I have been to many hotels, but this place and the Mirage is the only two I’ve been to where I have seen sets in the hallway. Of course this isn’t a VOIP set.
New York City
POTD: Javits Center, part two
This Phone of the Day features a photo of that same Cisco phone ether the day before or earlier than the one taken in October.
POTD: Urban Outfitters – West 34th Street
Being the Avaya Red fanboy that I am, I am always happy to see any phones from the legacy AT&T/Bell System days. As I have stated before, this vendor had 90%+ of the Fortune 500 and then lost it entirely with a company with legacy roots that was 125 years old.
Taken in October of 2017, I am unable to tell what set this is, it could be a 1416 or a 1616. The second digit model numbers what type of signaling it does to make them ether be a “telephone” or a “terminal”. Please read the section on “voice terminals” to remind yourself why your desk phone is not actually that…
POTD: TRYP Hotel, Midtown Manhattan
In today’s installment of phones other than Cisco seen in The Big Apple, this was where I and my companion stayed during the week of the NY NAB Show. Known as TRYP (probably an acronym for “trip” though my mother called it T.R.Y.P. for a while) is a hipster themed hotel on West 35th between Seventh and Eighth. An independent franchise to Wyndham, this hotel is in one little building. I think it’s like a motel in a low rise building. There are fifteen stories and you can see the flagship New Yorker from the top.
POTD: Tick Tock Diner, Midtown Manhattan, NY
If you ever visit the West Side of Manhattan, and you like an awesome breakfast, go to the Tick Tock Diner, underneath the New Yorker on Eighth Ave between West 34th and 35th streets. Or should I say the iconic Art-Deco, classic mid 20th Century style of the Wyndham owned hotel? Anyways, I had a Smore French Toast. Something along those lines…
Enough with food porn on The Museum, but you wanted to see their phones right?
Left looks like the one for the diner, a NEC set for their Electra line, and a Mitel 5330E VOIP set with a backlit display and perhaps a Gigabit Ethernet connection! This is probably used for the hotel communications, and for the use of room service. I can say Mitel is used at these clusters of hotels, because I stayed in TRYP, and I saw my phones on the front desk…
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POTD: B&H Store, New York City
I’ve received many B&H catalogs ether as hand me downs, and runins with people on the West Coast, or in the mailings these days, but I never made it there till October. I’m familiar with J&R in the Lower Manhattan area though.
Located on the West Side of Manhattan, just a couple blocks away from the Garment District (the off Fifth Ave stores that go from West 34th & 5th to 35th and 8th. I made the visit since it was on the way to the Javits Center, for that fluke of an East Coast NAB Show. This place is a must if you like broadcast grade A/V equipment (the enterprise class for videographers, audio, what have you.) I got studio grade headphones there, and you can buy any professional and commercial class stuff there. And if you can’t make it to New York, you can go online.
POTD: Jacob Javits Center, Upper West Side, Manhattan
The Jacob Javits Center, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the urban outskirts of New York City, is where conferences are held. Much less space than say the Las Vegas Convention Center. It’s comparable size like Connecticut’s or the ones in Boston. Unlike Vegas, people are rude, uptight and do not take any selfies with showgirls. They will tell you explicitly to “not tag” them.
This was taken in October at the fall NAB Show, the convention for the National Association of Broadcasters. Unlike my visit in April, there was nothing to write home about. In fact I spent more time outside the Javits Center
This Guest Services desk shows a Cisco 8800 series VOIP set. However, throughout my visit, my first time ever visiting the city beyond twelve hours – I saw sets that weren’t just Cisco in various businesses and organizations.
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POTD: Avaya 8403 – 34th Street Macy’s, NYC
I thought this was an 8410. Till I zoomed in. I did see 8410s (ether D or B as in Blank) throughout the 34th Street Macy’s.
POTD: Ralph Lauren 5th Avenue Store
From little of what I know about Ralph Lauren, it appears they are an Avaya Red shop in some capacity (Joe the UCX Guy featuring an enterprise class) and my local outlet using a Partner (or I should use it in air quotes.)
I have my own opinions of Mister Ralph. a) I can never afford his stuff (the local Macy’s is once in a blue moon) b) I find it more suitable for older people (that Denim and Supply line, I mean really?) if not for older people then more Country Club-types. And of course c) he legally changed his last name from a borderline expletive to allegedly a film crush with the now late Lauren Bacall? Also am I supposed to be pronouncing his name like the female given name or the long e at the end?
Well anyways, here is a Siemens set taken from the sales floor on Saturday. The interesting question would be is did they go to Siemens or were they legacy ROLM users?
On the other hand here are some sets I didn’t (or wasn’t able to) capture but noticed
The Times Square Aeropostale uses an Avaya Blue Norstar system. For many years the non flagship Aeropostale stores used some analog Centrex, MPLS, or maybe VOIP terminated to analog phone service, up until the last couple months they had fallen into the Cisco bandwagon. Aeropostale is doing very lousy and is in danger of ether going out of business or being sold. Friday’s close was around a couple US dimes. What turned me away from there was all the shirts having these stupid embroidered fabric that is better for little kids. It’s hard to wash, then you have “loose” fabric, etc.
A Ruby Tuesday on the outskirts of Times Square had a Norstar system. (Nice service while I had lunch with the mother.)
The Apple Store on 5th Avenue (lousy service just like if you’re in the burbs. Another topic for another day) had clerks carrying around Cisco 7921 like wireless sets. This isn’t a surprise. Cisco has crept its way through Apple over the years, and now it’s gone to their VOIP or telephones. Most Apple Stores are still an Avaya IP Office shop with most of the wired sets tucked into drawers on the sales floors.
A Best Buy where I got better service, downtown a few blocks had Cisco.
The operations for the Fox News Channel still uses Avaya 8400 and 6400 sets. From what I know at the 1211 6th Ave facility, that the few first floors of the building are for FNC, Floors 7 to 8 (or 9?) is for The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s.
Once located at the World Financial Center (using a Meridian 1 system), they went to VOIP when the built the new facilities within 1211. An interesting note, on a blog I once found a picture of Roger Ailes, the head of FNC having both an 8434 and a Cisco set. Without getting into a political discussion, it would not be a surprise he has a direct line to a paper that could favor his views. (WSJ is a joke today and I am a big fan of markets and corporate news.)
I did not set foot inside 30 Rock, but I’ve seen on MSNBC on cable with more and more Cisco 8900 sets. It’s apparent that NBC wants to do away with Avaya at least at their New York operations more and more. They relocated their Southland facilities from Avaya in Burbank to Cisco in Universal City 2 years ago, their other hubs in Texas has been wired to Cisco and I can go on and on seeing yet another customer of Avaya Red disappear.
Many financial institutions are using Cisco (walked by Capital One Bank, TD Bank, JPMorgan, etc.)