PEnnsylvania 6-5000

PEnnsylvania 6-5000 is a telephone number in New York City, written in the 2L+5N (two letters, five numbers) format that was common from about 1930 into the 1960s. The number is best known from the 1940 hit song "Pennsylvania 6-5000", a swing jazz and pop standard recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Its owner, the Hotel Pennsylvania, claims it to be the oldest continuously used telephone number in New York City. The hotel opened on January 25, 1919, but the exact age of the telephone number and the veracity of the hotel's claim are unknown. For many years, callers to (212) 736-5000 were greeted with the hotel's phone system recorded greeting that includes a portion of the song.^[1]

The hotel closed permanently in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is being torn down to make way for a tower at 15 Penn Plaza.^[2] The tower's developer, Steven Roth, said in 2022 that the new building would retain the phone number (212) 736-5000, although he did not specify how the phone number would be reassigned.^[3]

The named Pennsylvania exchange served the area around Penn Station in New York. The two letters, PE, stand for the numbers 7 and 3, making the phone number 736-5000, not including the later area code 212 for Manhattan.