I finally got an answer to PAT's question about what the building is used for now (actually a few years ago). It is a private residence, not very well maintained. I also dug up the original account PAT posted in 1990 from a tape of Mrs. Fermi's story. It mentions the building was a residence and in a residential neighborhood.
This story seems to reappear every few years, but it is a good one and deserves to.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone remember the story in the Digest several years ago where an answering service switchboard had been located for several years in a private home -- in the bedroom, no less. When the answering service went out of business, telco had pulled the board out (this was pre-divestiture days) but there remained an 'inside terminal' or junction box with a hundred or so pairs (mostly multiples which serviced other homes in the neighborhood but had originally been used on the switchboard).Telco insisted they had easement rights to that box to get to those pairs when they needed to do so. The people who had purchased the house knew nothing about any answering service switchboard; it had been long since removed when they bought the house. All that remained there was that 'phone closet' from years earlier. This was in Joliet, IL, and the people eventually got tired of Illinois Bell knocking on their door at 7 AM on Saturday morning to get access to 'their' pairs, so they sued and Bell finally got rid of the box by constructing a new terminal outside the house somewhere. If I could find the story somewhere I would re-run it here. PAT]