Since his election in 2001, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh has made it his mission to build a reputation for West Windsor as one of the best places to live in the country.##M:[more]##
That’s why it was especially disconcerting when at a recent national conference for mayors, Hsueh was announced as the mayor of Princeton Junction. “I was very embarrassed when that happened,” says Hsueh. “In some of the meetings that I have had at the national level, people have told me that there is no such place as West Windsor in New Jersey according to the post office.”
The problem in fostering a community identity is that as far as the United States Postal Service is concerned, West Windsor doesn’t exist, except as a secondary alias for the Princeton Junction post office.
That situation will be reversed if Hsueh has his way. West Windsor Council on Monday, November 21, will consider a resolution, submitted by Hsueh, that asks the Postal Service to officially change the Princeton Junction 08550 ZIP code to West Windsor.
But don’t go changing your stationery just yet. Customers in 08550 would still be allowed to use Princeton Junction as their address if the proposal being considered is approved. Princeton Junction would become an acceptable alias for the 08550 ZIP, just as West Windsor is an alias under the current ZIP code.
“We need to make a statement and have our own identity,” Hsueh says. “This community is maturing and there are a lot of things to be proud of in West Windsor. It’s important to get that message across. What our kids have been doing in our school district has been great for the last few years (WW-P has been recognized as one of the top in the state). It is for those kinds of reasons that we don’t need to be living under the shadow of Princeton.”
The current situation, where the Post Office lists Princeton Junction as the official address, but also allows West Windsor 08550, makes for a difficult situation, says Hsueh. “Through the whole community, people get confused. Some people use West Windsor and some use Princeton Junction. What is important here is that we start seeing West Windsor on national maps. If you look at maps now, there is no West Windsor. You see Princeton and Princeton Junction.”
Hsueh says the situation is even more confusing to outsiders. “Many years ago read I an article that indicated there are three Princetons — Princeton Township, Princeton Borough, and Princeton Junction in South Brunswick.”
Council initially took up the issue on October 24 and voted 3-1 to table the resolution to allow for further discussion. Several members of council said they were uncomfortable voting on the issue, which was up before council the first time that night, without getting input from residents and allowing them a chance to comment.
Proof that the issue is a sensitive one can be seen on the wwptoday.com website, where several discussion threads on the issue have been started.
“I know where I live. I do not need to change the post office name to remind me,” says one poster on the site opposed to the name change. “My identity comes from within not from some post office name. I agree that the time of the council and mayor can be better spent on more important issues. This is a token payment on the vision of a sense of place and has little to do with a sense of identity. These little superficial changes are no substitute for real unification and the feeling of community. Those are personal issues that can not be cured by renaming a post office, nor achieved through council resolution.”
But says a poster who supports the change, “New Princeton wannabes can still use Princeton Junction. You can still tell people that you live in Princeton Junction. While my house is located in Princeton Junction I use West Windsor as a mailing address. A junction is a train station. Princeton Junction is the station that serves Princeton. If I wanted to be associated with Princeton I would move there. Our school system is West Windsor, not Princeton Junction, and it seems to attract more interest than the schools in Princeton.”
The township’s history in trying to get the Post Office to officially recognize West Windsor as a single entity is long and convoluted.
Before 1998, West Windsor was divided into seven different ZIP codes — Cranbury (08512), Hightstown (08520), Lawrenceville (08648), Princeton Junction (08550), Princeton (08540), Robbinsville (08691), and Hamilton Square (08690).
For decades, the township unsuccessfully tried to convince postal officials to consolidate the township into one ZIP code. Part of the problem was that postmasters were paid based on the number of addresses they serve. A consolidation of West Windsor ZIPs would affect the pocketbooks of seven different postmasters.
Another problem was that the Princeton Junction post office was too small to handle the additional mail that a consolidated ZIP would bring. At the time, the Junction post office was located in the small shopping center near the corner of Route 571 and Cranbury Road in the spot where Dominos Pizza is currently located.
In the mid-1990s, township officials devised a plan that would provide a post office building big enough to handle the mail generated by a unified West Windsor ZIP. A three-way deal was reached between the township, county, and the Post Office that provided a solution.
At the time, Mercer County was planning an expansion of the West Windsor branch library at the township municipal site. Under the deal, the Post Office leased and renovated the old library building for a new Princeton Junction post office. The money from the lease was then added to the funds that the county had earmarked for a library expansion, and a new library building was constructed on land provided by the township.
Now that the township had a building big enough to handle the additional mail flow, the independent Princeton Junction Postal Advisory Council — comprised of township volunteers — began to work with postal officials to find a way to bring about a unified ZIP code.
The biggest hurdle to unification was the Princeton ZIP code.
In order for a ZIP code consolidation to take place, a survey of all postal customers in the community — residential and commercial — would have to be conducted, and the majority of those affected would have to approve the change. Officials believed that opposition from customers in the Princeton ZIP code to having their addresses changed would be enough to make the survey fail.
Customers with Princeton mailing addresses include residents living in Penns Neck and Canal Pointe, as well as businesses on Route 1, including Carnegie Center and Nassau Park; Alexander Road; and Roszel Road.
The chances for success of the survey rose dramatically in 1997, when postal regulations changed to allow customers in the Princeton ZIP code to keep their addresses.
Under the new rules, the township came up with a consolidation proposal that called for the six of the seven ZIP codes in West Windsor — leaving out Princeton — to be unified into the Princeton Junction ZIP code. The proposal also allowed the use of “West Windsor” as an alias for the 08550 ZIP.
In addition to Princeton, postal customers in the Princeton Junction ZIP code also were not surveyed because their addresses were not going to be changed.
The consolidation was approved by the Postal Service in March, 1998, following an overwhelming response to the survey. Some 93 percent voted in favor of the ZIP code change. The number of survey returns also met the Post Office’s requirement of an 85 percent response rate.
According to Hsueh, the 08550 ZIP was not changed to West Windsor at the time of the unification because it would be too difficult to update postal records. “Because of administrative difficulties, they couldn’t change the name right away. The system was in the process of being computerized.”
Today the post office has the technology. Hsueh says he has spoken to Princeton Junction Postmaster Suzanne Hutchinson and officials at higher levels. All are agreeable to the change as long as they receive a request in the form of a resolution from the township council.
Hutchinson said she was not supposed to comment on the matter and referred calls to Thomas Dula, Post Office manager of delivery and customer service programs in New Brunswick.
Dula says the Post Office met with Hsueh and other township officials in August about the change, and was agreeable to the request. “We wanted a resolution to make sure the change was discussed publicly. We wanted the township to put it out there. We didn’t want a situation where we did something, and then had 900 people complaining about it.”
According to Dula, if the change is approved, it would take between 30 to 45 days to take effect.
The mayor’s latest initiative mirrors a similar move last month in which he convinced New Jersey Transit to change the sign at the train station to read “Princeton Junction Station at West Windsor.”
When visitors get off the train, they should know that they are in West Windsor Township, says Hsueh, pointing out that Princeton Junction is just one of seven communities that are contained in West Windsor. Others include Clarksville, Edinburg, Dutch Neck, Grovers Mill, Penns Neck, and Port Mercer.
“The train station was located in Princeton Junction in the 1930s, and I wanted to keep the history (with the name on the sign),” says Hsueh. “But people should know they are not in Princeton, they are in West Windsor.”
