Metro

They’ve got your number, NYers!

CALLER ID CRISIS: The 212 code, famously the subject of a “Seinfeld” episode, may soon be losing its Manhattan cachet if Internet phone company Vonage gets its way. (
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The next time you get a call from area code 212, it might be from Manhattan — Kansas.

The sacred 212 area code, for generations synonymous with New York cool, is slowly making its way across the country following a petition by Internet phone provider Vonage.

The company last month asked the Federal Communications Commission to free up a national pool of unused numbers normally distributed by regional middlemen — and sever the link between geography and area codes.

Coveted 212 numbers normally become available only when their holders move away or die, when businesses fail or when carriers bite the dust.

Otherwise, New Yorkers have been forced to accept the dreaded 646 or, even worse, the asymmetrical 347.

It would be salt in the wound to see 212 numbers pop up in Keokuk, Iowa, or Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

“It’s not fair,” said Sedina Osmanaj, a manager at a Lumber Liquidators store on the Lower East Side, where, in order to reach her, you have to dial a 347 number.

“We’re in New York City,” Osmanaj said. “We have our business here in the city. It’s crazy that an out-of-state business can have a 212 number. 212 is synonymous with New York City. If it goes out of state, it’s just weird.”

The number was the plot of a “Seinfeld” episode.

In the 1998 episode titled “The Maid,” Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has a meltdown when her 212 number is swapped for a 646.

She schemes to get a dead neighbor’s 212.

“No. It’s right here in the city,” Elaine tells a potential suitor who’s unimpressed by her 646 number. “It’s the same as 212. They just multiplied it by three, and then they added one to the middle number. It’s the same.”

Juliana Goldman, who started a marketing firm called Goldman Network after moving to Manhattan from Florida seven years ago, was denied her request for a 212.

“I looked into a 212 number, and they said that all they had was 917 and 646,” she recalled. “212 is the signature New York City area code, and I want it.”

The FCC is expected to rule on the Vonage petition April 18.

Some New York business are OK with the move.

“At the end of the day, you get customers because of a great product and great service, not because of the area code,” said Brooke Siem, co-owner of Prohibition Bakery in SoHo.

“We knew from the start that there was no chance of Prohibition Bakery getting a 212 number, so it was never a concern. At this point, 646 is just as recognizable for New Yorkers.”