started with 271, Which I found the 27 was AR as in Arabi, the town right before you got in New Orleans. So back when, you'd say ARabi 1-xxxx.

And yes, alot of middle eastern people lived in Arabi before Katrina happened.

 

[toggleswitch]

Overlays stink.

We have five area codes in general;
three main landline area codes (212, 718 and 646) and another two (917 & 347) for cellphones, faxers and pagers.

But NYC is made up of FIVE counties (The city calls the counties boroughs). Why didn't they just assign one area code to each county?

Here on long island (which consists of two counties) there are already two area codes, one per county.

IMHO OVERLAYS and mandatory 10/11 digit dialing ARE YUCKY.

 

[frigilux]

Ours was yellow and in the kitchen. We were TURner 6553. Ah, the old days...

 

[tomturbomatic]

When our house was built in 1955, there was a niche in the plaster in the hallway for the telephone. The wooden shelf at the bottom stuck out a little bit from the wall. I think it was so you could put the directory under the phone. Daddy had an extension downstairs in his office. I remember the big day when we had the phone removed from the hall and this model wall phone installed in the kitchen. At that point, the phone company guy said that something had been done wrong when the original phone wiring in the house was done and we were lucky it had not caused a fire! Did that have something to do with the ring voltage? I also remember the first week or so we lived there before the phone was installed. We walked several blocks to a phone booth right in the middle of our residential neighborhood with lots of houses still under construction so that mom could mainly call the phone company asking when they were going to install our phone.

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

I didn't have one. We had a cream colored trimline touchtone phone. I remember the buttons lit up green.

 

[jimmyb]

Ohh the joys of rotary phones

Ours was black and on the kitchen wall, can't remember the cord length but my sister had it stretched out. As kids we would always get upset as there was no way to win concert tickets with a rotary phone as it took too long to dial. When we did get a push button phone we had pulse service so it still took too long to get through to those radio stations. Finally we got touch tone service in our area but guess what I don't think we still ever got through to win tickets.

Thanks for the memories.

Jim

 

[petek]

I still remember our first phone number from back in the 50's,
EDgewater 72691 yet I can't remember any of the numbers from subsequent moves, so the naming system did work. It was always neat when new phone stuff happened back then like when they started replacing all the old wooden phone booths with those ubiquitous metal ones, still with the bi-fold doors. I remember as well some older kids showing my how to make free calls on those old pay phones with the 3 nickel dime,quarter slots on top. You tore a thin strip off the edge of the phone book cover, about the width of a dime and stuck it down the slot, worked everytime.. LOL
The most exciting though was when Bell introduced Touch-tone around 1963 in Canada and had displays set up in the department store with a row of phones and another gimmick with a touch tone and a dial phone connected to a big dial timer to show how fast your calls could be connected. Mom didn't bite though no matter how much I pleaded.

 

[lightedcontrols]

We had one in black with what seemed like a thousand foot cord on it, that had been stretched to the max! I remember going out on the front porch and talking on it (for privacy) and then letting it all tangle up when I hung it up. Great phone! Mark

 

[deeptub]

Our cord was always stretched to the floor--mom could JUST reach the kitchen sink whith it at max stretch. Eventually the cord would get static-y, and you'd call the phone co. and a REPAIRPERSON would COME TO THE HOUSE PROMPTLY and replace the cord at NO CHARGE. I remember when I was 7 or so, the repairman came and converted our phone to take a modular cord. Thereafter we'd go to the Bell System Phone Center in the mall and pay for our cords.

Speaking of mom stretching out the cord, could anyone else's mother snap her fingers and give an icy death glare while maintaining a bubbly happy tone with the other party on the phone? It seemed like most of my friends' mothers just yelled at their children whether they were on the phone or not.

 

[jaxsunst]

My dad used to say that the if Mom kept stretching the cord the way she did, that the wall stud would give and the phone hitting her in the back of the head would kill her.

Ours was green, rotary.

 

[toggleswitch]

...and the academy award for best actrress goes to .........

Speaking of mom stretching out the cord, could anyone else's mother snap her fingers and give an icy death glare while maintaining a bubbly happy tone with the other party on the phone? It seemed like most of my friends' mothers just yelled at their children whether they were on the phone or not.

O M G. YES YES YES !!!!

She'd be beating the living daylights out of us kids- teeth bared, nostrils flaring, pulse hightened, wooden spoon flying.

But DAMN when that phone rang and was answered. It was AMAZING the facade that came on. We kids were genuinely puzzled at the abruptness of the switch-over.

Then when I figured out it was all part of the game. I'd play all sarcastic..oh that hurts boo-hoo, stop. (even if it did.)ME laughing as I was beaten was the part that took the fun out of it for her. (I had heard her yak so much about reverse-psychology, you didn't think i'd let it just GO didja? LOL) Then we progressed to me holding the spoon. So I finally appealed to her sense of clean-freak. *You are going to place that spoon over my butt and then eventually cook with it? EWWWWWW. That just disguisting.* Man the germ-o-phobe idea was awesome and QUITE effective. Hit 'em where it hurts. LOL. Well, effective till here was a DEDICATED spoon for whoopins. DAMN FOILED AGAIN.

 

[cadman]

I should be stepping outside....

But with all this talk of wall phones I just had to run down to the basement to snap this pic.... Longest handset cord (brown) drags on the ground and back!

Anyone ever look at the WE color charts through the years? There are more than you'd think!

Cory

 

[toggleswitch]

COOL Corey!

 

[urarachu]

Wow Cory what a cool way to display them! I'm trying to decide which color I like most but they're all so pretty!

 

[bobbyderegis]

Cory, awesome phones!!
We had the white one in our kitchen. Remember the old timers giving out the phone # with letters for the exchange? HA2-1534. That was us! Also amazing how you could not kill those phones. Drop a new one once today and it's in the rubbish heap. Thanx for sharing.
Bobby in Boston

 

[cehalstead]

vintage phones

We had the white version in the kitchen and the beige desk set as a "portable" to plug into the 4-prong jacks scattered throughout the house, but it mostly stayed in parent's bedroom. We thought we had really arrived when we got a third phone...black desk portable to use in ANY room...LOL

 

[angus]

Ourphone was on a small table near the door to the fire escape in the dining room - a beige desk model with the number JAckson-20675 (not sure what that was for in Brooklyn. Then when we moved to Connecticut in 1966, it was a bright yellow model on the kitchen wall with the number CLearwater-99994. Of course, Aunt Jennie on Adelphi Street had the turquoise desk phone with MAin-55656, Aunt Nettie on Maujer Street had the dark green wall phone EVergreen -44118. And Aunt Josie on 48th Street had a bright red wall phone in the kitchen - GEneral-55868.

 

[launderess]

I'll take the orange, red, green and brown please. *LOL*

GREAT collection Cory! And so well displayed.

 

[sudsmaster]

The only phone in our home was a black wall phone in the kitchen, until I was about 11. Then we moved to the Big City and my mom was all thrilled to be able to get a beige desk phone, on its own little desk in the hallway.

I never used the black wall phone, but soon enough got familiar with the beige desk phone.