What’s your area code? Does it have a 1 or a 0 in the middle? That’s a proper area code. Due to a quirk in the brilliantly elegant Bell System switching design, all area codes had 1s or 0s in the center. That way, the system knew whether you were dialing an area code or a local exchange, which used to have beautiful names like WAverly-6 or LIncoln-2, back before you had to dial a bajillion digits to call your neighbor down the street.
When I was a kid, you only had to dial four digits to reach someone else on Nantucket, five in my hometown. My best friend down the block got the cool number 9-0000, because his father worked for “The Phone Company.” The only problem was it was the longest possible five-digit number to dial on a rotary phone, so it was often quicker to just walk down to his house. It didn’t help that it was a large home and he had a lot of brothers, so it took forever to get him on the phone. At least it was large enough that when I ran away from home, his parents didn’t even notice I was living there, until I made the mistake of leaving Iron Maiden on repeat on the stereo overnight. But I digress.
Rotary dial. This was a big deal. Therefore, area codes were carefully parceled out for brevity. Since the middle digit had to be 1 or 0, and the first and last had to be anything but, 212 was the the quickest number to dial and went, bien sur, to New York City. Washington got 202, which begins and ends quite well, but that zero in the middle sure took its time to dial. Why LA and Chicago (213 and 312, respectively) did better than the District probably says a lot about what we expected of our Federal City in the post-war years. In fact, a distinction was made between whole states – 0s – and smaller sub-jurisdictions – 1s. The District was considered a state but still can’t vote. Suck it, DC.
Sorry, Maritime Provinces: 902. Ouch. And Pomona? 909? Someone died for your sins.
212 is still considered a prestigious area code, but watch out for fakes: 212-non-traditional-exchange (has a 1 or 0 in the middle, for instance) was created later and doesn’t count.
What’s your area code? Mine is 202. I like it just fine, although the zero means my entire number can’t spell anything. The rest of my number spells something quite unprintable, however, which suits me just fine.
