CRestview 6-1793
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| Click on image to enlarge. Thanks to Larry Ziff for posting this on Facebook today! |
What's your exchange? For years, growing up, ours was CRestview. The CR was part of the phone number. If you were to dial my family's home phone number on your rotary dial phone, you'd dial 276-1793. Look at the buttons on your phone, the "C" and the "R" correspond to "2" and "7." For added confusion, there was BRadshaw, also a 2-7 number! It seemed to me that CRestview was REALLY Beverly Hills. The BRadshaw numbers showed up on the periphery of BH. Then there was OL. The diagram above says that OL was for OLympia. I remember it being OLeander! The OL area was usually the east side of Beverly Hills. See this list for more exchanges.
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| Our typical home phone instrument |
You could always tell where someone was from by their phone exchange. A GRanite phone number was usually Westwood. EXbrook was Santa Monica. STate was the San Fernando Valley. HOllywood was, of course, Hollywood. These were the most used exchanges of my youth. I do remember television and radio commercials that used exchanges in their jingles, usually for businesses in the Downtown LA area, like MAdison and ANgelus.
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| In the kitchen we ALWAYS had a wall phone with a long chord so Mom could talk while cooking. It was usually in a festive color to match the kitchen, like Harvest Gold, Avocado or Sand Beige |
When I was 16 I was given my very own telephone and NEW NUMBER, all to myself! I vaguely remember having to do chores like washing dishes, etc. as payment for said phone. I was very sad that my personal phone number was NOT CRestview! This was around 1968 or '69. By that time, any new phone numbers assigned were all numerical. The 2-7 / Beverly Hills numbers had been used up. My new phone number was 552-3692. My only consolation was that I could have any color, standard-sized phone (Princess phones were extra) I wanted. Naturally,, I ordered red, just like the Bat-Phone!
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| Ellen's Teen Years Phone |
Larry and I now live in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, near Fairfax Avenue. The first two numbers of our home phone are 9-3...WEbster! Do you still have a land line with a recognizable exchange?
Labels: At Home, family, Los Angeles, Memories, Vintage Photos
posted by Ellen Bloom @ 3:43 PM
6 Comments:
I totally forgot about this. I'm pretty sure that ours was EXbrook.
EXbrook is the Santa Monica area exchange!
Before we movedd to Beverly Hills, our number on Castle Hieghts was VErmont 99045. First learned last forgotten.
We lived on Sunset Blvd in BH and had both BR2- and CR5- numbers. There was a bizarre number anyone in LA could phone and be able to talk to anyone else who dialed into that number. We called it “the well.” Also, if you dialed PEA-CHES, a sleazy-sounding male voice said you’d called a brothel and what did you want to order and to stop wasting their time if you weren’t calling about sexual services. Pretty titillating for teenage boys, but I have no idea what it really was. The entire phone system was a grand mystery!
What a fun post! I found this because I was just watching a Carol Burnett show rerun and Tim Conway used the phone number CRestview 6 7399 and I wondered whose phone number that might be. Nowadays everyone uses a 555 number for fictional numbers in TV or movies.
I lived in East Cleveland and later Hudson, Ohio. In Cleveland, I remember our number started GL1, I vaguely associate that with Glenview, but don't know if I remember it correctly. We were on Caledonia Avenue between Euclid and Noble, right next to the Elementary School.
I remember when our line was a party line. Sometimes you'd pick up the phone and you would hear someone else using the line and you'd have to wait to make your call. I'm pretty sure I never listened in on anyone's conversation, though. Most people were pretty polite about that sort of thing. Ah, those were the days!
Have had old phone in attic with CRestview 6- 3964 printed and answer 2 rings.
I get the party line information,but question is is there s source to track down who owned this number and would CRestiew be used as prefix in other states and states?
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