New York City to get another new area code

As Elaine Benes in "Seinfeld" famously quipped when presented with her new Manhattan area code: "It's not different. It's the same. Just changed."

With New York City residents outside Manhattan exhausting their supply of 347, 718, 917 and 929 area codes, likely within the next three years, parts of the Big Apple are now preparing to adopt yet another three-digit code.

The Public Service Commission approved a plan Thursday to add a new area code for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Marble Hill section of Manhattan.

State regulators will select the area code in the coming months while all existing phone numbers in the five boroughs will remain unchanged. The new area code would be assigned only to new phone numbers after the current area code numbers are used up.

"There is a clear need for more telephone numbers as a result of economic growth and activity in the New York City metro areas," Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian said in a news release.

The plan has been under public review since May, officials said.

The North American Numbering Plan Administrator, which administers the nation's numbering system for telephone networks, said simple supply and demand precipitated the need for a new area code because of the large number of residents requiring phone numbers for their cellphones and tablets.

This isn't the first time New York City ran out of phone numbers.

All of the city once used 212 but the growth in the number of phone lines in the past led to establishing new codes for Marble Hill and the outer boroughs. The quintessential 212 lives on in Manhattan but has been joined over the years by 646, 332 and 917, a code used throughout the city.

The most recent area code addition on Long Island was in January 2023, when new telephone lines started getting assigned a 363 area code, while existing lines were allowed to keep the long-standing 516 code.