Once upon a time, Hyde Park was its own town. Then, in 1912, Boston annexed it. And then Mattapan annexed part of it—at least according to the federal government. After much wrangling and petition-gathering and explaining why this had to be, the feds are giving that part back to Hyde Park: The area bordered by Wood Avenue on the west and Greenfield Road on the east, north of Milton, will soon join Hyde Park's 02136 zip code.
And, lest you think this is merely an attempt by residents there to set themselves apart from Mattapan, well ... you'd be right. But they have their reasons:
According to the state Division of Insurance, premiums generally run higher in Mattapan than they do in Hyde Park. And drivers living in the Mattapan ZIP code could pay about $300 more annually for car insurance than their neighbors over the border, even just across the street ... According to the Warren Group, the median sale price for a single-family home in Mattapan last year was $200,000, compared with $279,000 in Hyde Park.
“I have had so many houses where the deed said Hyde Park but the post office said Mattapan, and the buyers would not even look at them,’’ said Pat Tierney, a longtime real estate broker who works in both neighborhoods.
There you have it: the ZIP changeover for 1,655 Hyde Park addresses will come on July 1, only the second time ever that a Boston code has been switched.