Category: postal service

There Go The Neighborhoods

I attended the grand opening of the new Delaware branch of the Albany Public Library on Saturday, January 9, just as I attended the event for the Pine Hills branch (a/k/a, MY branch) five weeks earlier. Also, on Tuesday, January 5, I went to the sometimes contentious meeting about the closing of the Washington Avenue YMCA (a/k/a, MY branch) at, not coincidentally, the main branch of the APL. And it brought home the fact that the issues of the branch libraries, the urban Y and also the post offices that have been threatened to be closed, including the South Allen location (a/k/a, MY post office) are all part of the same issue: the livability of the city of Albany. However, there have been quite varied outcomes.

First, let’s look at the good news. You MUST go to the two reopened branches of the library, although you may not fully appreciate their beauty and usability unless you had been to the previous incarnations. The old, one-story location at 517 Western Avenue was cramped and a bit dark; the new two-story facility is bright and roomy, and moreover finally has an adequate number of computers, even on a Saturday afternoon.

But even the old branch of the Pine Hills library was a palace compared with the old Delaware branch which was in a strip mall, next to a laundromat. I’ve had closets that were wider. At least thrice – and I admit I avoided going there very often – water, lint and noise from its neighbor was evident in the library. Now at 331 Delaware Avenue, a former funeral home that I’d only been to once or twice, it is totally reimagined to be bright and accessible.

As Dennis Gaffney, president of the APL board of trustees, has noted, Albany had rejected $150,000 for a Carnegie library back in 1902, by a 3-2 vote, because of the $9,000 annual maintenance. But a little over a century later, the people of Albany, by a 2-1 vote, embraced building five new or refurbished branch libraries.

At the YMCA meeting, CEO Dave Brown noted how much of the programming of the Albany Y is not dependent on that building at 274 Washington Avenue. He was followed by speaker after speaker from various organization noting how vital the Y building is to the populations they serve, from the medical student who destresses there to young man who promised more violence in the city without the facility.

I heard a lot of vague promises to work towards saving the facility, from organizations using the building to the Albany mayor, who, the day after his dire State of the City, promised his support. Yet Dave Brown’s promise of the “immediate shutdown” if certain benchmarks aren’t met remained.

Right now, because of some pricing incentives, it is a good time to join the YMCA on Washington Avenue. I’m cautiously optimistic that the first goal of 2550 households (up from 1800) can be met by April – is that the beginning or end of April, Dave? – but another thousand or more beyond that before the end of the year seems ambitious. The task force working on saving the Y I’m hoping can bring alternative funding ideas to the table.

The post offices unfortunately is largely out of local control, though the targeting of the urban settings, at least in this area, is disturbing. All I can say is that having a local facility was a major selling point in choosing a home. If making some noise will make a difference, let there be cacophony.

Three institutions. One good outcomes, two up in the air. All vital for a livable city. ROG

ROG

Z is for ZIP Codes

I’m old enough to remember when one mailed a letter to large cities in the United States, he or she would place a one- or two-digit number between the city and state. The oft-advertised Spiegel catalog was at Chicago 9, Illinois. (The postage for a one-ounce first-class letter was four or five cents.) I’ve since discovered that the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) implemented postal zones for large cities in 1943.

Then on July 1, 1963, the Post Office introduced the Zone Improvement Plan. The country was carved into 10 sections, 0 to 9. From there, 5-digit numbers (codes) were developed to identify each post office associated with an address. It was also the time that the two-letter state postal abbreviations were instituted.

I was fascinated as a kid by this. Just from the first digit in the ZIP Code, I knew where a letter came from. If it started with 0, it was from New England, New Jersey, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and military addresses in the European theater; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is 09360.

So, in New York State, 100-102 are Manhattan, 103 is Staten Island, 104 is the Bronx. 105 is suburban New York, with the places listed alphabetically, 106 is White Plains and so forth through 119, on the tip of Long Island. 120 and 121 are suburban Albany, 122 is Albany and 123 is Schenectady. Certain businesses or other institutions have their own ZIP Codes. 10048 is the zip code assigned to the former World Trade Center in New York City. The State University of New York in Albany is 12222, while the SUNY campus in Buffalo is 14222. ZIP Code 12345 is General Electric in Schenectady. And Spiegel is now ZIP Code 60609.

When I worked at a store in Albany in the 1980s, I decided to figure out where the orders for a horror film book was coming from. A decidedly large plurality of the requests, for some reason, were from 480 and 481, wealthy suburban Detroit.

In 1983, the US Postal Service began using an expanded ZIP Code called “ZIP+4.” “A ZIP+4 code consists of the original five digit ZIP Code plus a four digit add-on code. The four digit add-on number identifies a geographic segment within the five digit delivery area, such as a city block, office building, individual high-volume receiver of mail, or any other unit that would aid efficient mail sorting and delivery.” It is not mandated, but businesses use it often and there are savings to be had for bulk mailings.

On rare occasions, a place is assigned a ZIP code that does not match the rest of the state, e.g. the place is so remote that it is better served by a center in another state. “For example, Fishers Island, NY, which is off Long Island, NY, has ZIP code 06390 and is served from Connecticut, while all other New York ZIP codes begin with 1. Some Texas ZIP codes are served from New Mexico and have codes beginning with 8 rather than 7.” And something I only discovered recently: “returned government parcels from the District of Columbia are sent to ZIP codes beginning with 569, so that returned parcels are security checked at a remote facility, put into place after after the anthrax scare.”

The Census Bureau does not tabulate data by U.S. Postal Service ZIP Code. Instead, it created a new statistical entity called the ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) to meet requests by data users for statistical data by ZIP Code. ZCTAs are close area approximations of USPS ZIP Codes service areas. For more information, go here.

Find a ZIP Code by entering an address here.

Hey, you ABC Wednesday folks from outside the U.S.: how do YOUR postal postscripts work? I know that Canada has an alphanumeric system, and the first letter is roughly alphabetical from east to west across the provinces, with the territories last (X and Y).
ROG

ROG
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