Okay folks, grabbed coffee and fired up the laptop yesterday because I needed clean zip code lists for some Long Island towns. Heard conflicting stuff about Huntington and Hempstead areas specifically. Figured I'd just pull all the data myself and see what's what.
Where I Started Digging
First, I went straight to the official town websites for Huntington and Hempstead. Hunted around their "resident resources" and "local services" sections like some kinda digital detective. Found PDFs and scattered HTML tables buried deep – took me forever. Copied everything into a text file, all messy with extra spaces and random commas.
Untangling the Mess
Opened up my trusty spreadsheet software – you know the one. Started pasting chunks from each town's data into separate sheets. Manually cleaned out headers like "Municipal District" and junk rows. Had to standardize everything because Huntington used dashes in zips like "11743-1234" but Hempstead didn't. Tossed those extras out. Ended up with raw number columns for each town.
Spotted some weirdness:
- Hempstead's list had two entries for 11550 – looked like a glitch.
- Huntington included 11790 but my buddy swears that's more Farmingdale territory.
- Some unincorporated areas were straight up missing in both lists.
Double-Checking My Work
Didn't trust just the town sites, so I pulled zip code maps from the local library's online reference section. Zoomed in street by street comparing borders. Bingo – found four borderline zips that overlapped neighboring towns. Added footnotes for those. Also confirmed that extra 11550 was indeed a duplicate and axed it.
What Finally Came Together
After cross-referencing everything, I merged all clean lists into one master spreadsheet. Color-coded Huntington blue, Hempstead green, and border zips in yellow. Final takeaways:
- Huntington's got tighter clusters – mostly 117xx range.
- Hempstead sprawls like crazy with multiple number groups.
- Both miss pocket neighborhoods near train lines.
Printed it out and pinned it next to my desk. Done wrestling with zip codes for at least six months. Next time someone argues about town boundaries? I'm slapping this list down.
