Cell phones are great. You can watch movies; play games; find news, weather and sex partners … you can even make phone calls*!
What you can’t do — at least, not without a ton of work — is find out the phone number of someone you don’t know.
Back in the day, it was as easy — literally — as ABC.
“Phone books” sat by every telephone. Updated every year — thick for cities, thin for towns like Westport — they offered a complete, alphabetical and very egalitarian look at every home and business.
The other day, Suzanne Urban sent me the Westport directory for 1961-62.
I have no idea why she kept it. But it offers a fascinating look at a time before caller ID, answering machines, and “sorry, I just went through a dead zone.”
On one page you can see a bit of the commercial and governmental life of Westport (and Weston):
There’s also a peek at the people in town (and, if they were female, their marital status).
Look carefully. I did not choose this page randomly.
As for those “CA 7-” and “CL 9-” numbers: They stood for CApital and CLearwater (the latter for homes near Fairfield).
Those letter prefixes were replaced by “227” and “259” a few years later. Then came “226” and “255,” followed by “222” and “254.”
Today, prefixes mean nothing. The many years of “203” as Connecticut’s only area code are gone forever. too You can even keep your area code when you move.
The phone book made it easy to memorize phone numbers. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, but I still remember friends’ numbers from the Kennedy era.
Today, we can’t imagine life without our cell phones. Back in the day, we could not have lived without phone books.
One day, kids, I’ll go back and revisit directory assistance, and the Yellow Pages.
*Provided you have service. And “minutes.’
(You don’t have to look up anything to support “06880.” Just click here to contribute!)
Who has your phone number now? Do you know, Dan. I still remember MU7-0700 for slip covers as advertised on the Sunny Fox show. That’s MU7-0700 call now, operators are standing by. The area code was not offered, everyone “within the sound of (his) voice” knew the NYC area code was 212.
Hey Daniel: Besides what appears to be the listing for your family in those days, your image also has a listing for G. Scott Wright in Weston. G. Scott Wright, of course, was the remarkable iconoclastic, progressive, and inspiring art teacher at Long Lots Junior High in the early sixties. Some of his exercises in art, e.g., placing a stool on a table and instructing us to draw “the spaces between the legs” still informs my perception of the world around me. A remarkable teacher and formidable personality!
John Parriott, (Staples ’64)
Another exercise, as I recall, was to draw a newspaper page as accurately as possible. Mr. Wright was about 6′ 4″ tall and drove a bright yellow, ca. 1957 Porsche.
I remember those years when our number started with CA7.
Personally, I would prefer that they kept the letters and did not switch to numbers. It made us feel like we lived in a small town (which we did). Listing a woman’s marital status along with her number is another thing entirely. That’s a practice that could not have been stopped too soon.
Great find, Dan! That’s a real blast from the past.
In 1960’s Brooklyn where I grew up, the “CL” exchange (as it was called) represented “Cloverdale”. Inexplicably, the phone number of a friend has stuck in my head for over 50 years and yet I can’t recall which friend answered to the number CL(overdale) 8-8649.
I dare not reveal my own home phone number from that era, lest a prankster attempt to make a crank call (back in time) thereby jangling the yellow vertically-mounted rotary-dial phone hanging in the kitchen, plus the two black desk phones, one in the living room and the other on the parent’s’ nightstand. And by the way, the 1960’s Brooklyn phone books were 2 – 3 inches thick!
Wow, there’s a listing for Edward J. Wormley, the famous furniture designer who essentially put Dunbar on the map!
And Hans Wreidt!
Hartford Courant, 20 July 1962:
Hans F. Wriedt Dies; Panned Bombing Raids
NY (AP) – Hans F. Wriedt, 71, who escaped from Hitler’s Germany and later helped plan bombing raids on Kiel, died Thursday outside his stockbroker’s office on Broadway. Cause of death was believed to be a heart attack. // Wriedt, a resident of Westport, was born in Kiel, the son of a grocer. He founded the Nord See fisheries in Kiel, and made it one of the largest fishing firms in the world. // The company was seized by Hitler in 1933 and Wriedt was placed under guard. He escaped in 1935 to England and in 1939 came to the United States. // During World War II, Wriedt, then living in Delray Beach, Fla., cooperated with the government and served in an advisory capacity when plans were made to bomb the German submarine factories in his hometown. // He leaves his wife, Rosemarie Wriedt; a son, Hans C. F. Wriedt of Bridgeport; and three daughters — Mrs. David S. [Rosemarie] Rogers of Southport, Mrs. J. A. Schuenemann of Lima, Peru, and Mrs. Hans A. Schultz of Bremen, Germany. // Funeral services will be held at the Saugatuck Congregational Church in Westport.
Yes, my wife’s grandfather. As it happens, we have a lovely painting of his North Compo house by the late Westport artist, Charles Cobelle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Wormley
… Wormley’s tables — Wormley’s occasional tables for Dunbar include his tile-topped tables created as part of the Janus line in 1957 which were a partnership between Modern production design aesthetic and the tile traditions of Tiffany and Otto Natzler. Dining tables, stacking tables, and other occasional tables manufactured by Dunbar have been popular at auction but none have met with the success of these examples.
and
https://www.collectdunbar.com/wormley
What Furniture IS, in his own words:
“Furniture is needed for practical reasons, and because it must be there, it may as well be as pleasant as possible to look at, and in a less definable psychological way, comforting to the spirit.”
and
“Modernism means freedom—freedom to mix, to choose, to change, to embrace the new but to hold fast to what is good.”
I remember Scott Wright’s projects where we designed playhouse for ourselves of 10,000 square feet, writing a print advertisement for fizzles, designing a religious sanctuary with ourselves as god and designing a monument to ourselves. He inherited an art magazine when I had him and left Long Lots to teach journalism in Redding. He was one of the most inspiring teacher I ever had and I briefly thought about being an architect and longer held onto being an advertising copywriter–I ended up doing advertising research
Like you, we lived on High Point Rd. Our old phone number is used by someone on Bayberry Lane. The year we left Westport in 1962 was the year they went to all digit dialing and zip codes.
We moved to Westport in 1955. Where we lived before, south of Pittsburgh, we could dial local numbers using the last 5 digits (though long distance calls had to go through the operator). When I was born, in 1948, my parents had a 6 digit phone number. If we went to 8-digit phone numbers we wouldn’t need as many area codes. When I lived in New York, and now in San Francisco, you have to dial the area code even for local calls. Up until around 1980, you had to rent your phone from the phone company, and colored phones cost extra. I also remember at work, we had to link our monitors to a remote computer using an “acoustic coupler”–you dialed a number on a regular phone, and when static started, you put the phone receiver onto the contraption.
When you walked into Long Lots, and walked past the office on the right, Mr. Wright’s class was the first classroom on the right immediately past the office. I had him in the 1959-1960 school year, or the 1960-61 school year. CL-9-3595 was our phone number.
I see CL-9-9108 too. That’s the Westport Golf Range’s pay phone number at 1440 Post Road.
Why were some businesses in bold, black letters like Wspt Bowling Lanes, which was my family’s business? Other businesses were not in bold letters?
Bold listings cost extra.
Thanks, John. I had a feeling it might be that. However, when we opened in1958, we were the second big pin bowling lanes in the entire state. I’m not sure we needed bold letters.
When you say “big pin” bowling, were there candlepin and duck pin lanes in the area–I know when I went to college in Boston, they were prevalent; we would have to go to the MIT student center for “big pin” bowling. The Westport Lanes were built shortly after mechanical devices replaced ball boys. AMF seemed to overtake Brunswick at that point, but Westport Lanes went with Brunswick.
John, Candlestick and duck pin bowling was around in the late 1950s, but big pin, as it was known, took off around 1959. I’m not sure why we went with Brunswick, but I remember both salespeople pushing hard for their brand. I also remember going to New Jersey to see a big pin bowling alley before we built.
I also remember AMF had an indicator showing you what pins were up–something Brunswick and Westport Lanes lacked.
I think 06880 covered this already, but Westport Lanes was featured in a TV show “Candid Camera” stunt.
That phone book page shows a listing for James Woods and one for Frank L. Wright. Any chance those actually belong to the actor and the architect?! Probably not, but they did get my brain going… 🙂
My memory is somewhat hazy, but I seem to remember a thin Westport phone book, and a thicker book–either Norwalk or Bridgeport, with a separate section for Westport listings.
John Kelley, You are absolutely correct. I remember that thin phonebook dedicated solely to Westport. The thicker book had Bridgeport numbers in the front, then Norwalk and finally Westport. That book was thick. It also had the yellow pages in the back for advertising.
I love this. It brought me back to a different time. Thank you.
We always used the 3 inch telephone books as a booster seat at the dining room table for the little ones. When the new phone book arrived we covered the old ones with contact paper. Everyone had a seat!
Shilepsky Realty, on Main Street, in 1923, had a phone number of 145. I sent a picture of the page to Dan.
I’m sure my grandparents are in the book: George Comden and Lester Rounds. Not sure if my parents or relatives are in the book: Laurence Comden and Robert (Nancy) Leonard.
George Comden: 5 Maplewood Av., CA7-4656,Charlotte Comden has her own listing (same address and number), for some reason. No Leonards, unfortunately.