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Short Stuff: ZIP Codes! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and we're here with Zippy. Mister Zip also
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: known as Jerry sitting in for Dave, who has nothing
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to do with post office and this is short stuff.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's right. I'm sure we probably talked about zip codes
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: to some degree in the post office.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In our episode. Yeah, on zip codes.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It was usps. We didn't do it on zip codes. Okay, good,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: but we're gonna talk a little bit about zip codes.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: That thing on the envelope, that's well, it depends on
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: how long it is. It depends. Well, we'll get to
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: what those numbers mean because some of them are a
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: little longer than others. If you want to talk about
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: the origin of just postal codes, it seems to be
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: from London because in eighteen fifty seven they started up
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: with ten different sections of London like North, South, WC, Western, Central,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: just and the whole point of all this is to
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: you know, it's called a zone improvement plan for a reason.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: It's to improve the way mail was delivered and just
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: to make it easier to sort and get out.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's whether it's eighteen fifty seven or twenty
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: twenty four. Zip codes and anything to do with zip
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: codes is something that's a consequence of more and more
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: people showing up into a more and more densely packed area.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It gets harder to deliver the mail the more people
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: there are. So if you can specify with greater detail,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you can make sure that that letter gets the right
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: person even faster, because if you just put the if
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you just put the address on there and throw it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: out into the street, it's going to take a while
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for it to get where it's going.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's basically what we did until July first,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three in the United States. We had you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the street number and street and then the city and
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the state, and that was it. It feels like it
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: would be very weird for my eyes to see an
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: address with that of zip code because we grew up
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: with them. But you know, if you're around before sixty three,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: it's sort of like us with the area codes now
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: on telephones, Like we grew up without area codes that
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: you had to dial first too.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: But there are forty one thousand, six hundred and forty
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: two zip codes in the United States. That number is
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: not necessarily always growing, because when I looked at the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: source material, they're actually more than there are now, So
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I guess they get combined or they shrink and things change. Sure,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: but right now there's, like I said, forty one thousand,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: six hundred and forty two.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing started back when a fresh faced,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: up and coming young postal inspector from Philadelphia named Robert
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Moon decided that it was time to improve the organization
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: at their mail center, and Moon came up with a
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: ZIP code for use in Philadelphia that was so sharp
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and so whiz bang that the USPS totally ripped them
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: off in fired him so that he couldn't tell anybody
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that they stole his idea.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I don't believe that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't. But he did come up with the concept
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of zip codes, and the USPS did take his idea
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and run with it. But I don't think that they
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: fired him and tried to shut him up. I think
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, great, great idea, kid.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. His only had three digits at first, so
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: he could identify sort of the region where it was
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: going and then the city basically will will get probably
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in the second half get to what they mean now.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: But I did mention it was an acronym for Zone
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Improvement Plan. They did get ZIP the USPS that has
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: got it trademarked, but they let it expire. I guess
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: when they realized that, like, what's anyone going to do
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: with the word zip? It really matters? You know?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah I don't. I don't get it at all. But yeah, so,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you wanted to use zip code yourself,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: then the Post Office is not going to sue you
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: for that because they can't.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: He's some hot merch.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So the before July first, nineteen sixty three when zip
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: codes debuted, and I'm sure for a while after until
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: people started using them, because it wasn't like an immediate
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like left hand driving day. Was it Sweden or Denmark?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Like that happened on a specific minute and it was
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: That's the way it was. From that moment on, zip
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: codes were introduced and it took a little while to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: catch on. But one of the reasons why zip codes
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: were introduced was again because more and more people were
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: moving into cities and at the time, if you mailed
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a piece of mail, it usually went through about seventeen
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: stops from where you dropped it off to where it
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: ended up, and zip codes help improve that because it
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: narrows the location that it's going to head toward on
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: its journey, and at each stop, the information located in
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the zip code tells the people at that stuff, Oh,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it needs to go this way, and then it needs
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to go that way, and it needs to go here,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and then now it needs to go to this specific address.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the zip codes should be first on the line
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: if you put it that way, you know.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, somebody really dropped the ball. I'm looking
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: at Robert Moon.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I guess they know where to look, though, Like you said,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: no one used it a lot at first, and it
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: had to gain steam. And one of the ways they
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you know, they got the PR team on it, the
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: marketing team on it, and they they had mister zip
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: or Zippy like you kind of joked about Jerry as
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: a little little character in the nineteen sixties and seventies
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: when they had new zip codes coming out, and they
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: even had ethel Merman do a commercial singing to the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: tune of Zippity DooDah to literally just sort of drive
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: the idea that like, hey, zip codes are here to stay.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Everyone get on board.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, honey, everything's coming. What movie is that from?
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I mean I want to say airplane.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was airplane. Somebody echecked her with a sedative
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: while she was singing it was great.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: and talk about how you decipher these things on all
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: those dumb numbers. Mean right after this, well, now we're
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: on the road, driving in your truck.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I want to learn a thing or two from josh Am. Chuck.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It's stuff you should know.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: All right, Okay, Chuck, it's time for the most contentious
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: part of this short stuff. We're going to talk about
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: deciphering those numbers in an American ZIP code It's own
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Improvement Plan code M. The first number is pretty non controversial.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: We're in agreement. That stands for the national area, and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: there's nine. No, there's ten national areas, number zero to nine.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Zero starts in the northeast, probably in honor of Robert Moon,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and then nine goes up the West coast, over to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Hawaii and up to Alaska. That's the first number. So
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: wherever that first number is, it's going to hit a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: specific region of the United States that's called the national area.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you hit it on it with region. That's
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the way people talk, and that's how people say it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's the first number. What about the second number?
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: The next two numbers.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: The next two numbers, they start drilling down even more.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So the next two are going to be that is
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: specifically the region.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Oh oh wait, but how can the first number and then
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the next two all be the region?
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Well, it drills down. You use that first number to
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: get you to the general region, and then you go
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: down to an even smaller region in the next two numbers.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, also called a sectional center.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the SCF right there on our page.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And then the sectional center can also be like a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: large city itself. Yeah, so sure nine is like California,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and two is Beverly Hills, maybe Los Angeles. Because the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: one to oh would be the next two numbers. That's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the actual post office that serves that area, or group
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: of post office that serve that delivery area.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And again it all depends on how big of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: an area you live in, because once you get to
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: the plus four system, which came about in nineteen eighty three,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: you're drilling down even more. Depending on how big of
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a place you live. The first two numbers of the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: plus four, which is separated by a dash from the
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: initial five the street or building, and then on the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: second or the last two numbers of the plus four,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: it can even go down to the side of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: street or the floor of building. So cool, as you'll see,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: if you have a building big enough, you will have
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: your own plus four, potentially with what floor of the
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: building that letter is going to go to.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, In other words, the United States Postal Service knows
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: exactly where you are.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: That's right. And there are plenty of buildings with their
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: own postal code, including I guess the champion of them all,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: which is the White House that has two zip codes.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, beat that, you can't do it. Apparently the President's family,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: their personal private mail has its own ZIP code, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: then there's the regular one for the White House.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Not just the White House. There's also, like you said,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: individual buildings. If it's a building big enough, it'll have
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: its own first two numbers of a plus four. My friend,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: there are buildings so big they have their own ZIP
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: code itself.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the Empire State Building obviously, the World
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Trade Center had its own ZIP code. Sacks. Fifth Avenue
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: in New York City even has its own zip code.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because sometimes it's not just big, it's important or
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: illustrious or glamorous. In the case of Sex.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Burning Man, this might be the fact of the show
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: for me. The Burning Man Festival has its own zip
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: code while it's for two weeks out of every summer.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty cool, huh.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Eight nine, four to one to two.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: They're sometimes they're very temporary too, you know how you said.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they grow, sometimes they retract the total number of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: zip codes.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: An example of that was in two thousand and five
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Oh yeah, and a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: lot of people ended up in Houston, and there were
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: so many there was such an influx of climate refugees
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: from New Orleans in Houston that they had to house
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: them in the Astrodome for a while, and to make
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: sure that those people could get mail and send mail,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: they were given their your own zip code for the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Houston Astrodome for a little.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: While seven seven two three.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: H Yeah, there's a bit of trivia for you.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: I grew up with three eight eight.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Oh. Mine was uh, let's see, Oh man, I wish
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you hadn't just said that, because now I don't remember mine.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Really, I figured that'd be sort of drilled in like
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: your home phone.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: No, I've got the rest of the address and my
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: home phone. It's just the zip code I can't remember.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Well, you could probably get it there.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And also it just doesn't matter. There is also another
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: way that they get pared down to is if your
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: town catches on fire for half a century. Oh sure,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: like in Centralia, Pennsylvania, where the famous coal fire has
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: been burning for decades now, the Postal Service said we're
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: throwing in the towel on you guys in nineteen ninety
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: two and revoke their zip code.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: The supposedly the wealthiest zip codes are seven six two
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: oh Alpine, New Jersey, which I got to look that up,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: but it just must be like a tony bedroom community
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: for New York or something.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Does not make any sense.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: And three three one oh nine Fisher Island, Florida. That
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: sounds very exclusive. It is not nine o two one
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: oh in Beverly Hills.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: No.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a lot of money there, but it's
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: not the wealthiest.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: No. Sorry, everybody, sorry to burst your bubble. Nine O
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: two one o fans.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I gotta figure out what's going on in Alpine, New Jersey.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for real, it's it's it's surprising. There's another thing too.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Remember you talked about the PR Department getting going on
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: getting people to use zip codes in the sixties. Yeah,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: one of the people they tapped was Santa Claus himself.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They gave Santa his own zip code nine ninety seven
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: oh one and said, little kids, if you want to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: send Latyers of Santa, that's Santa's new zip code, so
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: put it on there. It's pretty right. I remember specifically
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in one of our early Christmas holiday specials we talked
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: about how Canada gave Santa his for that country too,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And I think it's eight zero h zero h zero,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: so it spells ho ho ho oh.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Okay. So, by the way, in real time, I just
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: looked up Outpine, New Jersey real quick. Okay, fewer than
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: two thousand residents, but they're all rich.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of skewing the demo, you know what
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Stevie, wonder Jah, Rule,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Lil Kim. So. I thought it might be like Elon
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Musk lived in that county and that was the only
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: person or something. But it must just be a very
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: limited number of people and they're all loaded Tony.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it's like a per capita thing. That's
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: such a great use of that word. I like Tony,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: if you like Tony. Oh wait, I was gonna end
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: this like a regular episode. But it's not a regular episode, Chuck,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: which means that it just stops.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Stuff you should know.
• 13:53
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• 13:55
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