Reconnecting 170,000 Phone Customers in NYC After a Major Fire - AT&T Archives

See more from the AT&T Archives at techchannel.att...
Introduction by George Kupczak of the AT&T Archives and History Center
The morning of February 27, 1975 brought a fire in the telephone building at 204 Second Avenue, at East 13th Street. The building housed the Main Distribution Frame that served customers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn--the mainframe was destroyed, disconnecting tens of thousands of customers, and switching equipment was melted or damaged by smoke. The fire took out approximately 170,000 lines. The Bell System immediately went into company-wide action, restoring service within about 2 weeks, and brought rolling phone trucks to lower manhattan to provide at least some service to residents.
The filmmakers were quick on the scene and started rolling cameras to document not just the recovery of the system by the efforts of firemen, Bell executives, and Bell workers, but put lenses on affected customers as well, to tell the full picture in this cinéma-vérité documentary.
The 2nd Ave. disaster was the largest loss of telephone service from fire in United States history until World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001. On that occasion, service was disrupted to approx. 300,000 circuits and 10 cellphone towers.
A Gordon/Glyn Production Albert Maysles provided footage
Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

[@jasonwomack4064]

Ahhh, the good ole days when you could chain smoke your way through a disaster response without going outside.

[@7891ph]

While I can appreciate the joke, I'm also just old enough to have bad flash backs to when that was the norm; us non smokers had to shut up or get out. I'm in my early fifties, and I hope I never have to deal with that at work again. And being a CNC machinist, I know just how many smokers we have on board (in a non smokers shop) because if I can't find them, check outside; they're probably (trying to) sneak a smoke break.

[@mogwopjr]

and the boss would bring a carton of smokes, a case of beer and maybe some pizza to help the night along... Because it's gonna be a long one.

[@Psythik]

And you could get through your entire day without picking up your phone more than once or twice. 9:31

[@james.anderson-pole]

I was thinking it would be ironic if smoking was the cause of the fire.

[@WhitfieldProductionsTV]

@@7891ph then there are some of us that smoke to not lose it and make people not want to come back lol, stress is a bitch.

[@ayebing]

Watching this after millions of people , including myself, lost AT&T cell service for 8 hours. Puts things in perspective.

[@James_Knott]

Yep. A couple of years ago, the company I'm with lost cell, Internet, TV and home phone service for much of a day. Apparently, someone updated a router with a patch provided by Cisco, which killed the network. AT&T had a similar problem, several years ago, when someone made a "minor" change that wouldn't affect anything...

[@bobcole612]

Not covered in the film, but the fire started in the cable vault when a spark landed on a pressurized cable. It burned through the sheath, and once it got to the pulp cable and was supplied fresh oxygen from the air dryers pressurizing the cable at around 12-14 psi, the fire spread through the vault, then up the cable chases (not fire blocked in those days) up to the frame and switch floors. Interesting to watch the splicers lay up 25 pair binder groups into modules. 45 years later we still splice the same way. I'm very proud to be a tip & ring phone man. I stand on the shoulders of giants like those guys.

[@ShainAndrews]

I'd have to research it, but I'd take an educated guess this event drove the change to nitrogen to keep the moisture out of the cables.

[@bobcole612]

@@ShainAndrews Nitrogen is really only used as a backup to the dryers, or to buffer cables in the field when we have to open a splice case to keep pressure down the line. Cables in the office are supplied air at 12-14 psi and

[@ShainAndrews]

@@bobcole612 You clearly have more OSP experience than I. I can certainly attest to the fire block requirements in cable chases and the various cable sheath requirements.

[@bobcole612]

@@ShainAndrews one of the benefits of being in a small town. I do it all, POTS, IPDSL, ADSL, splicing cut cables, frame wiring and air pressure. It can be a tough job, but very rewarding. Especially when I fix the phone or internet (like I just did tonight) for a nice little old lady, and this is really their only communication with her family.

[@joshb124]

How does one become a tip & ring phone man? not much info out there. Always been interested in what's behind the att switching offices.

[@gorillaau]

Excellent short film. Good thing management had the foresight to bring in a documentary team. I'm not sure if that would happen today. No one admit liability, document as little as possible about the damage and causes.

[@paulrowan1501]

Albert Maysles no less! Before he and his brother David became really well known for their documentary film-making.

[@CoreyThompson73]

I suspect that was very intentional, as they suspected an eventual breakup would be recommended .. This definitely has the narrative the the Bell entities need each other to operate.

[@nyceyes]

@@CoreyThompson73 That's exactly what I thought.

[@pcguy619]

Oh man... yup. No documentary team for the Dec. 25th bombing of the AT&T Batman building.

[@FuquarProductions]

Like the 2008 Universal Studios fire where something like 18,000 to 175,000 master tapes were destroyed.

[@jblyon2]

If this happened today AT&T would just claim they weren't offering that service anymore, fix nothing, and try to sell you an internet or cellular based home phone.

[@jeffreykoerber6595]

Notice how everyone showed concern for the customers. If this happened today, they would just be talking about the shareholders. The workers on the ground would be thinking of the customers and frustrated by the CEO.

[@ScottysHaze]

This was absolutely AMAZING!!! I am making my way through every last one of the videos in this archive, and you know what I keep hearing over and over and over again? The employees had a genuine affection for, and real loyalty and dedication to the Bell Company. I can only deduce that is because the Bell Company likely took very, very good care of the employees. This is something that is lost on the general workforce at large today. And it shows everywhere. No one taking pride in their work. No one going the extra mile. No one making personal life sacrifices to give something extra in their work life.... If we could recapture this in the American workforce of today, I've no doubt we could fix every issue in our great United States. But where does it start? With the employee? The employer? It's like the age old "which came first, chicken or egg" question.... Anyways, I digress. This video blew me away. Not even a full month is all the time it took to replace the local exchanges and numbers for over 100,000 people. With all that enormous, heavy, fragile analog equipment! Thank you for sharing this little peek into a largely forgotten era of what was an INCREDIBLE industry!

[@westwasbest]

Perfectly said!

[@westwasbest]

Perfectly said!

[@justinclark8987]

Its culture and it has to come from the top down.

[@jimmybuffet4970]

In other words: "A happy employee is a productive employee." This truly was a marvel of engineering and work - especially when you consider that none of this was touchtone!

[@imark7777777]

Well that was the bell system after all: the people. And the company treated them well.

[@mogwopjr]

I work in the fourth largest Central Office for our section of whats left of Ma Bell.... I can't imagine replacing our MDF or COSMIC frames. 4 of them at nearly a quarter city block long each. Then there is the copper/fiber in the vaults. The 3 DMS' would probably be replaced with soft switches. The Bell System is sure not the family it used to be. What a great family effort that was to get New Yorkers back in service!

[@billylowe9631]

+mogwopjr Too bad you didn't get a chance to work in an old electromachanical switch like a Crossbar 5. The switch has personality that reflected the community. I also was involved with the Bushwick Ave fire recovery.

[@mogwopjr]

+Billy Lowe I don't know about the Bushwick Ave fire, do you have any links for information on it? I get stories from my Mom about the Crossbar as she was a switch tech when she transferred to MST. We still have working remnants with the remaining SMAS system, but it's not the same for sure. The first office I went into when I was young was a Crossbar office and listening to all the chatter was captivating. (the cable vault under our State Street was great too!) Now a days the only thing that makes noise are the fans and when something breaks.

[@billylowe9631]

+mogwopjr The Bushwick Ave CO in Brooklyn caught fire on Feb. 20 1987. As I remember the fire started in the cable vault and spread to the MDF. I don't remember what caused the fire. However, I know the crossbar tandem (known as Bushwick Tandem) was wiped out. and a No one ESS switch was badly damaged. AT&T (old Western Electric) got the switch going. However a new switch was needed for replacement. At that time I had left New York Tel (NYNEX) and was working for Northern Telecom (NORTEL) as an SAE (Systems Application Engineer) and a new DMS switch was ordered and installation was on a super rushed. (24-7) I also remember going to Laguardia to pick up parts and equipment that were sent from Raleigh NC counter to counter. As a switchman I was not directly involved with the Second Ave fire. However, I was asked to volunteer to go to the sight and work, I declined. The OT was insane.

[@billyboi57]

Didn't you hear? Ma Bell and her kids were murdered in 1984. There is no more Bell family.

[@billylowe9631]

Remember Judge Green

[@marcfield1234]

I'm looking back at this in 2021. In 1975 I was all of 4 years old. All this equipment is obsolete and gone. I'm not even a telephone man and even I get a sick feeling right down in my gut every time I see this. I can feel every second of it. Miracle indeed.

[@davidjames666]

I started working for AT&T in a fast track to management program right out of college in 1990 when i was 21. Some of these guys were still there in executive roles.

[@sabretechv2]

When did you leave AT&T?

[@davidjames666]

@@sabretechv2 I retired in 2017. I was in Murray Hill NJ.

[@sabretechv2]

@@davidjames666 that’s awesome David, I bet it was still a really interesting place to work at in 1990.

[@Zooboo1]

Craft likened you guys to 2nd Lts...jet jobs.

[@mrtippyman]

Thanks for the video! I've really enjoyed watching everything on this channel. After seeing this, it's sad to see what AT&T has turned into today. They don't even keep 50pr cable on the yard in Rome GA. It took 2 weeks to restore service to a backup 911 center I manage after a truck tore down a 250 foot span of cable. Very sad...

[@westwasbest]

This documentary proves without a doubt, just how smart, dedicated, and amazing the American Workforce truly is, AT&T was an amazing company to work for as was Western Electric and Bell Labs, some of the smartest people in the entire world, it's a shame they weren't still here together in one group creating much more then what you see here, the possibilities would have been endless to bring this nation's workforce back together again!

[@Janotes]

My goal as a kid was to work for The Bell System, unfortunately that ended back in 1984 and that 16 Year old kid is long grown up now and looking forward to retirement from a different line of work...

[@ArtStoneUS]

And diverse!

[@gregargendeli2973]

its all about documentation, documentation, documentation! No random cables everything codified off site. Fantastic data storage and recall for this restoration.

[@brentaudi9354]

This was awesome! The really nice thing about the hard work is that I have heard that AT&T paid top dollar to those that proved themselves worthy. I have heard this from several retired employees of AT&T.

[@ikonix360]

That's often something not seen today.

[@James_Knott]

Back in those days, telecom was a well paying industry. Not so much now.

[@matthewfinlay5583]

I turned 8 on Feb 27 1975. I grew up near Pittsburgh but I remember hearing about this fire.

[@thisislife3275]

Such a different time.. Most things were analog back then... Not easy to reroute calls. I can't imagine the level of thought it must have taken to put this into place so quickly.

[@maxdutiel]

From the Evan doorbell tape library, it sounded like it was even more of a pain, because in this fire 3 major tandems were destroyed. City tandem, interzone tandem, and suburban tandem. So they most likely immediately had to offload a bunch of traffic from panels and xb1 offices in the city to the sector tandems.

[@TechHowden]

@@maxdutiel if you didn't already see it, Evan doorbell just made several narrated programs about what happened.

[@James_Knott]

While on nowhere near this scale, I've had to reroute circuits. I worked for a Canadian telecom and in the mid 70s, I'd occasionally have to reroute around a forest fire or train wreck in Northern Ontario. A few years later, my company had to reroute a lot of Bell circuits between Toronto and Montreal, after someone knocked down one of their microwave towers. However, by that point I had moved into working on computers and so wasn't involved in the rerouting, but I was in the office on the Sunday when it happened.

[@acoustic61]

Amazing! I miss those days! Life was simple and people took pride in their work!

[@sirMAXX77]

That is pretty amazing to watch. Must have been an absolute madhouse of work force and hustling.

[@Janotes]

What a film. Watching how they mobilized all the different entities of The Bell System, pulling it all together And getting the job done. Good luck today.

[@mikegallant811]

AT&T in its finest hours!

[@mhoobag1]

WOW... I work for a telecom company and to think of how this was fixed absolutely blows my brain.

[@RoxyandPetey]

I watched this a few times. It's amazing how much joint effort went into this. More action then talking. Just getting shit done.

[@Maleblade]

I volunteered to go to that building to help restore service.When I returned to E150th ST I was laughed at because the guys there got all the overtime they wanted, without working in the toxic conditions in the Second Ave Building.It was easy money for them at E150th Street.

[@Chrissy4605]

I got a call from a customer early one Sunday morning. He had water damage on his property and needed his phone system moved today. With a pocket screwdriver and a needle nose plyer I uninstalled, moved and reinstalled his phone system and had him up and running by 2:00 pm. I have always had a can-do attitude rather than a can't-do one!!! Oh, and his data guy needed to get his signal across an expansive parking lot Too expensive to run a new arial cable. I said I could find him a working circuit on a Dead cable. Within 30 minutes I had found three pair that worked end-to-end. Everyone was happy. That is how Im like it!!! I got great referrals after pulling that one off.

[@edrodrigues3939]

I'm retired after 38 years - Watching this video after all that time working in and around central offices brings back wonderful memories almost to the point of tears. Ed-Central California

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

As a retired Illinois Bell tech, I was working when the Hinsdale IL central office had its fire, as well as the Roselle IL central office had it's flood, that I was involved in restoring. The fire was worse, as all of the equipment in these offices are connected to large banks of backup batteries with no fusing, so, any cable path that gets shorted will have the potential to cause a fire, burning off more insulation and causing more shorts. The Hinsdale restoral took weeks, where Roselle (16:38 was work that I did) was mostly drying out cables in the basement cable vault, and replacing the first wet sections as soon as possible. Still causes a nightmare for restoral, as far as a large customer outage issue.

[@johncline7518]

This is a gem of a short film. Truly fascinating!

[@VlajCo-di8lc]

Best documentary I have ever seen

[@ronireland6601]

This is a tribute to the American people and the Dedication and perseverance to you build after a disaster record nation and the professionalism of American telephone worker in American telephone industry coordination to rebuild! This video documentation makes me proud to be an American wireman!

[@oksanamolotova]

Because of the conflict in terms "main frames" in phone systems and computers, they're are now often called "main distribution frames" or MDFs. Even today MDFs are largely passive and not computerised. It's likely possible that original computer mainframes, because of the similarities with wiring to MDFs, got their name that way.

[@maxdutiel]

MDFs are also used in networking, as well as IDFs

[@James_Knott]

As someone who used to be a computer tech, I'm not sure that applies.

[@James_Knott]

@@maxdutiel Not on anywhere near the same scale.

[@DK640OBrianYT]

Real, profound and genuine competence on all levels and from all involved. Competence. Awe, respect and admiration.

[@rtel123]

I worked in tel switching that year in the west. That incident sure caused a ripple across the continent regarding fire isolation precautions! Cinder block walls between distribution frames and switches, strict rules about sealing off open inter-room ducts with fireproof pillows every evening, and very expensive non-destructive automatic fire suppression systems. Today, landlines are not essential for most people. And landlines are largely migrating to the internet, which is not as vulnerable to destruction, and uses a LOT less hardware.

[@pickles3128]

Here's the cause of the fire for anyone interested, (and the fatalities, which they don't mention.) Another fun fact is this incident directly led to increased regulation and those plenum-rated cables for installing inside walls/buildings. The fire originated from sparks in equipment in the basement cable vault igniting the plastic insulation of nearby cables that ran to all of the floors above. The combination of the flammable insulation and the method of penetrating each floor allowed the fire to spread rapidly, and emit toxic fumes that are alleged to have caused later deaths of over a dozen fire fighters. Chief of Department James Leonard, whose father worked as a switch operator, said “I’ve never seen smoke like that, conditions were brutal. It tested the skills, training and ability of all members responding that day.”

[@gregargendeli2973]

I wonder, did they (them) make a film about Hinsdale?

[@hmbpnz]

Great info. Thank you. Vertical fire penetration through the floors + God knows what kind of toxic shit was in all of that smoke. I was cringing throughout the entire firefighting scenes. Must have smelled awful. A witches brew of carcinogens.

[@skeetrix5577]

so how many died again?

[@therealandycook]

The frame is a connection point between the OE/switch to the vault which is where the cable leaves the CO - typically 66 or wirewrap connections can be made there preventing wear and tare on the switching equipment and damage to the cable leaving the building.

[@James_Knott]

There's a variety of cross connect blocks. I've worked on the old "Christmas tree" blocks with solder pins on both sides, also with solder one side & wire wrap on the other and wire wrap both sides. Later on with punch blocks, including type 66, BIX, 110 and others.

[@ManofCulture]

1975 Can't live without a telephone 2020 Can't live without an Internet

[@NoTraceOfSense]

Welcome to the modern age

[@Renville80]

At least it happened when it did and not after the breakup. I can assume that would have been a nightmare scenario, knowing the equipment was potentially available, but all the added hoops they would have had to go through, would likely have them asking for the Maalox and the Excedrin.

[@tanello2]

the fact that they just started to rebuild right after fire, in the same building that burned out is amazing,

[@dhermosillo09]

Only if Cellphone providers Cared this much now a days

[@leisergeist]

diego hermosillo LOL right?

[@davidenglund3323]

I was living in Panama City when Hurricane Michael screamed ashore on October 10, 2018 and demolished 5 town, washed another town away, and wrecked an air force base! AT&T kept going throughout the entire event and after the event while the biggest competitor(starts with a V) was out of service for weeks! I heard later on, that AT&T had done some preparation work with satellite trucks, plus their fiber optics are buried and not on power poles like the competition! I was so glad I was with AT&T!

[@WhitfieldProductionsTV]

when they split the company they really caused headaches and we have what we have today because assholes can never leave enough alone.

[@billylowe9631]

Wow does this bring back memories. I was a Crossbar 5 switchman in Westchster County NY and remember rewiring the markers and FAT frame (Foreign Area Translator) so the affected exchanges wouldn't choke the network.

[@paulrowan1501]

So looks like they replaced with 5XBar in 1975 when 1ESS was technologically available I assume. Must have done it because of time constraints. Wonder how long that system remained in service? Funny, I also heard some audio of steppers at the end of the film.

[@MrEkg98]

Where is a good place to learn about this technology. I am a shareholder in modern ATT. I do not believe it should have been broken up.

[@user2C47]

@@MrEkg98 evan-doorbell.com is a good place to start.

[@scottrobinson2489]

@@paulrowan1501 I believe today the Second Ave/13th Street CO has 1 5ESS (put in-service 1986) and 1 DMS100 (put in-service 1989) Class 5 End Office digital switches. There are also 2 Tandem Class 4 switches. 1 5ESS 'Local' and 1 DMS100 'Access' (both put in-service in 1989). Verizon's last 1A ESS switches were cutover to Soft Switches in 2012. (They use the now branded ribbon G5 Line Access Gateway/G6 Media Access Gateway/CS2K or C20 when collapsing the TDM switches.)

[@maxdutiel]

Evan Doorbell just did a series on how the routings in NY were affected by the fire.

[@marmaly]

The enormity of this achievement is beyond understanding.

[@jimprice1959]

Reminds me of my summer job on the frames at #1 "H" Street in San Rafael, CA. Great people.

[@whelenguy]

US government should’ve never split up Bell, unity in a business like this is important

[@James_Knott]

Problem is, the telecom network is quite different from what it was back then. In those days, the system relied on big switches and analog carriers, though the digital "T" system was beginning to appear. These days, everything is over IP and putting together a phone system is trivial. Also, that network was almost entirely dial up voice. Now it's a whole variety of things, depending on whatever someone wants to run over IP.

[@manuel48valpo]

This is fascinating to see, I just cannot imagine the amount of work to put this together in three weeks, I used to work for the main Telephone Company back in my country and I know what it is to connect MDF and Switch Central Office equipment, and make it work, not easy at all.

[@the_tux]

1975: It’s just impossible to live without a telephone. 2021: OMG Instagram is down!

[@HappyDiscoDeath]

Bell Systems never should have been broken apart

[@bouchee2007]

its cool seeing other industries that used wire wrap

[@mpwheatley]

I would have thought it would take two or three months alone (let alone weeks) to clean up those burnt out and then flooded floors. Outstanding work!

[@MichaelOKeefe2009]

There's some very rare vehicles the Bell System has that we don't see on the internet.

[@rguitar78]

great engineering, good for them and their efforts

[@Janotes]

Had a chuckle watching the techs using their scissors to either check for tone or send a short..

[@culbyj3665]

theyre called shears not scissors fella!

[@uncannywalnut]

My phone never worked when I was with us cell. I brought it to their attention several times, but they didn't really seem to care. So I switched to AT&T. Way better service, even in this aluminum Faraday house. Better deals on good phones, too.

[@imark7777777]

I've seen this a couple of times but I did not realize they were literally setting up auxiliary service well the fire was still going.

[@NorthernPhonePhan]

this is a great video!

[@johnmoran8174]

Remember it well as AT&T put out an emergency call to the local companies for techs to go to NY to restore service and rebuild the frame. Paid travel, hotels, meals, and overtime. Some of our techs went which left us short so we also had a lot of overtime in our office (Network Operations Special Services, PT&T Los Angeles). The disaster in NYC made some immediate changes in other offices. In L.A. the cable runs were sealed so that fire would not jump from floor to floor, our Madison main frame (largest in the west) was cleared of dead jumpers (one of the major problems in NYC) and other fixes and upgrades. I think the New York fire made changes in all the associated companies in the country.

[@snowfirel7108]

Love ya Ma Bell.

[@gregargendeli2973]

makes we wonder what would happen if a certain building on Wilshire Blvd in LA had a similar accident.

[@peterweatherley7669]

16:38 Love the beaming smiles on the faces of these guys. That’s workmanship right there and something the entire world has lost thanks to outsourcing to cheap Asian labour markets

[@flyguille]

wonderful documental!.

[@nyc90]

Absolutely fascinating. It's so funny to hear them talk about 3 weeks as an accomplishment. If cell service went out for 20 minutes today people would revolt.

[@LMacNeill]

Breaking up Ma Bell led eventually to long-distance that is so cheap it's included for free on most phone bills. It led to the cell-phone revolution, also -- there is no way a giant monopoly like AT&T was before 1983 could ever have innovated enough to bring us the cellular telephone system we have today -- not in the relatively short time it took to get from there to here. It would've taken decades longer had AT&T never been forcibly broken up. But there is *no way* that our modern telephone companies could recover this quickly from a disaster this large today. Western Electric, being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the AT&T company, could *instantly* dedicate its *entire* nationwide production capacity and *tens of thousands* of employees (my parents having been two of them, back in the day) to solving this *one* problem. No company today has the resources that could even come close to what AT&T had at its disposal back then. No company today could *ever* hope to mobilize that many workers that quickly to solve a single problem. Monopolies do have certain advantages...

[@ssbohio]

AT&T created mobile telephony. AT&T created digital telephone transmission. AT&T created the transistor. The Bell system made the advances you speak of possible. To say it stood in their way is to ignore history.

[@bklynp718]

Our cellular telephone system was GREATLY delayed due to the breakup of AT&T. Europe was way ahead of us, as was Japan and even places in Africa.

[@MaximRecoil]

"Breaking up Ma Bell led eventually to long-distance that is so cheap it's included for free on most phone bills. It led to the cell-phone revolution, also -- there is no way a giant monopoly like AT&T was before 1983 could ever have innovated enough to bring us the cellular telephone system we have today -- not in the relatively short time it took to get from there to here. It would've taken decades longer had AT&T never been forcibly broken up." You don't know what the hell you're talking about: "Bell Labs scientists were responsible for the transistor, the solar battery cell, the fax machine, touch-tone dialing, the early communications satellite, improvements to radar and sonar, and much more-not to mention the six Nobel Prizes Bell Labs scientists won along the way. And not to mention Claude Shannon’s information theory, which laid the intellectual foundations of the internet." Bell Labs also invented Unix. By the way, do you have any idea how important the transistor is? It is the fundamental device which makes ALL modern electronics possible. A CPU for example, is just a collection of transistors; the same goes for all other ICs. The Bell System built the greatest telephone system in the world, and you think today's cellular system was beyond their capabilities? Are you daft? You have it completely backwards. The cell phone system would be way ahead of where it is today if jack-booted thugs from the government hadn't pillaged the Bell System.

[@kirbyyasha]

I always felt progress went south with the breakup of the Bell System. Bell Labs was working on fiber optic technology, mobile technology, and with the historical content of long distance, it was going down. Sadly, there is no way to answer this since this is hypothetical, but I feel we would have been further advanced with UNIX, Fiber Optics, and just an amazing research team that brought us many innovations. After the breakup, I think the baby bells just wanted to stay business as usual. Those I knew who worked for Bell Systems told me they were the a great company to work for. My great aunt retired from Illinois Bell, lived to be 103 years old, but she always told me stories of working for them. Sadly, I talk to modern AT&T techs, they just bitch and moan about the job. She retired nicely, and being 103 years old, I can say the company didn't take any years away from her lol.

[@bigdrew565]

@@kirbyyasha dunno, my mother liked it, she worked for NyTel as an operator since she graduated from high school. The two negatives she had, were that every few months they were going out on strike for some reason or another. Either their own, or sympathy strikes in solidarity with another group of employees, and that she had to work in Ossining NY. Next to sing sing prison, and a pretty rough town back in the early 70s, anyway. My father, the NYPD officer that he was, didn't take too kindly to that. She tried to get a transfer to Yonkers or Queens, but it didn't happen. So that was her two years with Ma Bell. She probably would have been canned when at&t was forced to divest in 1984 anyway. But she totally would have stayed if they let her transfer.

[@James_Knott]

As a former tech for a telecom (not Bell system) I certainly recognized a lot of what they were doing. At the time of that fire, I was coming up on 3 years in the business.

[@Wa3ypx]

wow that was right before I got hired on the FD. I remember carrying those HEAVY air packs

[@Robinzano]

The Scott steel 2.2's with the elephant trunks. How far we've come.

[@MichaelSheehy75]

Try to find FIRE: The Second Avenue Story on eBay. Great glossy booklet about the recovery.

[@kirbyyasha]

Bah! Can't find it anywhere. I wish it would get reprinted.

[@ATTTechChannel]

Check out our site for all of our films from the AT&T Archives. We're posting 3 new videos per week. Lots of great stuff from the 1920s - 1990s

[@1903tx]

When are y'all gonna start posting again?

[@kirbyyasha]

I second this, as a history major, I love the AT&T Bell Labs historical videos. They give a beautiful insight to one of the world's greatest telecommunications companies that existed.

[@studinthemaking]

Is there still a telephone exchange at this location in nyc?

[@steve94044]

Where is George in 2020? Is he retired? I couldn't find him in phone on the Corp. Network. I love his video's.

[@ZachS013]

He retired.

[@FuquarProductions]

I like this guy. I think if you asked him how he was doing he'd respond "Super! Thanks for asking!"

[@redneckcommie]

as much as i hate greedy monopolizing corporations, im so glad someone is keeping up with all this amazing footage.

[@robertgift]

Well done documentation! Why did AT&T allow this to happen? Cause?

[@hornet6969]

1975 : People smoking like chimneys (Laugh). Seriously, though the old school bell system was one of a kind. No one else could have pulled this off in 3 weeks.

[@hornet6969]

BTW, A friend who worked in a Panel C.O. remarked (When asked about bell system pioneers) Those people were a "Pain in the Axx !"

[@danielmorse4213]

Every twisted pair went to a phone or if a part line, multiple phones to the switching framework. To this day my landlines works 24/7 no matter what. A nationwide effort by the Bell Companies/Western Electric and other entities to repair and replace. The greatest generations designed a system to survive war, disaster and nuclear events. Amazing. Thank you. To this day we use that system.

[@jasons8479]

Employees were much more loyal, devoted and hardworking when they were treated right. Corporate greed ruined capitalism.

[@redneckcommie]

amen

[@leviheidle524]

TDS had an entire CO in Tellico Plains, TN leveled by a tornado, I can't imagine rebuilding a CO as big as the NYTE.

[@RicheBright]

Great stuff.

[@josephaltman460]

...So they brought in PAYPHONES! lol

[@robertcuminale1212]

With one company we were able to take equipment from other projects and move it to NYC. We were only installing one type of switch so compatibility was the key. Today? It would never happen. The companies all use different products since there is no Bell Labs or Western Electric any more. This office was very old, a Panel Switch. You can see one at the Smithsonian. It not only served the 170,000 subscribers but was also part of AT&T's Long Lines unit switching long distance as well. Going electronic created hundreds of feet of spare space because the foot print was so much smaller.

[@James_Knott]

Bell Labs is now owned by Nokia.

[@chevynova87]

very interesting video, any info on what started the fire?

[@mrwrister]

A soldering iron was left on

[@TexasRailfan2008]

Bobby Sanchez really?

[@robertanthonysanchez-wade9981]

@@TexasRailfan2008 yes, really!

[@user2C47]

Interesting. I had always thought a fire would be caused by arcing switch contacts.

[@NillKitty]

@@user2C47 it was

[@neonhomer]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we split up the Bell System..... /sarcasm

[@J-1410]

"but Long Distance is cheap or free now!"-from those who don't call long distance anyways

[@waynestewart1919]

Great film!

[@jimcurran-k3w]

All these years and I just now found this video. I was on Network Management duty at the center in 32 AoA.\ when this fire broke out. Once notified, we immediately contacted all Regional centers to alert them of this problem and discuss possible solutions for the expected traffic rush into/outgoing from NYC. We all worked thru the night and managed to keep congestion to a minimum using various network management tools across the country and Canada. We concentrated our efforts on making outgoing calls from the affected area our priority and limiting traffic into the affected exchanges, a great deal of manual effort and network surveillance. Remember, this was two years before we transferred network management to an advanced system|center in Bedminster, NJ. I think Dick Esrey was very pleased with our reaction to this disaster and our ability to limit the service disruption.

[@websurf90]

New York Telephone as in what is now Verizon Communications of New York. :P

[@ShainAndrews]

17:31 Exercising the jacks. I bet they had dsx module failures for decades.

[@James_Knott]

I don't think they'd even have much DSX. Analog lines were still used back then and the digital T system was still fairly new.

[@BABABONDOGUY]

I personally believe that this awesome undertaking happened quite a bit faster than "normal" because the large percentage of New Yorkers and their work together and their "Get er' done" spirit. I am not from New York, but surely would be proud to say that I was. SUPER JOB TO ALL INVOLVED IN THE RESTORATION!!!

[@judydempsey6082]

Western Electric brought in their crews from NY to California. Tear out and installation was happening 24 hours non stop

[@geraldthomas5813]

Not so much because they were "New Yorkers," but first and foremost, "Bell System," employees.

[@davidenglund3323]

I think about all the firefighters who were at that scene. Most of them are dead from some exotic cancers.... And 700 firefighters went to that fire!

[@jamessimms415]

Same here

[@mikegallant811]

I think the firefighters that later suffered health issues it would have to be because the smoke contained polyvinyl chloride fumes from the burned wiring in the vault and the area of the main frame and whatever was hooked into the switching systems you got to remember back then they didn't use fiber optics for phone wiring they mainly used regular wire stuff but it was covered with a casing of polyvinyl chloride.

[@zordmaker]

Except today, you can add that the entire area would also be without money or any form of commerce.

[@Muonium1]

lol, the "mainframe" is just....an actual bare steel frame. I guess that's where the term originally must come from.

[@bobweiss8682]

More or less. The frame would hold termination blocks (punchdown or wire-wrap) used to connect the CO wiring to the trunk cables leaving the building. All the active electronics are in the switching gear, not the main distributing frame.

[@James_Knott]

@@bobweiss8682 I used to work on solder connection blocks. That was about 50 years ago!

[@neonhomer]

So can someone describe the various activities occurring after pulling in new cables?

[@James_Knott]

For starters, you'd have to connect them to the cross connect blocks. Once that's done, there's a lot of cross connecting to do. Etc..

[@lukejay]

9:31 once or twice a day... I wish it was that low! (Typed from my phone)

[@jozefaz]

Half a million pairs.... and to think it could all be replaced today by 6 server racks filled with 55 Cisco ISR4461's with 3 Cisco SM-X-PVDM-3000 in each ISR.... at least the call switching and routing anyway... not termination. Terminating half a million lines could be done with 348 server racks containing 3472 ISRs with 2 Cisco SM-X-72FXS in each ISR. About 25 thousand square feet. Still a lot less than that building.

[@NillKitty]

These people paid good money to have their phone line circuit switched and to have their ring and tip extended to the destination. You could place a call to another telephone in your area and be able to send any practical frequency down that phone line, including any DC or AC voltage that didn't cause the switch to disconnect the call. They paid for good old fashioned electromechanical circuit switching; they didn't pay out the ass to have their phone call digitized, turned into light, compressed, packet switched, and greeted with software-generated tones and computer-generated voice prompts. Our expectations didn't become that low until the mid-90s.

[@jozefaz]

@@NillKitty I dont have a time machine but if I had to guess, most people didn’t care about raw line voltage being switched, they just wanted to communicate something over long distance; analog or digital voice probably would not have mattered to them. People pay for cars (the phone , the bill) they don’t really care how the road is made or what holds it up ( the network switching, the medium).

[@junker15]

all I can think about now is the licensing nightmare I'd have with the Cisco licensing of today. Just ballparking it (and I'll admit that my info may be out-of-date): 3472+55 IOS licenses (one-time cost last I checked)... and then there are possible port licenses (multiplied by however many ISRs need those ports lit, possibly PER YEAR) ... and most likely other recurring and up-front costs I'm forgetting about... But yes, going to packet-switched technology is generally a good thing. It's just my opinion that the likes of Cisco shouldn't dominate in this area.

[@jozefaz]

@@junker15 The licensing isn’t the killer from Cisco, usually you can get a perpetual if you buy enough hardware, it’s the Smart-Net for support the the required DNA-subscription that will kill you. Plus the monstrosity of a call manager to coordinate the whole thing.

[@James_Knott]

Several years ago, I used to set up small office VoIP PBXs. Each system, about the size of a shoe box could support up to 16 extensions and 4 boxes could be stacked for up to 64. All that was needed was the trunk lines, though SIP trunks could also be used.

[@larrygreensolo4630]

18:50 If it wasn't for the 710 modular splicing it would have taken much longer than the B wire connectors 18:47

[@JonathanMoosey]

Sadly there are firefighters still being affected by high cancer rates today as a result of this disaster.

[@dreco4]

what happened to us>? And by us I mean people, in general. somewhere on the way, we lost what it feels like to be alive.

[@englundus]

Great video! Can you imagine if CELL PHONE service went down for 3 weeks??? People would commit mass suicide! What amazes me is how the guys on the ground putting the system back together seem so dedicated to their jobs! You don't have a lot of that level of dedication anymore. However, people don't stay in jobs for that long anymore.

[@albertcarello619]

Bell Atlantic, Ameritech Cellular, and GT&E all merged together to form VERIZON. Now in many areas VERIZON sold off it's Landline Business to other telephone companies: CENTURY LINK, FRONTIER, and other independents. VERIZON LANDLINE is mainly in NEW YORK and the NORTHEAST. Even AT&T has sold off their LANDLINE service in some other states too to FRONTIER AND CENTURY LINK.

[@dupcix]

Awesome!

[@agenericaccount3935]

Rogers: "Hold my beer"

[@karlhungus5554]

Today's workers would pull out their smartphone and try to search Google for an answer. Back then, we had such a diversity of highly-skilled workers in a variety of occupations who were willing and able to do whatever it took to get the problem solved. How far things have fallen.

[@cmandrell]

how did the fire start any way

[@cmandrell]

ok thx

[@judydempsey6082]

Once the fire started there was no stopping it. I was told the cable holes that connected each floor of equipment were found to be left open and it created a vacuum (something like a chimney effect). After that disaster, if you were running cable floor to floor, you better have those cable holes (at ceiling and floor level) totally closed with fire retardant, steel plates, every screw replaced. We were cabling 15 floors in San Francisco, mainframe to new equipment on the 16th floor. Every day, each cable hole would be opened (top and bottom) and before you went home every hole was closed.

[@tedhernandez5989]

Judy, I was taught by very good former AT&T/Bell Labs people. Learned about POTS to VOIP. Punch down techniques, tone, buzz and termination work. All this in a few months. Was taught about PBX's, different switches; Definity, Magix, Partner, IP Office, Nortel, Seimens, Panasonic, RCA Phones, etc. How to program such from Avaya equipment. Run cat 5, thru cat 6. Now I get the nonsense that copper is dead. From the trading floors to any other entity. later on in yrs I get a call about the govt. wanting to update the Federal Telephone System. From Mclean Virginia to out west somewhere. Now here I am with all of this knowledge with no place to go. I've done consulting work lately, however? Now I feel or am told that guys like us are outdated. Maybe so? But sometime somewhere they'll (companies) will need us again. Hey Verizon doesn't even teach these kids working for them the stuff fellows like us know...forget about starting to troubleshoot a problem. Fios is good but you still need copper. Oh well, Thought I'd throw that out there. I'm retired but I ain't dead yet!

[@neonhomer]

@@judydempsey6082 they still do it that way. Intumescent putty or intumescent caulk in every smoke or fire rated wall penetration.

[@americanspirit8932]

@@judydempsey6082 you are correct, Western Electric install is we're running cable power cable I believe from the upper floors down to the power room, at the end of the day, they forgot to close the holes going between floors. They used to use fire retarded bags, they would stuff it into the holes to prevent any air from seeping between floors. Who was ever in charge of that cable crew, should have been held accountable, he failed to tell the installers to cover the holes before leaving that night. Today's date September 16th 2022. I was employed by Western Electric February 1963, I had 36 years service.

[@georgeluongo550]

what about the 1965 blackout. there must have been more than half a million calls that night on the night of November 9th 1965 when the whole Northeast was plunged Into Darkness.

[@billyboi57]

The blackout did not affect the phone system much as the phone companies, especially AT&T had backup generators and batteries to keep the system going.

[@user2C47]

The 1965 blackout was the result of a cascade failure of an overloaded power grid, and did not affect the telephone lines.

[@operatorjeffdeathstar7759]

Bet they wish they had fiber...Lol

[@James_Knott]

After Hurricane Sandy, a lot of copper cable had to be replaced and it was replaced with fibre.

[@Todd.T]

Fibre is cool until you realize the outage is 20 times the size or larger because of the capacity. Last year a crackhead stole the lid off a vault and cut through two tubes smaller than a straw. The amount of people down was insane but lucky they didn't get any transport fibres. OTDR back to an FTG on a hill by a fence. Found it at 11:30PM. Lid was off the FTG so long snakes moved in.

[@James_Knott]

@@Todd.T However, there's no way copper can support the data we move these days. My ISP offers up to 8 Gb and that requires fibre at least to the neighbourhood. I started working in telecom in 1972 and back then much of the data network ran at a blazing 50 bits/sec. This was the old dial up Telex service. 1200B required modems and conditioned lines back then. These days, there are a lot of backup and alternate routes that automagically route around failures.

[@Todd.T]

@@James_Knott I know that but a fibre cut is more catastrophic, especially if the backup failed or you didn't have one yet. I left Telco in 1999 to work on fibre. Currently working on DWDM networks feeding OLTs and digital cable nodes. Had many an outage where the primary failed and they were on backup and then that got cut too. Migrating to an all IP digital DWDM network with virtual controllers is going to fix that because I can route data from any connection from anywhere. I can move people to a controller hours away, change something in the network and move them back. No need to get back to the original controller.

[@Todd.T]

@@James_Knott Yeah, I quit the telco I was at to do fibre in 1999 at a small company with not many failovers. One fibre hit knocked out over half the network spanning 25 miles. Dual fibre PON system and they killed the return fibre. Every ONT had a red light on the TX so no two way. No internet, no phone, just broadcast TV. The telco I left had useless fibre to old school remotes and hadn't really started to implement remote DSLAMs. At the new company we did FTTH, FTTC, FTTN, DSL, G.SHDSL, SDSL, HPNA, Microwave, FS Optical Wireless, cable, and POTS over anything we could get. Ended up running FTTFI (Fibre to the F@#& it) and just went old school with remotes with DSLAMs in them as they ran out of money I quit and went to cable. Now I work on RFoG nodes, digital nodes and GPON (Nokia ISAM FX and Nokia SF8M) We bought the company I used to work for,

[@Brian791979]

Ma Bell!

[@phoneticau]

blue orange green brown slate, pair colour code, lots of 25 pair groups

[@brianmc7719]

While running backwards you"ll vomit.... White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet. 🤣

[@ShainAndrews]

All wire wrapped... Still have my gun...

[@phoneticau]

@@brianmc7719 UK/Au the mate wires are white yellow black violet red but use 20 pair groupings

[@James_Knott]

And then there's the binder ribbons around each 25 pairs.