OT Trivia: HU3-2700?
Brian Hess
Could you help me scratch a mental itch?
Who in Chicago had Hudson-three-two-seven-hundred? Was it Magikist?
A loan company?
I just can't get that old radio jingle out of my head now. And it's
all your fault, for contributing to the resurrection of these
antiquities.
Cheers,
Brian
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was not a loan company. Magikist
Carpets sounds likely, or maybe it was C.E.T., the company which
sold television sets back in the 1950's ... I do very distinctly
recall the man with the deep baritone voice singing, 'Hudson three
two seven hundred' at the conclusion of each of their commercials.
It went on for many years. Alan Kerman may recall the answer to
this, or surely David Tamkin would know. I am drawing a blank on
this otherwise; the phone number itself is very familiar. PAT]
Ron Donnell
and I didn't think it was Magikist -- I vaguely associated it with the
letter "B" -- but that's as far as I could go until I tried
http://www.tollfree.att.net/telq.html -- "483-2700" -- "Ends with" --
"IL" -- and I got:
GENL BOUSHELLE SERVICES
1670 N Mannheim Road
Stone Park, IL 60165-0112
630 483 2700
(Carpet & Rug Cleaners)
Pros't,
Ron
Brian Hess wrote:
> Could you help me scratch a mental itch?
> Who in Chicago had Hudson-three-two-seven-hundred? Was it Magikist?
> A loan company?
> I just can't get that old radio jingle out of my head now. And it's
> all your fault, for contributing to the resurrection of these
> antiquities.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was not a loan company. Magikist
> Carpets sounds likely, or maybe it was C.E.T., the company which
> sold television sets back in the 1950's ... I do very distinctly
> recall the man with the deep baritone voice singing, 'Hudson three
> two seven hundred' at the conclusion of each of their commercials.
> It went on for many years. Alan Kerman may recall the answer to
> this, or surely David Tamkin would know. I am drawing a blank on
> this otherwise; the phone number itself is very familiar. PAT]
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yep, that is the bunch. Good old
Boushelle Carpet Cleaners, now known as General Boushelle. Nice to
see they are still in business. The people who sold television sets
back in the 1950's on the corner of North Avenue and Halsted Street
also had a catchy little jingle they would sing in their commercials
which included a phone number. Something like, 'Cee Eee Tee, for
televisions! ...' and a line about their bargains, the address of
their store and their phone number, which was I suppose just as
commonly known in those days as was Hudson 3-2700, in other words,
by everyone. The other singing commercial with a phone number which
still goes on in Chicago, and has now for forty years or more is
588-2300 for Empire Carpets, which is the only way they have ever
been known. When it was all 312, the jingle worked out just fine,
proper meter with the words and all that. Then came the area code
splits and they had to find some way to fit '708' into the jingle
and later '847'. Finally they got a toll free line, using 800 with
their existing number, and they sort of dropped the 'eight hundred'
on the front end of the bouncy little five eight eight, two three
hundred part. 'eighthundred ...... five eight eight, two three
hundred! Empire!' Let's chat again tomorrow, and goodnight,
Mr. Sermporn, wherever you are! PAT]
David W. Tamkin
include a phone number in their ads, but they're still at 773-378-8600
(that's EStebrook 8 to us prefix name fans). I remember how they
said, "We'd rather you call Boushelle than" rent carpet-cleaning
equipment and attempt it oneself in some of their commercials.
Boushelle's original number was in the Chicago-Stewart switch on what
would now be the 773-483 prefix before they moved to the suburbs.
Our editor wrote in <telecom...@telecom-digest.org>:
> The people who sold television sets
> back in the 1950's on the corner of North Avenue and Halsted Street
> also had a catchy little jingle they would sing in their commercials
> which included a phone number. Something like, 'Cee Eee Tee, for
> televisions! ...'
"MOhawk four, four one hundred, C E T for televisions." That is a Chicago-
Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know they are gone from that location
but are they gone totally? I thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL
on Waukegan Road about two blocks north of Dempster. By the way, David,
is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two three hundred' with
the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the front of it? PAT]
David W. Tamkin
> "MOhawk four, four one hundred, C E T for televisions." That is a
> Chicago-Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone.
The editor asked,
> I know they are gone from that location but are they gone totally? I
> thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL on Waukegan Road about two
> blocks north of Dempster.
That would be Abt Television & Appliance, who used to be in Niles, on
Dempster just west of Harlem. It still belongs to the Abt family, as
it did when Swislow and Geist owned CET. I don't know who purchased
CET or whether the successor is still operating, but to the best of
my knowledge Abt has no connection with any remnants of CET. (Ameri-
tech's directories list them as ABT at the start of the A's. That's
incorrect.) Their area code has been cut from 312 to 708 to 847, but
the number's still YOrktown 7-8830.
> By the way, David, is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two
> three hundred' with the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the
> front of it?
Yes. Like other companies trying to protect their phone numbers in
all local area codes, they had their fill of trying to get it in every
new area code (or every old area code when one of their numbers would
end up on the even more unfortunate side of a split). One wonders
whether that would be an issue in an overlay: if everyone has to dial
ten or eleven digits, is it worthwhile to grab another ten- or
eleven-digit way to be dialed?
At least the jingle with Empire's phone number comes only once at the
end of each commercial. Spots for Olson Rug, who now also have a
shop-at-home service and are in direct competition with Empire Carpet,
suggest every four to five seconds that you "call eight eight eight,
Olson Rug" -- and if you hear it on the radio and misspell the name as
Olsen or Olsson, you'll get the wrong number (unless they've reserved
all three), because they never give it in digits.
The reply address is valid but I'll see mail to dattier at mcs dot net
sooner.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I was thinking about Abt Television
and Appliances, sorry. They are just a block south of where my friends
Mr. and Mrs. Chung have their motel. The Village of Morton Grove, IL
(although some people in spelling the name intentionally omit the 't'
in the first word) has tried for several years to get the poorer people
and black people out of the village, and one tactic which has proven
rather successful in doing this is condemning the housing in which
they live. The village has managed to condemn and tear down all the
inexpensive housing on the east side of Waukegan Road with the exception
thus far of the motel Ken Chung and his wife operate.
I might be mistaken on this, but didn't Abt also have a location in
Chicago back in the 1950-1960's somewhere on the near north side more
or less where the Cabrini housing project is now? PAT]
Andrew Green
> Chicago-Superior prefix and is still in 312, but CET is long gone.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know they are gone from that location
> but are they gone totally? I thought they were now in Morton Grove, IL
> on Waukegan Road about two blocks north of Dempster.
I suspect you're describing Abt Television & Electronics, which seems
to be doing land-office business at that location. You'd think they'd
have a web page these days, but I couldn't find one in a quick search;
the closest I can come is
http://www.equatorappl.com/dealers/IL/morton-grove.htm. In any event,
business seems to be booming at that location; nice to see some
long-time Chicago businesses are continuing to prosper.
> By the way, David, is Empire still using that 'five eight eight two
> three hundred' with the 'eighthundred' sort of wedged in on the
> front of it? PAT]
Not sure about the "eighthundred" part but the rest of the jingle
lives on. There was a rock concert at the United Center downtown not
too long ago when the band -- I think it was Eddie Vedder and Pearl
Jam -- played the jingle as a quick gag and the entire audience joined
in to sing it.
Andrew C. Green
Datalogics, Inc.
101 N. Wacker, Ste. 1800 http://www.datalogics.com
Chicago, IL 60606-7301
Leonard Erickson
> Mr. and Mrs. Chung have their motel. The Village of Morton Grove, IL
> (although some people in spelling the name intentionally omit the 't'
> in the first word) has tried for several years to get the poorer people
> and black people out of the village, and one tactic which has proven
> rather successful in doing this is condemning the housing in which
> they live. The village has managed to condemn and tear down all the
> inexpensive housing on the east side of Waukegan Road with the exception
> thus far of the motel Ken Chung and his wife operate.
I thought there was a federal law that said that if you tear down low
income housing to build something else, you are required to replace it
with an equal number of units IN THE SAME PRICE RANGE.
I remember this from when they tore down a couple of old "residence
hotels" in downtown Portland to build a new Federal Courthouse. The TV
stations all mentioned the law.
Now for the bad news. There seems to be no trace of the replacement
housing, even now that the courthouse is finished. :-(
I guess "some animals are more equal than others" to quote from Animal
Farm.
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
sha...@krypton.rain.com <--preferred
leo...@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, we have always known that some
animals are more equal than others. In the case of Mor(t)on Grove,
Illinois -- the /t/ is optional in their name since the early 1980's
when they passed the village ordinance saying the Second Amendment
did not apply in their case, and they totally banned possession of
any kind of gun within the village, licensed or not, except for their
own (ie. the police) -- it is a village of about fifteen or sixteen
thousand white people and until a year or so ago, about two hundred
black people. Most of the black people and a few other very poor
people lived in a cheap motel in the 9500 block of Waukegan Road.
That was still too many black people in town, if you understand what
I mean.
So Morton Grove cooked up a scheme where they got some real estate
speculators to promise to buy the land where the motel was and put
up a shopping mall there instead. They condemned the motel, took
over the land and sold it to the real estate people. Trouble is, it
did not go very smoothly at all; they were in court for about five
years before they could get possession. They would think they had it
settled, and the motel owner would go back to court with still
another objection, etc. Finally they got it settled, or so they
thought, and were ready to begin tearing it down once all the tenants
were evicted. Then, in the village's own words, 'troublemakers from
Chicago' came into the picture. A fair housing organization and its
lawyer came in and threatened to sue the village if some accomodation
was not make for the tenants. Morton Grove wound up giving the
tenants two hundred dollars each, or five hundred dollars total for
a family and telling them to find somewhere new to live. The trouble
was, there was no place to live in Morton Grove itself, which is all
single family homes except for two small apartment buildings and the
cheap motel which was being torn down. Most of the people wound up
moving to Chicago. For those who had not found anywhere to live by
the deadline date, the Salvation Army helped them move out of the
motel and put them in an emergency shelter in Chicago. The Pacific
Garden Mission, also in Chicago, took a few of them.
The fair housing committee lawyer told Morton Grove they would have
to do a little better than that so the village came up with another
four or five thousand dollars which they gave to Catholic Charities
and the Salvation Army, essentially telling those two organizations,
'you deal with it'. Eventually I guess all the displaced persons
got relocated into various other cheap motels in Chicago, or else
they stayed at the missions. Morton Grove would do nothing until the
lawyer would threaten to sue the village, and then as little as
possible. Finally the last of the former motel tenants got relocated
(in almost every case in a similar dumpy motel in Chicago) and the
deal with the real estate guys went through. They bought the property
for about three million dollars from the village and are now
working on it, for some corporate clients of theirs. PAT]