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Saturday, February 06, 2010
Once upon a time, the announcement of a new telephone area code was a big deal, especially in a major city like New York.
Now? Ho-hum. Between number overlays and location-independent cellphones, those first three digits don’t mean an awful lot anymore. Sure, a metropolitan-based telephone prefix certainly retains some luster, especially the iconic (212). But it’s a fading currency. The cultural impact of telephony protocol touches us less and less, it seems.
So the rollout of the new outer-borough (929) code later this year won’t change much. Other than giving rappers a new callout-combo for geo-rhyming. Or making bridge-and-tunnelers that much more self-conscious when slipping their phone numbers to new acquaintances.
by Costa Tsiokos, Sat 02/06/2010 03:10 PM
Category: New Yorkin', Pop Culture, Tech
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Category: New Yorkin', Pop Culture, Tech
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I see that Gothamist described one of the existing codes as “the much-maligned 347.” Was it really maligned? For that matter, does anyone malign 646?
Comment by CGHill — 02/07/2010 @ 1:49 AM
347 is generally shunned. In fact, I personally shunned it: My first NY number was a 347, and I couldn’t wait to dump it in favor of 646. 646 is deemed worthy, and an acceptable alternative to 212 (which is fairly impossible to snag).
Comment by CT — 02/07/2010 @ 8:46 AM
[...] Costa Tsiokos linked to this, I had to ask: Was [347] really maligned? For that matter, does anyone malign [...]
Pingback by dustbury.com » Living in the 5-3-9 — 02/08/2010 @ 6:49 PM
My home city has a couple of area codes, so it was a surprise to move out west to a state that (at the time) hadn’t really come to terms with two area codes for the entire state. Going back to dialing only 7 numbers was an adjustment. Now we’re moving to a county with only one *exchange*… so everybody talks in 4-number phone numbers (though you still have to dial 7).
Comment by Trumwill — 02/16/2010 @ 5:29 AM