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Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/28/12 07:32 PM
Miracle on Second Avenue
Posted By: JPGolan Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 03:30 AM
Arther,

Link didn't work....try this one

https://long-lines.net/operations/MiracleOnSecondAvenue/FC.html

BTW I worked on this as an outside contractor (Executone) for some specialized equipment that was in the CO. Thanks for the memories :bow:
Posted By: WECo 355A Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 04:07 AM
Link to movie: https://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2011/3/9/AT&T-Archives-Miracle-on-Second-Avenue
Posted By: jeffmoss26 Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 08:52 AM
Thanks for sharing. At around 11:56 they show what looks to be a 500 set but with a beehive lamp smack in the middle. I've never seen such a phone!
Posted By: SwedaGuy Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 09:13 AM
At around 7:40 in the movie, some guy is musing about how a person can make it through the day without using a phone. I wonder if he's still around to see us now?

Over all, though, it was a very cool little documentary...
Posted By: jeffmoss26 Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 01:20 PM
These phones crack me up!
https://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2012/1/31/AT&T-Archives-Design-Line-Fashions
Posted By: EV607797 Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 02/29/12 07:38 PM
Jeff, that was the current model 500Y, equipped with a message waiting/ringing visual lamp. It was quite normal, despite the ugliness. It may have been a 500YM, since full-modular phones were in full distribution in the NY/NJ area in 1975.

I still can't believe all of the effort that went into putting a crossbar switch back into operation. I'd have thought that they'd have replaced it with an ESS. Even then, they had portable #1 ESS switches for disaster recovery.

I did like seeing how they put the early version of 710 splicing into action and it obviously proved itself. I don't see how they could have accommodated the total project otherwise. I will admit that I did see a splice bundle of beenies at one point, but that may have been stock footage for drama.

It is my understanding that this fire is what brought about the mandate for plenum-rated cable in buildings. They say that the fire spread was due to the massive number of vertical cables that helped spread the original fire in the cable vault to the upper levels of the building. I'm assuming that major changes were made in cable jacket design for risers as well.

I was 14 years old living in northern NJ at the time that this fire occurred and I remember it well. We were 30 miles away and still experienced dialing issues for many weeks due to the massive re-routing of traffic.

I wonder what Verizon would do today in such circumstances. My guess is that they would walk away and sell it to Fairpoint for pennies on the dollar.

Man, The Bell System was such a great company. Thanks a lot, Judge Greene.
Posted By: Lightning horse Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/01/12 05:37 AM
I picked up a NOS refurbed "Noteworthy" on E-bay for $45 a couple of years ago. That's the rotary dial trimline I tease touchtone only users with. smile
Posted By: skip555 Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/01/12 06:50 AM
Quote
Originally posted by jeffmoss26:
These phones crack me up!
https://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2012/1/31/AT&T-Archives-Design-Line-Fashions
the customer bought the case but AT&T /Bell owned the inside components. They used to have a sticker on the bottom to that effect
Posted By: tantivy Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/16/12 08:04 AM
Ev, I took a close look at the video, and the 500V's appear to be non-modular.

I'm sure they probably had a large cache of them on hand for telethons, phone banks, etc, just as they had trailer mounted banks of payphones.

I'm sure they ran the numbers comparing cost and time for cleaning vs replacement of the switch, and probably considered other factors such as available space for the new switch(s), availability of new switches, etc.

Apparently, some equipment _was_ replaced with ESS.

According to https://www.privateline.com/issues/p.l.No11A.html, which quotes from the book _Telephone: The first hundred years_ by John Brooks (out of print at the time the article was written, although it looks like there are ~200 copies available from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Telephone-First-Hundred-John-Brooks/dp/0060105402), there were 12 exchanges, and 5 toll switches in the building, serving 104,000 lines (170,000 telephones).

"The work to be done in the damaged building varied all the way from installing new ESS equipment and writing computer programs for it to cleaning smoke-damaged relays with toothbrushes and Q- tips. A couple of happy circumstances speeded the work along. One of these was the fact that the the third floor of the burned building happened to be standing vacant at the time, thus providing space for the rapid installation of an entirely new main frame for handling trunk calls, which was shipped by cargo jet on February 28 from Western Electric's Hawthorne works. Another was the convenient availability for emergency use of excess switching capacity, from the ESS installations at Seventh Avenue and Eighteenth Street and at New York Telephone headquarters at Sixth and Forty-second. Such capacity could temporarily accommodate 28,000 of the 104,000 served lines."
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/16/12 05:16 PM
I remember seeing dozens of multi-thousand pair cables, strung along the pavement at the side of 2nd Avenue, heading off somewhere to another CO building, being used as huge "jumper cables" to provide temp service. The cops had one lane of the avenue cordoned off to create an alley for the cables, and Empire City Subway Co (NYTelCo's subsidiary that did the digging in Manhattan) made trenches at every cross street, and the cables were covered with planking to allow traffic to cross.
Posted By: tantivy Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/17/12 06:05 AM
I do note one error in the quoted paragraph..
"shipped by cargo jet", except the film shows it being unloaded from a propeller driven aircraft, which appears to be a Lockheed L-188 Electra.
Posted By: mbhydro Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/25/12 06:07 PM
Anybody have any idea of how many switches in North America have fires that take them out of service each year?

I can't imagine it being a large number, I don't even recall hearing about service being out in Manitoba because of a fire, only software errors. And that's only once every 20 years or so.
Posted By: tantivy Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/26/12 11:50 AM
Fortunately, CO fires are rare..

Besides the NY Telephone fire, there was the Hinsdale, IL fire in 1988, which required Illinois Bell to replace the switch because of heavy smoke damage caused by the delay in reporting the fire.

There were also fires in Los Angeles in 1994, and in Toronto in 1999, both of which were in power rooms, and resulted in a loss of power and telephone services for some number of hours, but no permanent damage to switches.

More common is outside plant damage caused by natural disasters such as floods, storms, and wildland fires, such as the ones in southern California in 2003.
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/26/12 02:35 PM
5030 Bway
Posted By: ugly1 Re: Miracle on Second Avenue - 03/27/12 06:12 AM
From my brief experience as a trainee switchman,I am surprised that CO fires did not occur more frequently.I worked at 104 broad street,the southernmost CO in manhattan.If I recall correctly ,the entire building contained ancient panel switching equipment.There was a title of worker called "powerman".His entire duties consisted of removing high amperage fuses to polish the fuse blades,and every hour take a rag soaked in kerosene and hold it against the commutator of the motor-generators that supplied the 48vdc. The power man explained that Bell Labs ordered this procedure to produce "quieter" direct current.
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