Talk:New York, NY

Isn't it a little strange that New York, NY redirects to Manhatten but New York, New York redirects to New York City?--70.123.155.120 02:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed. It's sometimes confusing because, due to historical and logistical reasons, the postal address "New York, NY" is for Manhattan only, but in all other cases since 1898 "New York, New York" refers to the entire city. For that reason the template "Redir from US postal ab" can be misleading in this case. Station1 (talk) 21:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

What are your sources? "NY" is a USPS abbreviation. So it has to mean what USPS uses it for. What are the other cases?

https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupResultsAction!input.action?resultMode=0&companyName=&address1=111+Atlantic+Avenue&address2=&city=Brooklyn&state=NY&urbanCode=&postalCode=&zip=

https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupResultsAction!input.action?resultMode=0&companyName=&address1=111+Atlantic+Avenue&address2=&city=New+York%2C+NY&state=NY&urbanCode=&postalCode=&zip= — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackie2541 (talk • contribs) 06:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I get where you're coming from. It's true "NY" is one of the USPS standard state abbreviations.  Like all the two-letter abbreviations (MN, AK, TN, etc), they were originally intended for automated mail processing and were not "official" for other purposes.  But over time many people began to use them as general state abbreviations.  That's especially true with the ones like NY as use of periods in abbreviations slowly went out of fashion.  Coupled with fact that the New York Post Office serves only Manhattan, "New York, NY" can be ambiguous: as a post office name it relates to Manhattan but as a city name it refers to the five boroughs. (NYC has 8 main post offices, due to its size and history, which I think is unique in the nation, although it's not uncommon that post office service areas do not exactly match municipal boundaries.)  So now "New York, NY" in a postal address definitely means Manhattan, but otherwise it might mean New York City, depending on context.  My main concern right now is that there are many hundreds of wikilinks to New York, NY that sometimes might intend Manhattan, sometimes might intend New York City, but rarely if ever intend to point to an article about a postal address.  If you want to fix all those links, an article about the New York Post Office might be justified (but even then New York Post Office might be a better title). Station1 (talk) 02:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * FWIW, there's a similar issue with a newly created article on L.A. See Talk:Los Angeles.   Will Beback    talk    02:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)