I love this ad for Gnome Bakers, especially the tagline. How unusual could their bread and rolls have been? It comes from a 1973 New York Mets program.
The best part is the old RE phone exchange, assigned to phone numbers from a part of the Upper East Side starting in 1930. It stood for Regent—perhaps the name of a landmark hotel or theater nearby?
A good place to look for old phone exchange signs around the city is near service elevators. This one was spotted in east midtown around 35th Street.
JU is either for Judson, in Manhattan, or Juniper, given to a stretch of Queens.
If we knew the name of the elevator company, we could figure out which one. But alas, no trace of the name could be found.
Tags: Gnome Bakers, JU phone exchange, New York phone exchanges, Old ads with old phone exchanges, old phone exchanges, old phone prefixes, RE phone exchange, two-letter phone exchanges
Ephemeral New York 
May 2, 2013 at 2:14 am |
My mother still gives her East 72nd street phone number as RE4- 5……
Marla S. Smith Sent from my iPad
May 2, 2013 at 2:32 am |
I think we should bring them back! They have character.
May 2, 2013 at 3:31 am |
I still remember the radio and TV jingles and the phone numbers with the phone exchanges. I just missed party lines in NY.
May 2, 2013 at 10:40 am |
I’m surprised that, in 1973, they were still using an old NYC postal zone (“21”) and not a zip code (“10021”).
May 3, 2013 at 2:51 am |
BU4-8029…that was my phone number when I was a little kid. It was in Flatbush.
May 3, 2013 at 2:43 pm |
First home phone number on West Broadway started GR3, which we thought was for Greenwich. My parents shop phone on Spring St. started CA6, for Canal. The second home phone in the Coogan building in the seventies was MU9-9057, for Murray Hill. I miss those hints as to where one is dialing.
May 3, 2013 at 3:33 pm |
It’s funny how everyone can remember their childhood phone number….
I love the hints of geography that those two-letter exchanges offer. They reinforce the idea of a neighborhood. Today we’re just a jumbled collection of 212s, 646s, and 347s!
May 4, 2013 at 12:25 pm |
Deirde, your first home’s exchange was GRamercy 3.
May 4, 2013 at 9:32 pm |
I remember back to my childhood during the Colonial days, when all of NYC was 212 (actually, direct-dial long distance came in in the 1950’s), sometimes non-adjoining areas had the same lead two letters but a different word– I lived in LIC and had a phone number, STillwell 4-xxxx, while some people I knew in Brooklyn whose number led with ST were STerling X-xxxx. But what amazed me was that some people in The Bronx had an exchange that led with TT and had no word– one would think TUdor or TUrnbridge or something could have been thought up; apparently TUdor may have given the impression of being in the East 40’s and hence unsuitable, but one labors in vain to figure why, for example, TUberose 5, a beautiful flower, could not have been used.
May 5, 2013 at 2:29 am |
RE, Also stood for Rector, now obsolete
May 9, 2013 at 4:05 pm |
our old phone number was RE 7 –
May 27, 2013 at 10:23 am |
My old phone #, in Sheepshead Bay, was DE 2-
July 19, 2013 at 1:02 am |
Regency Hotel is on 61st St & Park Ave
May 7, 2014 at 11:09 pm |
[…] to to Ephemeral New York, this ad was part of a 1973 New York Mets […]