Glenn Miller Turns a Phone Number Into a Hit

On April 28, 1940, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded "Pennsylvania 6-5000" at the RCA Victor Studios at 155 East 24th Street, a two-minute instrumental named for the Hotel Pennsylvania's own telephone exchange. Jerry Gray wrote the tune and Carl Sigman wrote lyrics that never made the record; instead the band simply shouted the digits after a ringing phone sound effect, with trumpeter Johnny Best taking the solo. Miller's band held a standing engagement at the hotel's Cafe Rouge, a room across from Penn Station big enough to be the largest ballroom of its kind in the country, and the song doubled as a jingle: dial PEnnsylvania 6-5000 and you could book a table to hear it played live. Released that June on Bluebird Records, it spent twelve weeks on the charts and reached the Billboard Top 5, one of the rare pop songs built entirely around an ad for its own venue.