Why do Queens addresses have hyphened numbers? CBS New York learns the history of the borough's unconventional street grid
NEW YORK - Behind the scenes at the Jamaica Main Post Office, mail carriers sort the day's thousands of deliveries.
Though mastered by experienced mail carriers, these Queens routes might be among the most complicated in the city.
In a borough where 39th Avenue, 39th Street, 39th Road and 39th Place coexist, the layout can be downright mystifying. The written address also has its quirks; unlike for Brooklyn and the Bronx, the neighborhood is specified instead of the borough.
And then, there's the mysterious hyphen between numbers. Why is it there? What does it do?
It's a little mark with a big history, dating back to the creation of the borough at the turn of the 20th century.
"It's normally called the Consolidation of 1898 where Queens got incorporated into the city," Acting Postmaster of Jamaica Khalil Wilson said.
Villages became neighborhoods, joining Manhattan in adopting a grid system with space built in for rapid growth.
"The wiggle room in between a street — now you can add a terrace or a place, and within the avenues, you can add a road or a drive," he said.
A jingle from the early 1900s aimed to clear things up:
"In Queens, to find locations best
Avenues, roads and drives run west;
But ways to north or south 'tis plain
Are street or place or even lane."
Writing the neighborhood on letters helped organize what was now the biggest borough by far. The hyphen is a tool as well — the numbers in front indicate the nearest cross-street, while the numbers after the hyphen are the house building number.
For Frank Annunziata, a USPS mail carrier since 1979, the unusual layout is just another source of the Queens pride he feels, no matter where his mail truck may take him.
"You can take the boy out of Queens, but you can't take the Queens out of the boy," he said.
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