Check Neighborhood Via Phone Number

One of the handiest resources in The Washington Post newsroom is the reverse phone book, a hefty volume that lists phone numbers in simple numeric order, allowing you to see who belongs to what number and where they live.

But if you don’t work at a newspaper (i.e., you are sane), you can perform this same magic at AT&T Labs’ AnyWho Web site (http://www.anywho.com).

Click on the “Reverse Tel” link, enter all or part of a number. It even translates those 800-CALLNOW phrases into their numeric equivalents, and you get the name and address of the person or business that matches.

A “Map This” button sketches out the surrounding area, or you can click on a street name to see the phone numbers along it. As with most phone-directory sites, the data is at least six months old, so that, for instance, only my old home number shows up - perhaps a good thing, since this site could be a stalker’s best friend.

But I suspect its biggest use will be a little more mundane: Curious singles can punch in the phone number they got last night to scope out their would-be date’s neighborhood.