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Old Chinese Telephone Exchange Review

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Old Chinese Telephone Exchange

Address: Bank of Canton, 743 Washington St., Chinatown, San Francisco, CA | Map It

Category: Architectural Sites
Location: Chinatown

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Fodor's Review:

After the 1906 earthquake, many Chinatown buildings were rebuilt in western style with pagoda roof and fancy balconies slapped on. This building—today the Bank of Canton—is the exception, an example of top-to-bottom Chinese architecture. The intricate three-tier pagoda was built in 1909. The exchange's operators were renowned for their prodigious memories, about which the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce boasted in 1914: "These girls respond all day with hardly a mistake to calls that are given (in English or one of five Chinese dialects) by the name of the subscriber instead of by his number—a mental feat that would be practically impossible to most high-schooled American misses."

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