What did this old NYC phone exchange stand for?

You see these two-letter old phone exchanges around occasionally—often on old signs off the beaten path, even though New York City phased out the letter exchanges in the 1960s.

In the East 80s of Yorkville, I spotted a mysterious one: a parking garage sign with a phone number that begins with “TW.”

TW? It’s one I’d never seen before, and I can’t figure out what local landmark or old neighborhood lent its name to a phone exchange that could be as old as the 1920s.

Of course, the garage door company that used the number might have been located in any part of New York City. If anyone knows or wants to throw out a guess as to what TW stands for, I’d love to hear it!

An old Bronx phone number on a wood milk crate

It was up for sale at a New Jersey antiques market: a vintage wood milk crate stamped “Hygrade Milk,” a Bronx milk company founded in 1914, according to data from Bloomberg.

But the best part of the crate is the phone number beneath it, with the old two-letter phone exchange “LY.” But what’s LY?

The Hygrade Milk and Cream Company apparently existed at 2350 Hermany Avenue, in the southeast Bronx.

This in depth guide to old phone exchanges only lists a LY in Manhattan; it stood for “Lyceum” and covered part of the Upper West Side.

Longwood? That’s a nearby Bronx neighborhood. Or Lafayette Avenue, a street not far from Hermany? Someone must be able to solve this vintage phone exchange mystery.

In the meantime, here are more of these old timey two-letter phone exchanges spotted on signs and in ads around the city, which were all replaced by digits in the 1960s.

What did the FA phone exchange stand for?

While enjoying the views along Edgecombe Avenue in Upper Manhattan, I spotted this rusted sign containing an old two-letter phone exchange, once ubiquitous in New York until they were phased out in the 1960s.

The FA exchange is a mystery. Gun Hill is a road in the Bronx, and the Gun Hill Fence Company, founded in 1959, still operates in the Bronx, now in a site on Boston Road.

Fordham is my best (but probably not accurate) guess. These old two-letter telephone exchanges are fun to find in hidden pockets of New York City.

Random sightings of old phone exchange signs

The traditional two-letter phone number prefix was officially abandoned in the 1960s.

From time to time, as readers of this site know, they sometimes reveal themselves in faded ads and randomly found signs, like these two below.

I’m not exactly sure what an asbestos curtain was, but American Stage Equipment sold them from an East Harlem office South Bronx office.

The CY exchange is new to me, but according to this guide, it stands for cypress, which places it in the Bronx. The sign hangs in an antiques shop in Brooklyn.

ST could have stood for stagg or sterling in Brooklyn, stillwell in Queens, or Stuyvesant in Manhattan. It was found on a Flatiron building, so Stuyvesant is a good bet.

A Turtle Bay lamp store sign reemerges again

For 35 years, Louis Mattia operated an antique lamp and chandelier shop at 980 Second Avenue in the east 50s.

He closed his store in 1995, and this wonderful old sign (PL for Plaza!) would come in and out of view, as each subsequent store that replaced it went out of business.

Now that a frame shop here has recently gone under, the ghostly old-school sign stands once again. I wonder how long it lasts before it’s covered up.

Two more obsolete East Side phone exchanges

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.

Vintage store signs of a vanishing Italian enclave

Like its counterparts in the South Village, Carroll Gardens, and the North Bronx, the long-established Italian neighborhood in East Williamsburg, with its old-school shops and storefronts, is shrinking.

So before Graham Avenue (renamed “Via Vespucci” after the Italian explorer) is swarmed by wine bars and doggy day care centers, take a moment to appreciate the iconic signs stretching from Ainslie Street to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Looking at the Emily’s Pork Store sign makes me hungry. I wish I’d stopped in for some fresh mozzarella. And Caffe Capri! I love the mermaid crest on the left. This is what the sign looks like without the last bit cut off (it reads pastry, expresso, cappuccino).

Grande Monuments is a wonderful sign on its own. But there’s a bonus on the side of the building: another sign with the old two-letter phone exchange.

The ST is probably an abbreviation for nearby Stagg Street.

An old phone exchange hiding in the Village

I’ve walked by entrance to Gene’s restaurant on 11th Street and Sixth Avenue many, many times and just recently noticed the painted window sign sporting the pre-1960s OR phone exchange.

OR was for Orchard, later Oregon, according to this old phone exchange chart.

Gene’s is serious old-timey Village French-Italian, open since 1919. Their website includes a link to a 1958 Village Voice review featuring fantastic vintage ads for other restaurants and cafes of the era, such as El Charro and Chumley’s.

Vintage phone exchange signs in Chelsea

You have to look down to the ground and inside doorways to find them, but references to New York’s old two-letter telephone prefix system still exist.

These signs are probably at least 50 years old, as the two-letter exchanges were phased out in the 1960s.

EXeter 2 existed in Queens, hence this sign on West 19th Street for the Marcato Elevator Company in Long Island City.

Kaufman Management Company still has its offices at 450 Seventh Avenue in Midtown. They no longer use the LOngacre exchange on signs or in advertising, but they could: their current phone number is the same as it is on this 19th Street plate.

This website is a great resource for looking up the history of the city’s old exhanges.

More old phone exchanges hiding in plain sight

This chain link fence sign was spotted near Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. The NI exchange is for a Brooklyn name: Nightingale.

MU is Murray Hill—which makes sense, since this plaque was found laying low on the side of a building in the East 40s.

There’s more than one in Manhattan; the Abramson Brothers have quite a hand in the real estate world.