Telephone Exchange Names / Movies and Television

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Home / Telephone Exchange Names / Movies and Television 9

Sightings of Telephone Exchange Names in movies and television. Not much to see now, but I'll add to this as sightings occur.

KH-1-7400/7490. UTOG (United Taxi Owners Guild). Phone Number seen in "Taxi Driver".
KH-1-7400/7490. UTOG (United Taxi Owners Guild). The Internet is an amazing place sometimes. A year or so ago I posted this image from the film "Taxi Driver". The image showed a yellow cab with what appeared to be an old-style phone number on the trunk of the car. That phone number, KH1-7400, confounded me, because it just doesn't look like a typical telephone exchange name number. Most exchange names start with the first 2 letters of a real word. Commonly-used New York City exchange names, for example, included RAvenswood, ESplanade, and PLaza among many others. I added the KH1 sighting to my collection of telephone exchange name sightings anyway, imagining someone might find it and offer proof that this was a real number. In the meantime I reached out to a New York City exchange names expert who assuredly told me that KH1 was never a genuine telephone exchange in New York City. Recently, however, proof that KH1 was a valid telephone exchange arrived in the form of an e-mail from John F. F.. John had been rummaging through old calling cards when he found this one from UTOG (United Taxi Owners Guild). The old calling card clearly gives KH1-7400 as the number to call, though evidently the number was changed at some point to KH1-7490. According to John: "The number was the 2-way radio dispatch number (in Queens I believe); call that number and usually a medallion Checker cab picked you up in about 5 minutes." "I know -- I used it too many times to get me home from mid-town Manhattan to Staten Island in the 1960's and 70's." Referring to the scene from "Taxi Driver" John adds: "The cab in the photo may simply have been parked when the scene was shot." That's a pretty cool connection. Who would have thought someone would reach this or any other web site by dialing up an old KH1- telephone number? I was satisfied, too, to know that Martin Scorsese, director of "Taxi Driver", did not find some reason to pad this great film with something as trivial as a nonsense phone number. That is one of the many things about movies that drives me crazy: the fake telephone numbers, invariably starting with "555". These numbers, so obviously fake, detract significantly from any sense of realism in a story.
BUtterfield-8-0789. The Bitch (1979)
The famous BUtterfield-8 telephone exchange name, seen in the opening minutes of the 1979 Joan Collins film "The Bitch". This was about the only redeeming quality of this film. I started watching thinking it was filmed entirely in New York, and might have interesting NYC street scenes. Alas, it was filmed mostly in the UK.
BUtterfield-8-0789. From the Joan Collins movie "The Bitch"
Honestly, this exchange name sighting was the only thing worth watching in this stupid, inane film.
OLympic Phone Exchange. "Breakfast At Tiffany's", about 1:37, when Paul Varjak calls O.J. Berman.
We never fully see this exchange phone number on O.J. Berman's bedside rotary dial telephone, but Berman is located in Hollywood, California, meaning that this was probably supposed to be the OLympic exchange, which was used in Los Angeles.
TRafalgar and LExington Exchanges, from "Serpico" (1973)
TRafalgar and LExington Exchanges, in a scene from the Al Pacino film "Serpico" (1973), on the Williamsburg Bridge. Du Valle Cleaners appears to have been a real company, though I cannot find anything to verify the accuracy of those three phone numbers shown on their van.
MUrray Hill 5-7098. Taxi Driver.
MUrray Hill 5-7098 is seen in the background of this scene from Taxi Driver.
KH1-7400. Taxi Driver.
I do not know if the KH telephone exchange ever existed, or if the appearance of KH1-7400 in this scene is meant to represent a phone number. It certainly looks like a telephone exchange name number, KH does not appear in the Telephone Exchange Name Project's Database or at phone.net46.net, which are the only 2 sources I refer to for this project. "Taxi Driver" did show a MUrray Hill exchange name number in another scene, which I think illustrates that Martin Scorsese did not have any kind of directorial policy of using bogus phone numbers in the style of modern film-makers. UPDATE: AUGUST, 2012: THE NUMBER IS REAL. [URL=http://sorabji.com/pictures/Telephone_Exchange_Names/Movies_and_TV/2012_08_12_18_00_03.jpg.html]READ ABOUT IT HERE[/URL].
BEekman 3-5085. "Man On Wire"
It is blurry in this screengrab from what appears to be an actual news broadcast from August, 1974, but a BEekman telephone exchange number can be seen on the red sign to the right. The sign is for Rosetta Electric.
STillwell 3-2868. "The Landlord" (1970)
"The Landlord", 1970. STillwell exchange name seen on the red truck. About 10:00 into the film.