Talk:PEnnsylvania 6-5000

Pennsylvania or PEnnsylvania?
To avoid helpful "corrections", we should establish a consistent name for this article and then explain why it was chosen.

My vote would be to spell it as the telephone exchange that it is: PEnnsylvania 6-5000. This shouldn't cause any problems for linking or searches as there will of course still be a "Pennsylvania 6-5000" redirect.

(The only reason not to spell it this way I can think of is if there's a feeling this would violate the Wikipedia guidelines of not using QUirky CApitalization used by brand names, but there's plenty of precedent for their being exceptions.)

I am going to move the article and place a note within the text explaining why it's this way. If anyone has a strong objection, let's discuss it here.--NapoliRoma 13:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Reference removed
After the line, "It belongs to the Hotel Pennsylvania and has been in continuous use since 1919", there is a reference/link to the Hotel Pennsylvania website. But as of this writing (Jan. 9, 2010), that link does not corroborate the "....since 1919" claim. So for now, I'm going to remove the reference/link and put in a "citation needed" note. Elsquared (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Who owns it?
Who do you get if you call it? I'm not going to call it from across the pond so ca someone in new York make a free local call to it and find out? --LeedsKing (talk) 17:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I searched "reverse phone number lookup" in Google, went to the first hit (which was http://www.whitepages.com/reverse_phone), and inserted 212-736-5000 into the form, and the Hotel Pennsylvania came up in the results (along with several other entities which seem to share the same address, 401 7th Ave.). You could have done the same thing yourself in about 30 seconds... AnonMoos (talk) 19:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * At the moment, the number is answered by the hotel's automated system, and they actually play a few bars of Glenn Miller's famous recording before going into the usual spiel about dialing your party's extension number if you know it, or press 1 for guest rooms, etc.  PBC1966 (talk) 10:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Veracity of the claim
The Hotel Woodward, now the Dream Hotel, advertised on page 3 (which is after many pages of indices) of the 1915 Scarborough's Official Tour Book - New York New Jersey Canada and the East with a display ad clearly showing (a) the address ("Broadway and 55th St.") (b) an image (matching the current facade) and (c) a phone number ("2000 Circle") all of which match the information for what is now the Dream Hotel (+1.212.247.2000). This is four years before the Hotel Pennsylvania opened. They also ran the same ad on page 3 of the 1916 and page 2 of the 1917 edition, and in other route books as well, possibly including earlier books. The route books in question are out of copyright and the 1916 edition is online at http://books.google.com/books?id=JOtJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false -- see for yourself. That said, I think leaving the wording that the hotel claims to have the oldest number is perfectly lovely whether they do or not. Palmwiz (talk) 03:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

In need of rewrite?
The whole opening section seems to be a little muddled as it stands at the moment, and would probably benefit from a rewrite. For example: "The earliest it could have existed is around 1930, when seven-digit telephone numbers were first adopted in New York City." That's incorrect, since 7-digit numbers were in use in N.Y.C. well before 1930. As the section then continues to explain, the original 3L-4N numbering was changed to 2L-5N. It's THAT change which occurred around 1930, resulting in PENnsylvania 5000 becoming PEnnsylvania 6-5000. PBC1966 (talk) 08:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It looks like 3L+4N was introduced in 1920, the year after the hotel opened. It was supplanted by 2L+5N in 1930. All of this coincides with the replacement of manual exchanges with dial, which for the Bell System began in 1919 and continued over many decades. It's likely the hotel opened with manual service in 1919, was 3L+4N (PEN-5000) in 1920, using the 2L+5N representation (PE6-5000) of the same number from 1930. K7L (talk) 16:26, 14 November 2014 (UTC)