Comments on: Living in the 5-3-9

By: CGHill

CGHill — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:12:48 +0000

On the slap list: Bob Anthony and Jeff Cloud of the Corp Comm. (Dana Murphy opposed it.) (Source.)

By: Lynn

Lynn — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:35:17 +0000

Sh*t! I hadn’t heard that the decision was final. Whose responsible this? I want to go slap the bastard.

By: fillyjonk

fillyjonk — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:41:36 +0000

Wow, I had no idea that area codes could be infra dig or markers of status.

By: CGHill

CGHill — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:52:56 +0000

This apparently also works in ZIP codes. There was a Saturday Night Live sendup of Beverly Hills 90210, in which the teens learned to their horror that the Postal Service was changing their precious ZIP over to 90218. "Omigod, we'll be in the Valley!" one of them cried.

By: CT

CT — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:37:12 +0000

In that same Seinfeld episode, Elaine (who was the one who got stuck with the then-new 646 number) said that when she first moved to New York, she was a (gasp) 718 — and she cried for a whole week as a result. About sums it up.

As much as the area code isn’t supposed to matter, I’ll further note that when I first moved to NY, I had intended to keep my old Florida number. After about a month of job-hunting that typically got hampered by quizzical queries about “where 727 is”, I gave it up and went for the local exchange.

By: CGHill

CGHill — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:45:55 +0000

There was a Simpsons episode in which the town was divided into two area codes, but this wasn’t an overlay: it was a split, right down the middle. Apparently the “better” part of town got to keep 636, while the “other” part was banished to 939.

At the time this episode aired, 636 was already being implemented in Missouri, though not, I note, near Springfield, Missouri.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:10:45 +0000

I remember a “Seinfeld” episode where one of the gang was angstualizing over getting a new phone number that might not have the 212 area code. The question is whether real people get that way about such things in New York — unless it’s, are there real people in New York?

I think there are, but I think they don’t.