Comments on: Yesterday’s Telephone Numbers: GLenview, MOntrose, and ULysses

By: Elizabeth H.

Elizabeth H. — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:12:29 +0000

Old Needham (Mass.) exchanges are 444- or 449-, which were originally HIghland. And the image from the Glenn Miller song reminds me that my mother still has an old rotary-dial phone that works! It came from my father’s mother’s home.

By: Karen K

Karen K — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:54:08 +0000

I love the 80′s, Ryan, so thanks for posting that Tommy Tutone tune– as well as the great Glenn Miller one too, of course.

With the increasing necessity of area codes, phone numbers are getting even longer!

By: Forgotten New England

Forgotten New England — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:54:06 +0000

Mark – that’s a great jingle – I had never heard it, and yet it’s been stuck in my head today. Karen – I’ll have to look up when ALpine was assigned to Chelmsford; I thought it had been there all along, but, in researching this post, it looks like the original exchange assigned to Chelmsford was GLenview. Metan – I still remember my grandparents’ number since my folks still have it. I don’t know when exactly they got it, but I know it was the first number they had.

By: Markb

Markb — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:59:25 +0000

In Jamaica Plain in Boston during the 1960s, we were JA4-3396. And of course there was the famous radio jingle for a South Boston carpet company:

‘How many cookies did Andrew eat?

Andrew-8-8000!’

By: Karen Spence

Karen Spence — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:09:41 +0000

I still remember my phone number as a kid in the 60′s. My friend next door only had to dial 5 digits to call me. Interestingly, even though it was a Lowell exchange, I lived in Chelmsford, East Chelmsford, which I think still has a Lowell exchange. I always felt weird in school because everyone else had a phone number beginning with 25, or AL. We moved from that section in ’72 and I finally had a phone number beginning with 25. I just looked up my old neighbors’ number, because they still live there, and their number hasn’t changed!

By: metan

metan — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:24:52 +0000

I can still instantly recall the phone number of the house I was bought up in, but after 15 years my other half can still barely remember our own home number! (Thanks to speed dial I suspect he isn’t the only one.)

Those short numbers had a bit of a ring to them, easy to see why a song could be written about one. Imagine a song about a mobile phone number or an email address!