Will North Plainfield snag 07062 ZIP code?

ZIP Code boundary map for Plainfield area.

The Ledger is reporting North Plainfield is planning to push once more to have its own ZIP code (see here).

You may recall the initiative ten years ago that also included a drive to rename the borough 'Stony Brook'. Both the name change and the ZIP code change fell flat at the time.

The ZIP code system, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year was designed to improve the delivery of mail (it stands for Zone Improvement Plan), and is an outgrowth of the postal zone designations for large cities that sprang up in the years between World War I and World War II.

Mr. ZIP Code character helped promote adoption.

The drive to inculcate use of the ZIP code number had its own cartoon character in the 1960s, which appeared everywhere from posters in Post Office buildings to books of stamps to public service ads in newspapers and magazines.

Over the years, as demographic patterns changed, so did ZIP codes. For Plainfield alone, the suburbanization of rural areas to the north and west led to two new ZIP codes being split off from Plainfield's 07060 -- Warren Township getting 07059 about twenty years ago and Watchung getting 07069 a few years ago.

A glance at the ZIP code boundary map above shows that 07060, 07062 and 07063 are all shared by Plainfield and North Plainfield (see boundary map here).

Another sign of the change of postal times is that Plainfield no longer sorts its own mail. This means that a Plainfield-to-Plainfield piece of mail no longer gets sorted and delivered in Plainfield. Insteand, such mail goes to the regional sorting center and then is returned to Plainfield for final delivery by your letter carrier. Progress!

It would be entirely possible to avoid setting up a new 5-digit postal code for North Plainfield if the Postal Service got serious about getting users to adopt the ZIP+4 system which has been on the books for years.

So, will North Plainfield get 07062? Or will it have to pick another number?

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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