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What’s an area code really worth these days, anyway? For most people, it’s just three numbers you tap into your phone once and never think about again.
For Raphael Chejade-Bloom, though, it’s worth $100.
That’s what he paid through an online auction two years ago to get a 212 phone number — the first (and, any would argue, the finest) Manhattan area code. For anyone doing business in New York, a 212 showing up on your phone instantly conjures images of a phone in a glass-towered Midtown building calling you to discuss serious things. Chejade-Bloom, a native of San Diego who moved to the city 10 years ago, wanted that cachet.
“I looked at it like a piece of virtual real estate,” says the 32-year-old West Village resident, a principal at hospitality firm Guest Minded who also works in real estate. “No matter where you go in the world, when you tell someone you live in New York City, you get instant respect and credibility. That credibility will with me in the form of my phone number forever.”
That cred, however, is about to be further diluted: On Tuesday, the state Public Service Commission announced that in 2017, the city will get its first new area code in six years: 332. It’ll be the fourth in Manhattan and the seventh in the city overall, following in the footsteps of 212, one of the first batch of area codes issued in 1947; 718 (added for the outer boroughs in 1984); 917 (added originally for cellphones and pagers in 1992); 646 and 347 (both in 1999), and 929 (added in 2011).