Daily Blague

The news that Upper East Side ZIP Code 10021 will be broken up did not reach me in time to invest in Dempsey & Carroll, or any of the other stationers who will make a bundle between now and July, when the change goes into effect. Joe mentioned it yesterday - he'll still be "in the two-one" after the switch - but, according to this morning's Times, the story broke in Monday's Sun. Do you know anybody who reads the New York Sun?

The new ZIP Codes will be 10065 (60th-69th Streets) and 10075 (76th-80th Streets). The sloppy fingerprints of underpaid, inexpert bureaucrats are all over the move. The tripartition ought to have been vertical, with 10021 running its current length while stretching from Fifth Avenue only as far as Lexington. Few millionaires would be complaining in that case. The third ZIP Code ought to have been reserved for the New York Hospital/Rockefeller University complex along the river.

But that's not how it's going to work. Thousands of upstanding New Yorkers are going to be de-cacheted.

"The truth is, there are some people whose whole identity is their ZIP code," said Michele Kleier, the president of the real estate brokerage Gumley Haft Kleier.

"I don't think that everybody is going to move out of 80th Stree, but obviously this is the most famous and most desired ZIP code in the city and in America," she said.

[Gay] Talese said, "The first thing you think of is your stationery. "

Well, he is a writer.

Those who worry that their property values may plummet when they're exiled to 10065 and 10075 may just have to think outside the box. Outside the house, anyway.