![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Harry, Make the Change!"
Jul. 16th, 2021 01:24 pmMore 'membrances for today. In keeping with the Intertoob trend of associating every day with an event or numerical oddity- see Pi Day, Star Wars Day, Etcetera Day, Etcetera Day, Etcetera Day- July 16th has become a quaint local observance of sorts.
I don't remember any widespread recognition of this numerology until the last few years, but it's been there in plain sight of local telephone dials almost as long as I've been alive:
As local chronicler Steve Cichon explains, direct dialing using that code came to most of this area in September 1960. All of Western and much of Central New York were originally assigned to the 716 code, with my former 607 home being split off in the 50s and Rochester (and a few points west and south of it) converting into 585 back in 2001. So my friends back there will have to wait another eight days for their own area-codey celebration on May 85th:)
One oddity I just learned of, doing actual research for this piece? Unlike most of the country, our area codes have never had an overlay of numbers from a new three-digit code onto the area. That's practically meant that we have never had to use ten digit numbers for calls made within the same area code. But that's about to change: 988 is going live as a national suicide prevention number, and since there are phone numbers assigned here with that exchange, starting in October we're going to have to use all ten digits for all calls. The Phone Company helpfully announced this change back on April 1st, leading to some wondering about whether it was some sort of sick fool. It is not. It apparently will also be required for cell calls, which is going to take some reprogramming of contacts on mobiles. Fortunately, most of mine already have the area code programmed into them.
I plan to celebrate the event by talking on the phone as little as possible;)
----
Friends of mine have observed a bittersweet piece of history of this day, tied mostly to my first-ever area code of 516. Forty years ago today, Harry Chapin was scheduled to play a benefit concert in the county park hosted in my original hometown of East Meadow. He never made it, perishing in a hideous accident on the Long Island Expressway on the way from his Huntington home. One of my East Meadow friends posted this memory of the event that he got published in the local paper two days later:
Around the same time Howie was writing that, I was writing my own published piece. That was my last summer in Ithaca before law school, and I was still working as the only local reporter and photographer for the then three newspapers headquartered in Syracuse. Harry had attended Cornell in the early 60s, and returned for concert performances there, one in my final year of college. I didn't attend that one, but my first-ever concert away from home was with my sister, down the road in Binghamton four years earlier. It remains one of the most memorable shows I've ever seen.
Anyway, on the eve of his passing, I was assigned to track down anyone who might have remembered Harry from what was then about 17 years earlier. Amazingly, I found some, and wrote it all down. My clipping file from back then got lost in a slew of moves, but a few years ago on the way to a Mets game, I stopped at the main library in downtown Syracuse, found the issue on microsomething, and preserved it for the ages:
Not long after that, I began hearing of some wonderful work, musical and otherwise, from Harry's daughter Jen. I sent her a copy of that article, which she really appreciated, although she said she doubted the bit about him ever driving a taxi in Ithaca. "Yeah, I've heard THAT one a lot," she said. I wound up meeting her in person when I helped book her into a folk venue in Buffalo a few winters ago, and we've become Facebook friends through that. She and her family remain quite active in the hunger fighting efforts begun by her dad. Howie also linked to the documentary about Harry's life and music that I've mentioned here before, titled after the personal mantra of his life up to literally the moment of his death:
When in Doubt, Do Something.
I don't remember any widespread recognition of this numerology until the last few years, but it's been there in plain sight of local telephone dials almost as long as I've been alive:
As local chronicler Steve Cichon explains, direct dialing using that code came to most of this area in September 1960. All of Western and much of Central New York were originally assigned to the 716 code, with my former 607 home being split off in the 50s and Rochester (and a few points west and south of it) converting into 585 back in 2001. So my friends back there will have to wait another eight days for their own area-codey celebration on May 85th:)
One oddity I just learned of, doing actual research for this piece? Unlike most of the country, our area codes have never had an overlay of numbers from a new three-digit code onto the area. That's practically meant that we have never had to use ten digit numbers for calls made within the same area code. But that's about to change: 988 is going live as a national suicide prevention number, and since there are phone numbers assigned here with that exchange, starting in October we're going to have to use all ten digits for all calls. The Phone Company helpfully announced this change back on April 1st, leading to some wondering about whether it was some sort of sick fool. It is not. It apparently will also be required for cell calls, which is going to take some reprogramming of contacts on mobiles. Fortunately, most of mine already have the area code programmed into them.
I plan to celebrate the event by talking on the phone as little as possible;)
----
Friends of mine have observed a bittersweet piece of history of this day, tied mostly to my first-ever area code of 516. Forty years ago today, Harry Chapin was scheduled to play a benefit concert in the county park hosted in my original hometown of East Meadow. He never made it, perishing in a hideous accident on the Long Island Expressway on the way from his Huntington home. One of my East Meadow friends posted this memory of the event that he got published in the local paper two days later:
Around the same time Howie was writing that, I was writing my own published piece. That was my last summer in Ithaca before law school, and I was still working as the only local reporter and photographer for the then three newspapers headquartered in Syracuse. Harry had attended Cornell in the early 60s, and returned for concert performances there, one in my final year of college. I didn't attend that one, but my first-ever concert away from home was with my sister, down the road in Binghamton four years earlier. It remains one of the most memorable shows I've ever seen.
Anyway, on the eve of his passing, I was assigned to track down anyone who might have remembered Harry from what was then about 17 years earlier. Amazingly, I found some, and wrote it all down. My clipping file from back then got lost in a slew of moves, but a few years ago on the way to a Mets game, I stopped at the main library in downtown Syracuse, found the issue on microsomething, and preserved it for the ages:
Not long after that, I began hearing of some wonderful work, musical and otherwise, from Harry's daughter Jen. I sent her a copy of that article, which she really appreciated, although she said she doubted the bit about him ever driving a taxi in Ithaca. "Yeah, I've heard THAT one a lot," she said. I wound up meeting her in person when I helped book her into a folk venue in Buffalo a few winters ago, and we've become Facebook friends through that. She and her family remain quite active in the hunger fighting efforts begun by her dad. Howie also linked to the documentary about Harry's life and music that I've mentioned here before, titled after the personal mantra of his life up to literally the moment of his death:
When in Doubt, Do Something.