Telephone exchange names on screen: CIrcle
From the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.
Telephone exchange names on screen: GRamercy
From Naked City.
The Princess telephone
“Soft, curvy, and biomorphic,” and designed by Henry Dreyfuss.
Telephone exchange names on screen
From Naked City, quite a few exchanges.
Telephone exchange names on screen: SUsquehannah
From Naked City, a Manhattan exchange, serving the Upper West Side.
LEGO telephone and typewriter
Beautiful.
The model 500
Henry Dreyfuss’s telephone.
“WE DELIVER”
A clock and and a telephone exchange name, from Naked City.
John E. Karlin (1918–2013)
His work helped to bring about all-digit dialing.
Yes, we can
UNKNOWN CALLER called last night with a message from a group looking to “defeat Barack Obama.” Sorry, wrong number.
Telephone exchange names on screen: GLadstone
From Anthony Mann’s Railroaded! (1947).
Telephone exchange names on screen: SLOane
From My Week with Marilyn.
Telephone exchange names on screen: Naked City (4)
The TW exchange.
Telephone exchange names on screen: Naked City (3)
A GRamercy payphone.
Tim Johnson on the line
Tim Johnson (R, Illinois-15), who retires this year, is the subject of a New York Times profile that emphasized above all his habit of telephoning his constituents.
Recently updated
Another excerpt from the 1962 pamphlet manifesto of the Anti-Digit Dialing League.
Phones Are For People
I am now the proud custodian of a copy of the Anti-Digit Dialing League’s pamphlet manifesto Phones Are For People (1962).
Phone manners
From the 1940 New York City telephone directories. Pictures show best, fair, and poor distances between mouth and mouthpiece.
The Anti-Digit Dialing League
A short-lived movement that arose in 1962 that opposed “creeping numeralism” and fought a losing battle to preserve the use of telephone exchange names.
David Schubert, TR5-3718
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory. David Schubert (1913–1946) is a great modern American poet, though his work is still relatively unknown.
Charles Reznikoff, CH3-0065
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
John Hammond, GR7-7967
The critic and music producer, in the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Billie Holiday, ED4-4058
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Rudy Burckhardt and Edwin Denby, CH2-5097
The photographer Rudy Burckhardt and the dance critic and poet Edwin Denby, in the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Helen Cornell, FL7-7653-J
Joseph Cornell’s home address, in the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Coleman Hawkins, ED4-2697
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Dwight Macdonald, GR3-0835
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
Thomas Merton, CH2-0476
In the 1940 New York City telephone directory.
The “FaceTime Facelift”
For readers of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), life is once again imitating art.
I envy Mary Richards
“I have been watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Me-TV, and I must confess: I envy Mary Richards.”