Operators connected phone calls from the Switchboards in this building until 1928
Bell Telephone Exchange Building, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
The Bell Telephone Exchange building that stands at 8-12 North Preston Street in West Philadelphia was built about 1900 and was used from then until 1928 as the Preston Telephone Exchange of the American Bell Company under American Telephone and Telegraph. The Preston Exchange stands as one of the last two early 20th-century Bell telephone exchanges close to the center of Philadelphia. Pre-1928 telephone cables still remain visible in its walls. The scale, mass, materials and multi-pane windows of the style blended easily with existing residences or streetscapes. The success of the pattern meant Bell's competition often mimicked the design. After 1928 the large open rooms designed for telephone switchboards were easily adapted for light industrial use, allowing the architectural integrity of the Bell Telephone Exchange to remain.
Telephone History
Andrew Graham Bell invented the early mechanics of the telephone in his laboratory in Boston while experimenting with telegraph improvements. On February 14th, 1876, he filed patent application number 174465 for sound transmission over wires. But it was not until March 7th, 1876, that Thomas Watson, Bell's assistant, heard over a receiver the words "Mr. Watson, come here! I want you!" On that day the transmission of voice became a reality. Public recognition of Bell's invention was disclosed at the Centennial Exposition in the city of Philadelphia during the summer of 1876. This exposure, however, mainly aroused competition from new inventors. Bell and Watson continued to perfect their system and in July 1877 established the Bell Telephone Company in Boston. Public advertising caused a rapid desire for telephones, and Bell's industry grew immediately in New England.
Maintaining control of patent rights and advances in technology became an urgent concern. Bell Telephone created subsidiary companies, incorporated with the New England Telephone Company, and by 1878 merged to form the National Bell Telephone Company. But battles between Western Union Telephone and Telegraph and Bell over patents, telegraph rights, and long-distance lines during 1879 caused months of contentious legal disputes. Finally, on November 10th, 1879, Bell came out victorious. Western Union recognized Bell as the original inventor of the telephone, but in return, Bell had to agree to never interfere with the telegraph business. Within the settlement, Bell purchased 56,000 working telephones of Western Union's American Speaking Telephone Company. They also agreed to pay Western Union a royalty on all telephone rentals. The success of Bell's patent challenge and the instant expansion of service forced a reorganization of the Bell Company into American Bell Telephone within four months of Western Union's settlement. By 1880 the Bell monopoly and major patent rights were firmly established, but technological advances and new patent challenges were ongoing.
While patents were being contested, Bell selected agents across the country who began establishing telephone service in major cities. The agents carried out the construction of exchanges and installation of lines and service. Telephones were manufactured to Bell's standards and leased to customers. Bell's agent in Philadelphia by 1878 was Thomas E. Cornish. He met with immediate opposition from Western Union telephone installers. Cornish had difficulty in obtaining permits, and law enforcement officials accosted workers. Only through the help of an influential member of the community, Colonel Thomas Scott, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was Cornish able to succeed. The permit to run wires for Colonel Scott was used repeatedly with judicial obscuring of Scott's name to install lines for other customers. The competition had been thwarted, and by 1880 the Bell Telephone Exchange at 57 South 4th Street was functioning for at least 600 subscribers.
A major step in progress and technology occurred in 1885, when Bell founded American Telephone and Telegraph Company for long-distance service. (By 1899 AT&T had become the parent company of the Bell system.) Switchboard systems were developed, automatic switching became a competitive advancement, cables were laid, and transmitters were improved. In October 1892 the first long-distance service opened between New York and Chicago. Such advances affected local service as well, and in Philadelphia by 1890 the number of telephone subscribers had grown to 3300. By 1895 the number reached 4800. As Bell's various seventeen-year patents began to expire, and the need for telephones caused the growth of new independent companies, competition escalated again. Ironically, the more Bell fought to keep its monopoly by investing in lawsuits, the larger the outcry for better service and equipment. Competitors quickly saw lucrative opportunities. By 1897 there were at least 5000 strong, independent companies across America. They banded together and formed the National Independent Telephone Association for resistance against American Bell.
Perhaps it was in preparation for this that on December 14th and 16th, 1896, Bell Telephone of Philadelphia purchased two properties located at 8 and 10-12 North Preston Street. The intent was to build a telephone exchange in the West Philadelphia residential area. The location and design of the building was both territorial and functional. Until 1896 Bell Telephone owned no land in West Philadelphia. During that year Thomas Cornish, Bell's agent, saw a need to serve the wealthy industrial residents of Powelton Village to the east and the businesses along Market Street to the south with telephones. Westward from the Schuylkill were growing developments of row houses for an expanding urban residential population manning the city's many industries. In addition, the University of Pennsylvania stood within five blocks of the proposed exchange and the Alms House, hospitals, railroad stations, religious and educational institutions, and commercial businesses thrived. The area was ripe for what became known as the Preston Telephone Exchange and territorial expansion of the telephone industry.
By 1905 Gopsill's Street Guide of Philadelphia shows that the Preston Exchange had been built. Bell owned fifteen other exchanges in the city, three of which were in Center City, one other in West Philadelphia at 39th and Market that is no longer extant. Of the buildings built during this period, the only inner-city exchange that remains is at 17th and Poplar Streets, but it is now abandoned and windowless, though the masonry walls are intact.
No records have been found regarding the architects or construction of these early exchange buildings. City ward atlas sequences and frequency are not precise enough to supply an accurate construction date for the completion of the 8-12 North Preston Street Exchange. The Philadelphia 24th Ward Atlas of 1886 identifies the three lots as holding two small wooden buildings. By 1900 Bell Telephone of Philadelphia boasted of 15,800 telephone subscribers, but the atlas for that year shows only a modest brick building on the smaller lot. Construction was presumably complete within the year, and at least before Keystone Telephone built their exchange across the street about 1903. The first mapped reference to the Bell Telephone Exchange building as it stands today is in the 1911 atlas covering Ward 24. A brick structure of three stories straddles the parcel. By that time, on the northeast corner lot of Preston and Filbert stands a Keystone Telephone Company building of two stories-Bell's direct Philadelphia competitor.
Philadelphia Competition
The expiration of Bell's patent in 1893 provoked opportunities across the country for competition and the establishment of better telephone systems. In 1900 the Honorable Robert Herman Foerderer, United States Representative at large from Philadelphia, founded one such independent company. Foerderer was one of Philadelphia's highly regarded and brilliant businessmen. He had expanded his father's tanning business and created the curing of goatskins to a supple hide by a special process. As a manufacturer, he held the world market for the importation of goat hide and the production of "Vici kid" leather. By 1903 the Foerderer tannery in Frankford spread over more than twenty acres. His family estate was Glen Foerd in Torresdale on the Delaware River, an Italianate-style mansion expanded by his widow and daughter.
Using his business acumen, Foerderer founded the Keystone Telephone Company. By 1900 its headquarters stood at 135-141 South Second Street, Philadelphia. A Keystone directory published in 1902 identifies how calls were made, explains party lines, and clarifies the use of pay phones. Keystone boasted that their lines were all underground and no unsightly poles or roof fixtures were used. They claimed they were extending service to all areas of the city and controlled a large number of up-to-date patents. Furthermore, prices for service had already dropped by one-half within two years.
In addition to their building on South Second Street, by 1902 a real estate company known as Keystone had purchased three lots on the east side of North Preston Street, directly across from the Bell Exchange. Title was transferred to the Keystone Telephone Company in January 1903, and presumably their Keystone Telephone exchange at 9-13 North Preston Street was built within the year. The architectural firm serving Keystone at that time was Davis & Davis, made up of brothers Seymour and Paul. Their office was at 907 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. To their credit are Keystone Telephone Company buildings at 231-35 North 16th Street and others in Tioga, Frankford, and Kensington. Keystone represented a typical local, independent company clearly aimed at competition with Bell.
An illustration of how and why the competition between Bell and the independents grew may be summarized from a 1939 report to the Seventy-Sixth Congress on the investigation of the telephone industry in the United States by the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The report shows that the growth of independent toll systems brought improved devices and technologies often more advanced than Bell's, provoking patent challenges. Second, as Bell patents expired, rates established by the Bell monopoly were challenged by the independents, causing rate wars. Bell's distress over this situation, expressed in their annual report of 1910, conceded that government regulation might be better than the weakening of their monopoly by the duplication of exchange facilities through independents.
To eliminate competition, the investigation reports that AT&T and Bell had specific methods. The main process was prolonging its patent monopoly. The second involved the rapid expansion of telephone facilities. Third, for a period of time between 1902 and 1907 increased financial support from temporary financiers allowed absorption of some independent companies. Propaganda campaigns against independents were used. Another tactic was the refusal to connect calls with certain independents or to sell telephone equipment to them. Controlling manufacturers of apparatus and equipment also instituted delays. Obstructing the flow of capital to independents was probably the most effective method Bell used to impede the growth of competition. This continued effectively until Antitrust Law enforcement began in 1913.
The report further stated that complaints from independent companies to the Department of Justice aroused an investigation and opinion from the Attorney General on January 3rd, 1913. This stated that further acquisition of independent companies by AT&T would constitute a violation of the Sherman Antitrust law. The "Kingsbury Commitment," devised by M. C. Kingsbury, a vice-president of AT&T, provided a solution and future policy but with many financial losses. First, enough Western Union stock had to be sold to ensure Western Union's independent control and management. Second, no acquisition or control over any competing companies could be carried out until January 1918. After that date, acquisition was feasible provided Bell sold an equal number of Bell stations to an independent. Additionally, Bell agreed to connect their system with independents' lines for toll-service purposes provided the independent company supplied standard trunk lines between its exchanges and the toll board of the nearest exchange of the Bell operating company.
The ruling of the Kingsbury Commitment appears to be verified and upheld at the Keystone and Bell rivalry site on North Preston Street, Philadelphia. For more than 25 years the buildings co-existed, trunk lines apparently connecting the two buildings after 1913. These lines can be seen in the east basement wall of the Bell building at the south corner. They presumably came from the Keystone exchange and/or to subscribers in West Philadelphia. The two companies co-existed as functioning telephone exchanges until 1928, when Bell sold its exchange at 8-12 North Preston Street to Abraham Graboyes, realtor.
Specific reasons for the sale have not been found, but logical hypotheses can be offered. World War I forced great advances in telephone technology and by the mid-1920s the automatic dialing system had been introduced. Bell was slow to make the conversion, but between 1929 and 1935 they reduced their workforce by 70,000 jobs through the institution of the new dialing system. With Keystone's competitive exchange across the street, Bell may have simply deemed 8-12 North Preston an out-of-date, unnecessary exchange ready for sale. Further, under the Kingsbury Commitment, after 1918 Bell had to divest itself of stations in order to buy up exchanges of other independents. Hand-operated switchboards may have become outmoded, but the expansion of the industry and the Bell-AT&T holdings continued.
In 1944, Bell's strength and monopoly was the victor. Philadelphia was the last of the two-system cities, and thus Bell bought the ten Keystone exchanges in Philadelphia including the property on North Preston Street for $258,900. This purchase was consistent with Bell's vigorous policy of acquisition of independent companies after 1919. Disputes over the division of toll revenues on interchanged business and with major independent suppliers of telephone apparatus and equipment also continued. By the end of 1936 the Bell system's control of the desirable telephone exchange territory in the U.S. was substantially complete. There was no way for an independent to survive with success. The Bell system, under the control of AT&T, intended to be the sole supplier of telecommunications services in the United States.
The Bell Telephone Exchange at 8-12 North Preston Street stands for the authoritarian manner in which the company dealt with their control of the telephone communication industry. The architecture of the building represents a style devised specifically to suit the workforce of the industry and blend into urban streetscapes. The quality and strength of the construction and building materials were durable and intended to be long-lived. This enabled the exchange to be used for many different businesses between 1928 and 2001 without loss of integrity. Across the street still stands its Keystone competitor, also a classically detailed building. The Keystone Telephone building is a two-story, ten-bay corner building of brick with cream-colored terra cotta keystones and band courses. Keystone has been converted to the home of PhilaDanco, a resident dance company for the city of Philadelphia. The Bell Telephone Exchange signifies the history of the growth of the American telephone communication industry at the beginning of the 20th century and competition and monopoly in the capitalist process.
Telephone Exchange Use
How the building functioned as a telephone exchange and the housing of the work force had some influence on its design.
By the 1900s exchanges would have typically contained several switchboards--the heart of its telephone system. Switchboards by then were in two sections, one was designated the "A" board and the other was labeled the "B" board. Telephone operators situated at the "A" board would handle calls made by local subscribers that originated and terminated in the local exchange. Operators at the "B" board completed incoming calls to local subscribers originating from another exchange. The operator's work to connect the jacks to the correct terminal and ring the subscriber had to be accurate and quick, but the work was very routine.
Another group of operators worked the toll calls. Long-distance calls beyond the locality had to be handled separately because they required an added charge. Each call involved about seven operators and a call-back system, thus the pace was slower. Both local and toll operators were involved, as well as billing operators for the added charges. The work was less monotonous and involved specialized tasks, making it a more elite operation.
Initially when switchboards were still primitive (magneto boards), young boys handled the task, a transfer of roles from the telegraph industry. Two to four operators handled a call and there was a great deal of noise and movement from board to board to make connections. As the system became more refined (central battery boards), less noisy, and subscribers grew, women were recognized as the better labor force for the job. They were quieter, more respectful, and were considered tolerant of low wages and monotonous work. Only during night-time hours did men work the boards. After 1900, training schools initiated by Bell helped teach the process, etiquette, and procedures to create what became white-collar jobs for young, unmarried women. At the time, wages were minimal and hiring discrimination frequent.
The administrative organization of the industry involved supervisors for six to fifteen operators who reported to a chief operator. The supervisor stood behind the women operators who were seated at tall chairs at the switchboards wearing headphones. The standardization of the equipment, despite its rapid advances, caused the Bell industry to develop one of the most scientifically and efficiently managed work systems in the country. Operators could handle 200-300 calls per hour in a uniform skillful manner.
To accommodate the women of the work force, establish loyalty and increase efficiency, Bell assured that each exchange building was equipped with a "retiring room" and a cafeteria. Retiring rooms were for relaxation and equipped with pianos or Victrolas. They were overseen by matrons who were concerned with the welfare of the "girls," from etiquette to health. Cafeterias were designed to be comfortable and gracious with nutritional food and quality china and linens. The intent was to provide a perk to employees with low wages. The residential appearance of this building type as seen from the street, and its pleasant accommodations for the women of the work force, established a positive workplace and employment opportunity for women of Philadelphia or other cities where Bell built similarly.
Later Uses
After 1928 the Bell Telephone Exchange was owned by six different owners. Between 1932 and 1941 Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance owned it. Presumably by then all telephone equipment had been removed. From 1941 to 1946 under a new owner the building had two tenants: a machine shop on the first floor (during the Second World War this was also in the basement) and an upholsterer on the second floor. An attempt to create a woodturning shop in the basement for production of small stepladders in November 1945 was refused by the Philadelphia Zoning Board. From 1946 until 1960 a new owner established a firm for reproduction of historic documents and advertising material. Additionally, in 1958 the Sanborn Insurance Atlas shows use of the basement for a sheet metal shop. A new owner in 1960 apparently continued the historic document business for a period of time. The business had terminated and the building was vacant by 1998. Rehabilitation of the building has been underway since 1998 under the current owner. The north room on the first floor has been converted to a beauty salon and the south offices are serving a law practice.
Building Description
The Bell Telephone Exchange building at 8-12 North Preston Street, Philadelphia, lies west of the Schuylkill River and just north of Market Street and south of Filbert in a section of the city known as West Philadelphia. The building was built about 1900 by Bell Telephone of Philadelphia and became known as the Preston Exchange. The Georgian Revival, five-bay, central-hall, town-house pattern stands on a half-story platform with an arch-headed entrance door reached by a block of four stone steps. The main facade of Flemish-bond brickwork features three full stories of double-hung, six-over-six windows. Building details are accentuated by the use of dressed granite for the water table, belt courses, keystones, and sills. A deep decorative tin cornice with modillion blocks, dentils, and egg and dart patterns hangs over the second floor windows. A third story cornice is missing. Visible from the rear of the building is a large pyramidal iron skylight on the hipped roof and a tall, square industrial chimney. Iron fire escapes added on the street elevation provide evidence that the building served light industrial usage after its termination as a telephone exchange in 1928.
The Bell Telephone Exchange building faces east from the west side of North Preston Street, a block between Market and Filbert Streets and 40th and 41st Streets that runs at a slight angle to the traditional Philadelphia grid pattern. Located on two lots with unequal frontage, the footprint of the building follows the angle of North Preston Street, making it perfectly square only at the northwest and southwest corners. The angled east facade measures 50' 3". The longer south facade is 58' 6". The parallel north wall runs 47' 9". The west facade measures 49' 11".
Within the streetscape, the back end of a two-story brick building on Market Street is attached to the southwest corner of the south facade. Two smaller two- and three-story residences or storefront buildings adjoin it to the north. All residential or commercial buildings to the west or rear along Market and Filbert Street have been demolished. Directly across the street at the northeast corner of North Preston and Filbert stands a rival Keystone Telephone building from the same period.
On the Bell Exchange, the distinctively Georgian Revival three-and-a-half-story street facade of five bays is characterized by its Flemish bond brickwork, symmetry, masonry detailing, and window and door treatments. A heavy stone water table, two belt courses, and cornices separate the facade into three sections. The lowest section is a half-story basement platform of four rectangular windows topped by a stone belt course. Each window has three vertical panes, metal screening, and iron grates. At the center of the platform are four granite entrance steps ascending from the Market Street side. In the east face of the stair block is a metal door where coal was supplied.
The first and second-story six-over-six windows, the central entrance door, and the deep metal cornice constitute the middle section. Protruding granite keystones make the vertical brick header course above the windows on these two floors distinctive. Above the second-story windows a granite belt course ties into the keystones. Granite sills are used throughout. A decorative frieze of ten recessed rectangles created by brickwork runs above the belt course. Corbelled brick above the rectangles butt into the lower edge of a deep tin cornice made up of block modillions plus dentil and egg and dart bands.
The third section of the facade is the less decorated third story. The masonry treatment of the window headers omits the concrete keystones. A ghost of a cornice four brick courses high above the third floor windows and below the parapet wall is noticeable through the use of common bond brickwork and remnants of metal in the joint.
The arch headed front entrance to the building is reached by four stone steps and a landing protected by a metal railing. The entrance door sits within an arched granite surround below an arched window. A keystone, engraved with the image of a bell, rests at the top of the arch and is flanked by the engraved words "Telephone Building." A stone header separates the window arch and door. The paneled entrance door features a single pane and has flanking narrow side lights.
The double-hung windows throughout the building are metal sash painted brown with wire glass panes. On the east facade the window panes are a six-over-six pattern. The exception is where two windows have been converted to metal doors for access to a fire escape added probably in the 1930s. The doors occur on the second story in the second bay from the north corner and at the third story in the last bay to the north. In both cases the original window opening has been decreased in size by added brick. The metal fire escape, located above the second-story cornice and under four of the five third-story windows, has supporting struts fastened below the cornice. At the second floor level the fire escape runs under the three central bays. The staircase and drop-down ladder descend at the south end of the facade and intersect two bays on the first floor. Two windows at the south end on the third floor were blocked shut with cement blocks in the 1980s. These will be restored to their original configuration.
The north and south walls have no fenestration and are worked in common bond with a seventh stretcher course. The west or rear facade has a more industrial appearance, using seven bays of two-over-two windows with segmental arch openings. Here the central bay is a wider double window, flanked immediately to the north by the large square brick chimney that rises from a half story-brick extension the length of this facade. Three small half-size openings (probably for former vents) between the second and third floor were bricked shut after 1928. From the west and south the metal skylight structure that formerly had wire glass is visible. It sits centered on a hipped roof and is pyramidal in shape. Five vertical ribs are intersected by three horizontal members and various vertical supports. Roofing material has now sealed off the interior skylight framing, a change made for thermal control in the 1970s.
The interior of the Bell Telephone Exchange retains wall divisions original to the structure in the basement and on the first floor. The second and third floors are undivided open spaces. In the basement, a 23" wide masonry bearing wall runs the depth of the building on the north side of the relatively central cellar staircase. An 11" thick wall parallels this on the south side, creating the masonry supports for the central hall configuration on the first floor and dividing the basement into three unequal spaces. The basement extends under the sidewalk at the east end. To the northeast, an iron staircase leads through a metal basement door that opens into the sidewalk. South of the main bearing wall is a room that extends under the entrance steps with an attached window well. The east facade includes four above-grade basement windows that light the basement.
The southern-most space runs the length of the basement. In the east wall a bank of cut telephone cables remain embedded in the wall at the south corner, sheered off flush with the masonry. These telephone cables presumably connected to the Keystone Telephone building on the other side of North Preston Street and to the telephone subscribers. They also extended through the ceilings and floors to the telephone switchboards in the rooms above as evidenced by holes in these horizontal divisions. They were presumably removed after 1928 when the building was converted to light industrial use.
The basement at the west end extends west of the actual west facade of the building. The bearing support for the west facade comes from massive steel beams supported by a steel column in both the north and south halves of the basement. Centered in the west wall is the furnace room with a direct connection to the exterior chimney. Contemporary mechanical equipment is housed here today. A small room formerly used as a bathroom exists to the north of the furnace room.
The structural framing for the first floor is a supported by large iron beams running north and south that rest on the interior masonry walls. Wooden joists are hung into the metal beams for the ten-inch plank floor above. The walls throughout the basement are whitewashed masonry.
The basement wall divisions extend to the first floor and create the central-hall plan. Large rooms parallel the hall to the north and south. Within the central hall is an entry space at the east end that opens directly to the main staircase to the second floor. Underneath the staircase is a closet and to the west are steps to the basement. The high ceiling in the entry space, heavy wood casing around the doorways and staircase, and wooden ceilings of ten-inch boards create a warm, spacious effect. A door off the entry to the north leads into the north room space that extends the depth of the building. This large room has been recently rehabilitated to serve as a beauty salon. On the north wall a large iron door hangs from a sliding metal track. Sealed since at least 1941, the opening penetrated the party wall and remains from a period when Bell Telephone owned the neighboring building.
Along the west wall and beyond the stair hall off a small north-south corridor stand the original bathrooms for men and women. Three Venetian slated doors to the women's toilets remain intact, now made more visible by removal of an added wall and toilet. The neighboring men's facility has recently been converted from a space with a urinal to a bathroom with two toilets. Original ceramic tile still remains on the floors of these bathrooms.
On the south side of the entrance hall the space is divided into two rooms of unequal size. The larger is at the front of the building. Here a line of cable holes where telephone cables ran up from the basement into the exchange may still be seen in the floor. The ceiling of this room is the wood plank flooring of the second floor laid on large exposed wooden joists, all painted brown. Window openings of both the east and west walls on the interior have segmental masonry arches at the top, though the window frame and sash are squared. This is in contrast to the exterior square-headed finish. Throughout the interior, heavy but simple wood casings, baseboard, wainscoting, and door and window trim display the craftsmanship of early 20th-century construction.
The central hall staircase to the second floor ascends directly from the end of the entryway. This staircase has undergone recent repairs and is principally of new materials. The second and third floors are completely open, interrupted only by stairwells. On the second floor, the stair from the first floor enters directly into the center of the room. Carved wood posts and several remaining heavy wood half walls surround the stair opening. The floor is oak. Of the five windows in the east facade the second one from the north corner has been converted to a door that leads to the fire escape. A metal stair unit with a stringer and landing stands along the wall in front of this door.
The staircase to the third floor is a grand turning iron stairway ascending to a 22' diameter circular opening in the second-story ceiling. (A jagged cut through a ceiling beam implies that this opening may have once been smaller.) Only a single iron post supports the free-standing staircase. The design includes a skirt panel, iron balusters, and a wooden handrail. As the stair ascends and turns, it actually crosses over the stair opening from the first floor. Through the ceiling opening are visible the iron railing that encircles the opening (installed in 2000) and a large, square, metal-framed skylight of multiple panes in the third floor ceiling.
At the third-floor level the outstanding feature is the effect of the circular floor opening with the turning metal staircase rising upward and interfacing with the new encircling iron railing of linked vertical rectangles with an inner quadrate design. Above in the ceiling, which is supported by two cast iron posts, is the multi-pane wire-glass skylight. Painted glass and an insulated roof closure now prohibit light from entering.
The third floor is finished in a concrete decking and again has a series of holes for telephone cables, verifying this section of the building originally held switchboards. At the northeast corner a small metal staircase leads to the window converted to a door for egress to the fire escape. The plaster walls have been repaired and painted and the ceiling newly coated with plasterboard. Ductwork for heating and ventilating is exposed.
Although no early interior or exterior photographs of this building have been found to identify its original appearance or interior outfitting, there seem to have been only modest changes made since its life as a telephone exchange. The building retains integrity of materials and design. On the exterior some repointing is necessary and deteriorated metal work needs to be repaired and replaced (cornices). Two blocked windows are to be restored. The pyramidal steel skylight, though lacking glass, remains in place. On the interior the first floor wooden staircase is being replaced and the original metal railing around the third floor circular opening has been recreated. The second floor metal staircase remains in pristine condition and the skylight framing is intact with only a few missing panes of wire glass. Fire safety has had the largest impact on the building's street facade. Iron fire escapes, added across the second and third floor of the facade with attached laddering, obscure the second story cornice and caused two windows to be converted to doors for fire egress. The fire escapes, however, tell the story of light industrial usage of the building following its termination as a telephone exchange in 1928.
East and south facades of the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view northwest (2000)
East and north facades of the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view southwest (2000)
West and south facades showing chimney and roof skylight structure of the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view northeast (2000)
South facades of the Bell Telephone Exchange and Keystone Telephone buildings on North Preston Street, view north from Market Street (2000)
Roof skylight structure on the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view east from roof. (1999)
Bank of sheared cables in the east wall of the south corner of the basement of the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view east. (1999)
Door and entry way of the Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view east (2000)
Second floor showing wooden staircase from first floor and iron staircase to third floor. New iron railing around third floor circular opening is visible. Bell Telephone Exchange, 8-12 North Preston Street, view east (2000)
