NYNEX

NYNEX Corporation /ˈnaɪnɛks/ was a telephone company that served five New England states (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of New York state, except the Rochester area, from 1984 through 1997.

Formed January 1, 1984, as a result of the Bell System Divestiture, NYNEX was a regional Bell operating company made up of former AT&T subsidiaries New York Telephone and New England Telephone. Hence, the name NYNEX stood for New York/New England, with the X representing the unknown future (or "the uneXpected"), but the X is also widely believed to mean eXchange. NYNEX merged with Bell Atlantic on August 14, 1997, in what was, at the time, the second largest merger in American corporate history. Although Bell Atlantic was the surviving company, the merged company moved from Bell Atlantic's headquarters in Philadelphia to NYNEX headquarters in New York City. On June 30, 2000, Bell Atlantic acquired GTE to form Verizon Communications.