Back in the 50's (maybe even earlier) the telephone exchange in our area was HOward (46), as in "HOward 6, 0095" (466-0095).
Michael tells us:
The original Bell exchange was the now-condo building "Printers Row" (see http://mitchell-lofts.com/pages/AboutPRC.htm) on the east side of Logan just north of Simpson, designed in 1911 by the architect W.F. Carmichael. You'll note a blank sandstone panel at the top on the Logan side, which used to say "The Bell Telephone Company of Canada" and was "erased" by the condo developers in a minor act of vandalism. Note the height of each storey, necessary to accommodate the tall equipment racks. The exchange was later moved around the corner to the building on Simpson. The equipment in the Logan and Simpson buildings was SxS (step-by-step) until the early '80s - one of the last "step" exchanges around - when it was replaced by a Nortel DMS electronic switch.
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The original Bell exchange was the now-condo building "Printers Row" (see http://mitchell-lofts.com/pages/AboutPRC.htm) on the east side of Logan just north of Simpson, designed in 1911 by the architect W.F. Carmichael. You'll note a blank sandstone panel at the top on the Logan side, which used to say "The Bell Telephone Company of Canada" and was "erased" by the condo developers in a minor act of vandalism. Note the height of each storey, necessary to accommodate the tall equipment racks. The exchange was later moved around the corner to the building on Simpson. The equipment in the Logan and Simpson buildings was SxS (step-by-step) until the early '80s - one of the last "step" exchanges around - when it was replaced by a Nortel DMS electronic switch.
love your site. I am on victor but a former resident on Langley. I too am glad to see the reno of 21 Langley. Can't wait to see the end result.
Telephone Numbers on Victor (meaning of 46) From Victor Avenue
blog
1901
Central office names first appeared in the March 1901 directory. Your central office switched the calls you made out over a trunk line over to the receiving central office. For Victor the name was
Hillcrest Melrose Riverdale
1951 (Riverdale Exchange 74)
In 1951, Bell Canada introduced the new "2 Letter 5 Digit" phone number system (it didn't have a fancy name or acronym). This was done for the new "direct distance dialing" system (dial your own long distance calls) and because they were running out of phone numbers. Bell also thought that people couldn't remember 7 digit phone numbers, but that they would remember a location, 1 digit, and 4 digits. The central office names were originally based upon a physical neighbourhood, but this system degraded as they ran out of available letter (number) pairs.
March 1957 Riverdale (74) become Howard (46)
In March of 1957 RIverdale, GErrard, GLadstone and HArgrave were amalgamated to become the HOward exchange.
Sources
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061116.archi17/REStory/RealEstate/
http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/History.detailed.html
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