4 ms·

Yea, Seinfeld phone numbers were all over the place. Letters in the numbers, 5 digits numbers and then towards the end the standard 7 digit and 10 digit. I didn

by vxNsr 3y ago

Yea, Seinfeld phone numbers were all over the place. Letters in the numbers, 5 digits numbers and then towards the end the standard 7 digit and 10 digit. I didn’t watch it contemporaneously, but rather pretty recently and I kept thinking, there’s no way the show is that old that they were still using letters in phone numbers in NYC.

sophacles 3y ago
I was a kid when Seinfeld aired originally and didn't find it that weird. My grandmother would often give her phone number to older people as SHerman-2xxxx. She stopped doing that after Chicago and the suburbs split 312 and the suburbs became 708 in ~1990. I can see it still being common among older people in the 90s in Manhattan until more area codes were added towards the end of the decade (there was also some restriction of the 212 area that factored into a Seinfeld episode too). It's worth noting that during the run of Seinfeld the number of telephone numbers was growing rapidly. Until dial-up internet took off it was pretty uncommon for a house to have 2 numbers - usually just well off people or those who ran businesses out of their homes. Then dial-up internet happened and phone rates were also getting cheaper, so a lot of families opted for a second line in their home to not tie up the primary phone for hours on end. At the same time beepers, then cell phones went from something for doctors (and other important people) and drug dealers to "pretty common", adding to the growth rate of assigned telephone numbers. Put another way - during the run of Seinfeld my grandmother lived in the same house and had the same 7digit phone number that she had since the 1940s, but got 2 new area codes (708 split into 847, 630 and 708 in ~1995), and 10 digit dialing was required not long after. All the rapid (compared to decades of sameness prior) change is what finally broke the old habits, more than silly things like touch tone dialing or direct dial long distance.
- saurik 3y ago
  I liked this video I recent watched, which covered the history of this, centered on Seinfeld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLVO46FQX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLVO46FQX0
  - jandrese 3y ago
    To summarize that well padded video, New York switched to digit dialing in the early 70s, but some New Yorkers considered their phone numbers to be a status symbol because the phone number identified which neighborhood you lived in. Some kept using them up until the 80s. Seinfeld is set in the 90s, but is based on the time Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld lived in the city a decade earlier. So the show contains anachronisms like Elaine giving out her phone number in a format that had finished dying out years before the show was set.
  - sophacles 3y ago
    Good video, thanks!
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah, during the period you mention, a lot of old urban area codes were being split up with what would have used to have been streetcar suburbs (and sometimes still literally sort of were around Boston for example) getting a new suburban area code. The result is that some number of people who had always identified as living "in the city" now found themselves with a suburban area code. (And, yes, real people actually did care.) As you say, I recall there was some Seinfeld episode where someone broke up with someone because they didn't have a 212 area code or something along those lines. Which wasn't a totally outlandish plot point.

by vxNsr 3y ago

sophacles 3y ago

I was a kid when Seinfeld aired originally and didn't find it that weird. My grandmother would often give her phone number to older people as SHerman-2xxxx. She stopped doing that after Chicago and the suburbs split 312 and the suburbs became 708 in ~1990. I can see it still being common among older people in the 90s in Manhattan until more area codes were added towards the end of the decade (there was also some restriction of the 212 area that factored into a Seinfeld episode too). It's worth noting that during the run of Seinfeld the number of telephone numbers was growing rapidly. Until dial-up internet took off it was pretty uncommon for a house to have 2 numbers - usually just well off people or those who ran businesses out of their homes. Then dial-up internet happened and phone rates were also getting cheaper, so a lot of families opted for a second line in their home to not tie up the primary phone for hours on end. At the same time beepers, then cell phones went from something for doctors (and other important people) and drug dealers to "pretty common", adding to the growth rate of assigned telephone numbers. Put another way - during the run of Seinfeld my grandmother lived in the same house and had the same 7digit phone number that she had since the 1940s, but got 2 new area codes (708 split into 847, 630 and 708 in ~1995), and 10 digit dialing was required not long after. All the rapid (compared to decades of sameness prior) change is what finally broke the old habits, more than silly things like touch tone dialing or direct dial long distance.

saurik 3y ago
I liked this video I recent watched, which covered the history of this, centered on Seinfeld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLVO46FQX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLVO46FQX0
- jandrese 3y ago
  To summarize that well padded video, New York switched to digit dialing in the early 70s, but some New Yorkers considered their phone numbers to be a status symbol because the phone number identified which neighborhood you lived in. Some kept using them up until the 80s. Seinfeld is set in the 90s, but is based on the time Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld lived in the city a decade earlier. So the show contains anachronisms like Elaine giving out her phone number in a format that had finished dying out years before the show was set.
- sophacles 3y ago
  Good video, thanks!
ghaff 3y ago
Yeah, during the period you mention, a lot of old urban area codes were being split up with what would have used to have been streetcar suburbs (and sometimes still literally sort of were around Boston for example) getting a new suburban area code. The result is that some number of people who had always identified as living "in the city" now found themselves with a suburban area code. (And, yes, real people actually did care.) As you say, I recall there was some Seinfeld episode where someone broke up with someone because they didn't have a 212 area code or something along those lines. Which wasn't a totally outlandish plot point.