2nd Ave Telco Fire
In February of 1975 there was a major fire in a Telephone building in Manhattan. The building was called 2nd Avenue Exchange.
It knocked out 175,000 + telephones in the area. It was the largest fire in Telco history. They brought techs from all over the state to start the restoration process. They had to bring in a lot of new equipment because a lot of the original stuff was damaged beyond repair.
I volunteered to go into Manhattan to help starting the 2nd week of restoration efforts. They housed the workers in hotels near the building so we didn’t spend time commuting back and forth to work. We worked 12 or more hours per day, 7 days a week. The last subscriber was restored to service 26 days after the fire started. It was something that had never before done before, and has not been done since. All the guys who worked the fire were super proud of our work.
There is a YouTube video about the fire and restoration. It was really good and worth the time to watch it if you are so inclined. Just Google 2nd Ave telco fire in NYC and it's there.
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