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How Manhattan's Area Code was Influenced by the Rotary Dial

By Rain Noe - February 11, 2013

in Object Culture | UX

When I grew up in the '70s, all of New York City had the same area code; I could call from Queens to Manhattan, or vice versa, without having to dial "212" first. When "718" was finally assigned to the outerboroughs, there was a sort of bizarre pride that people took in having a "212" area code, which we from the outerboroughs of course thought was silly.

Interestingly enough, the number sequence "212" wasn't chosen randomly, but was a direct result of the design of the input device of the time: The rotary dial.

Touch-tone phones may have debuted in the early '60s due to John E. Karlin, but I grew up in a house that used rotary phones all the way into the '80s. It was only after we got our first touch-tone phone that I realized how slow the dial was—numbers with an 9 or 0 in them seemed to take forever, and maybe one out of ten times you'd screw the dialing up and have to start over. But "212" was always easy to dial.

As you can guess, when the North American Numbering Plan of the 1940s went about assigning area codes, "212" was assigned to New York City because it was a center of business, and businesspeople are by definition busy, and "212" is the fastest possible area code to dial; due to the way the switching equipment worked, the first and third digits could not be a "1," and the second digit had to be a "1" or a "0." So "212," at a total of five clicks on the dial, was the fastest.

Of course, after the addition of "718," it was only us in the outerboroughs that enjoyed the speed of "212"—you Manhattanites had to wait for the "7" and "8" to go all the way around the dial. Suckers!

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Steve

10 years ago

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Nice try LA w/ your 213
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Joseph

10 years ago

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Ron, if you needed the number or address youd call an operator. If they had a terminal with the info theyd give it to you. If not theyd connect you to an operator near the location. They always had great voices and were super helpful.
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Mark99

10 years ago

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I had thought this was obvious, but I guess maybe only us dial-era kids have the background that makes it so. Millennials may have trouble believing it, but rotary dialing really was a *chore*, requiring a clear head and decent focus.... And the low-numbered area codes weren't just for New York. Those for Chicago and LA -- now just their primary ones, of course -- are similarly finger-friendly, and those for other major cities (of that period) all use low numbers, with the notable exception of Washington DC.
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C-Lo

10 years ago

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Not all the outer-boroughs were 718. When I lived in the Bronx, we were 212 as well.
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Ron

11 years ago

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And now we don't even know numbers.
This weekend I dropped and broke my iPhone. When I picked it up, I realized that I didn't even know how I could someone from another phone since I don't know their digits. I would have had to find an internet computer with a browser, log on to iCloud, and look up the phone number I needed.
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Scott Knitter

11 years ago

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I remember reading about protests in the outer NYC boroughs when the 718 code was announced, with people picketing holding signs that read, "Save Our Fingers!" I'm not making this up!

Lots of wear and tear if you have to drag the dial most of the way around, twice, just to dial an area code.
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Jeff George

11 years ago

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Excellent insight to the 212 history, interestingly enough today they actually sell these 212 numbers on eBay and other sites such as: http://212areacode.com/ for big bucks
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