New York City Outgrows Its Area Codes Again; 718 and 347 Numbers Will Run Out By 2011

Five area codes for New York City aren’t enough. Numbers in the 718 and 347 area codes – which cover Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island – will run out by late 2011, according to the state Public Service Commission.Officials are debating whether to apply the new area code just to the outer boroughs or to include Manhattan – where 212 and 646 numbers are set to run out by 2014. Phone companies are pushing the outer-borough option, a PSC report said.

Some city dialers weren’t happy about the prospect of new digits.

“It’s just the fab,” Termaine Tyler, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said of his beloved 718 area code.

All 718 numbers are taken. And 571 of the 792 possible 347 exchanges – about 72% – also are gone.

The new area code hasn’t been chosen. It will be picked from a pool of available numbers, with certain restrictions. No area code can start with 0 or 1, and 8 is reserved for toll-free numbers.

When area codes were first introduced in the 1940s, big cities like New York were favored with low numbers – making them easier to dial on a rotary phone. That’s how 212 came to be.

“I wish that I had a 212 number, because that is the classic, glamorous New York number,” said Gabrielle Nadig, 21, of Gramercy Park.

Zazie Beetz, 17, of Harlem, said the city’s fifth area code, introduced in 1999, is remote enough.

“It’s just so out there,” she said, of the 347 area code. “It seems so far away.”

But David Hayden, 29, of Chelsea, insisted he feels no stigma from his 347 number, and wouldn’t mind bearing the new code.

“Area codes don’t matter anymore because of cell phones,” Hayden said. “There shouldn’t be any new area codes – people should just Twitter.”

{NY Daily News/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}