"Upstate New York" What does it mean to you?

[Lamar_Mundane]

What does “Upstate New York” mean to an average American?

About the same as Nebraska or North Dakota does. We know it exists, and that people live there and that there are some cities, but beyond that, nobody really cares. If they happen to be there, there might be some attractions to visit like Niagara Falls or the Baseball Hall of Fame, but does anyone from outside the area ever plan a vacation there?

Anywhere in NY outside of NYC is a place that you go because you have to, not because you want to.

[Little_Nemo]

My husband spent a summer painting houses in Rochester and goes on and on about Sal’s Bird Land. It’s some chicken place with a good hot sauce and chicken served over white bread. This mean anything to you Rochester folks?

I used to eat there all the time (usually at the one on Monroe). Although I’d usually get the shrimp rather than the chicken. Loved the sauce - it was mustard-based rather than tomato.

[elmwood]

@Lamar Mundane

About the same as Nebraska or North Dakota does. We know it exists, and that people live there and that there are some cities, but beyond that, nobody really cares.

Proof of that can be found in the travel section of any bookstore. Travel books for … oh, let’s say New Mexico, will showcase every city and significant small town in the state; it’s not all Santa Fe. If you happen to find one of the rate New York State guide books among the hundreds of New York City-specific tomes, though, about 75% of the content will still be about NYC. You’d be lucky if there’s more than a couple of pages on Syracuse, Rochester or Buffalo. Anchor Bar, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Niagara Falls, Roycrofters in East Aurora, Allentown and Elmwood Village, snow, and on to the index. The ratio of pages-per-capita is far higher for NYC-related content than for other parts of the state.

[What_Exit]

@Lamar Mundane

What does “Upstate New York” mean to an average American?

About the same as Nebraska or North Dakota does. We know it exists, and that people live there and that there are some cities, but beyond that, nobody really cares. If they happen to be there, there might be some attractions to visit like Niagara Falls or the Baseball Hall of Fame, but does anyone from outside the area ever plan a vacation there?

Anywhere in NY outside of NYC is a place that you go because you have to, not because you want to.

Well, I been to Millerton many times, Boonville several times, Rome and Cooperstown. I visited caverns, I love the beauty of the upper Hudson. I have sailed the Hudson between West Point and Poughkeepsie.

I might not count though as I used car or train for my trips and only came from Central Jersey.

Jim

[CalMeacham]

Quote:
My husband spent a summer painting houses in Rochester and goes on and on about Sal’s Bird Land. It’s some chicken place with a good hot sauce and chicken served over white bread. This mean anything to you Rochester folks?

I used to eat there all the time (usually at the one on Monroe). Although I’d usually get the shrimp rather than the chicken. Loved the sauce - it was mustard-based rather than tomato.

As I mention above, what makes it is the sauce – Sal’s and Country Sweet and the now-gone Smitty’s had the same basic sauce (as does Boss Sauce, which AFAIK isn’t associated with any restaurant or chain). It’s sweet at first, then sneaks up on you with a surprisingly hard hot sting. Great stuff.

I never understood the white bread part – Sal’s just used straight out-of-the-package white bread, like Wonder Bread. If he’d used something with a little more taste and body it would’ve been something, but that whitebread white bread was just there to prop up the chicken and sop up some sauce.

[Ludovic]

@What Exit?

Beats being in Jersey, everyone knows we are nothing but cities, sprawl and factories belching out smoke and now the Mafia.

Heh, a guy at my other job was from Jersey, claimed to know some Mafia people, had an Italian name and sort of stereotypical accent, with pictures of Jersey Shore-style entertainment on his work walls. Guess what kind of car he drove?

[Saratoga_Sam]

I always thought of “Upstate” as a political term dating from the 19th Century, defining the Republican-dominated state capital (Albany) as opposed to the state’s other main power base, Democratic controlled NYC. It’s geographic delimitation makes sense only in relation to sailing up the Hudson River from NYC.

[bouv]

Actually, I wonder if there’s a simple definition we can all agree on:

Is there a Resnick’s Mattress Outlet anywhere near you? If so, you’re upstate.

[Zoe]

Lamar Mundane: Anywhere in NY outside of NYC is a place that you go because you have to, not because you want to.

I used to think that until my stepson bought a house in the Adirondacks and invited us to come up for a visit from Tennessee. Let me tell you, Lamar, New Yorkers have this big secret that they want to keep all to themselves.

There is this vast expanse of pristine wilderness where no tacky sign or billboard or Walmart is allowed to intrude. It is clean and natural and quiet. It smells innocent. There are lakes and forests and wild animals. You have to know where you are going to find a restaurant, but when you eat there the food is righteous.

If it is autumn and you have to leave – for no one would ever go unless it was a “have to” situation – take Route 2 across Vermont and New Hampshire. It will offer some consolation.

[OtakuLoki]

Dammit, Zoe. You know the rules.
Now we have to take your name off the vacation lottery for the next five years.

[Siam_Sam]

I’ve always considered “upstate New York” to mean everywhere in the state outside of New York City, whether it’s “up” or not. By the same token, “upcountry” in Thailand is definitely considered everywhere outside of Bangkok, even going south down the Malay Peninsula.

[What_Exit]

@Siam Sam

I’ve always considered “upstate New York” to mean everywhere in the state outside of New York City, whether it’s “up” or not. By the same token, “upcountry” in Thailand is definitely considered everywhere outside of Bangkok, even going south down the Malay Peninsula.

Long Island, just cannot be considered Upstate no matter what.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

We’re not Upstate; we’re on the North Coast.

Don’t believe it? Just wait through a few more years of drought and the millions who fled the area for the south and west will be on their knees, begging us to take them back so they can drink of our limitless fresh water. You’ll see downtown boom then, lemme tell ya.

(There’s a light jazz radio station in Rochester called the North Coast. Of course, Cleveland has one as well. Think Mexico has border issues now? What about all the water-wanting illegals taking boats across from Canada? We live in interesting times.)

The correct answer is the anti-Treis. Upstate is everything north of NYC.

Have you ever read articles on mental maps? The maps that people have in their heads consist of important places and their relationships, which the less important places dotted on the maps in fuzzy splotches. That’s what the Upstate/Downstate map looks like from Lake Ontario.

NYC is the big black hole in the southeast corner. Traffic, crowding, shopping, Broadway, rich people, bohemians, mafia types. Yonkers, Westchester, White Plains, all suburbs are fuzz along with the New Rochelle that Dick van Dyke lived in. If we have to think about it, they’re NY fuzz, not ours, but we don’t think about it.

Western New York looks over at Eastern New York because Albany has the capitol and the politicians are always given upstate tax money away to downstate, while the downstate money never gets up past Albany. That’s a big red X on our map. Hate Albany. It’s not Upstate, not North Coast. It’s a turncoat which works with the enemy. So there’s no east/west thing going. It’s all north/south. The Catskills are yours too. Even the Jews are leaving them and never coming back.

The rest of the state barely exists except in flashes. Chautauqua flashes in the summer. Ithaca carries weight during the school year. Corning gets 1 million people to the Museum of Glass. That raises attention. Ugly, decrepit Albany brings up all those politicians who can’t stand being in Albany and can’t wait to get back down the thruway. Saratoga Springs bleeds off rich tourists. Buffalo has two major league sports franchises, putting them only around 16 behind NYC.

Someday the answer will come. Parts of the state have wanted to secede for decades. When the country falls apart - not far away now since the Canadians have money and can control our electricity - we’ll see where the split is. We"ll see how many splits. I still wanna be North Coast. We’re way more like Canada than The City, in its pretentious caps.

So still want to know where NYC ends? (Not downstate.) Where the last Trader Joe’s ends, in Hartdale. Where the last Whole Foods store ends, in White Plains. Everything above there we are not worthy even to covet. Leave us our white hots and our garbage plates and inedible chicken parts in bluecheese sauce and our grape pies and spiedie sauce and stores that open only on Friday’s to make fish and chips . Know what keeps us two separate worlds?

Our breath.

Our poverty.

Our lack of sophistication.

Our niceness.

We’re incompatible. And we like it that way.

[Equipoise]

@Lamar Mundane

Anywhere in NY outside of NYC is a place that you go because you have to, not because you want to.

Oooh, I wanted to be there! As a midwestern gal, born and bred, I’ve traveled from Chicago to "Upstate NY "specifically to see my lady Happy perform. Twice, even. She was born (at the time when Happy Rockefeller was First Lady of New York) in Poughkeepsie (I had to learn how to spell that because I put it on FAQs and Wikipedia pages), went to school in Wappinger Falls, started her career in the Albany area, recorded most of her albums in Rensselaer (had to learn how to spell THAT too, yikes!), performed in Albany (saw her there once), Saratoga Springs, and Troy (saw her there another time), lived in various places in that area including Schenectady (another spelling exercise), and Woodstock too, and even wrote a gorgeous song about Tivoli. It’s hilarious to me how everything I know about “Upstate NY” I learned from being Happy Rhodes fan.

When I made a MySpace page for her I put “New York” on the location, but got lots of people making NYC references, so I changed it to Upstate NY, even though now she lives on a farm in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the central part of the state, about 50 miles west of Cooperstown. I don’t know what that area is called. “Upstate” is still easier to say even though on the map it looks like the middle of Siberia to me. No decent-sized cities ANYWHERE within any kind of reasonable distance. I’d go nuts, but I guess it suits her low-key style.

Anyway, I liked the Hudson Valley. Both trips I took a train from NYC and it was beautiful scenery all the way, with the Amtrak traveling alongside the Hudson River almost the entire distance.

The other, non-Hap related time I’ve been in “Upstate NY” was when I was delivering cars for a living. I had a car that needed to go to Boston, so my husband went with me and we made it a mini-vacation. Prior to the trip, I’d been to 45 of the 50 states. The last 3 mainland states I hadn’t been to were Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. I planned a route that would take me on I-90 all the way across New York state to Albany, then local roads through Vermont, New Hampshire and the southern tip of Maine (Ogunquit, as a die-hard fan of The Stand, I had to visit Ogunquit), then south to Boston. I remember that being a wonderful trip (at least until I had to drive in Boston). I got to see Niagra Falls which I had been to as a kid but didn’t remember it very well.

I have nothing but fond memories of/feelings toward New York state (and New York City too).

[Siam_Sam]

@What Exit?

Long Island, just cannot be considered Upstate no matter what.

I know it’s not “up” as in north, but if it’s outside of NYC, that’s what I’ve always considered it. Same as southern Thailand being “upcountry.”

[Count_Blucher]

You someone going “up state” isn’t a euphemism for serving a stretch in Ossining?

I might owe a few people some apologies…
Which is a shame, because it explained Pataki nicely. =d&r=

[Lamar_Mundane]

@Zoe

I used to think that until my stepson bought a house in the Adirondacks and invited us to come up for a visit from Tennessee. Let me tell you, Lamar, New Yorkers have this big secret that they want to keep all to themselves.

There is this vast expanse of pristine wilderness where no tacky sign or billboard or Walmart is allowed to intrude. It is clean and natural and quiet. It smells innocent. There are lakes and forests and wild animals. You have to know where you are going to find a restaurant, but when you eat there the food is righteous.

If it is autumn and you have to leave – for no one would ever go unless it was a “have to” situation – take Route 2 across Vermont and New Hampshire. It will offer some consolation.

Yes, I’ve been there. And I’ve been to Northern Michigan, and N. Wisconsin, and N. Minnesota, and the Western parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, and West Virginia. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are the same. Most of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are quieter and much more spectacular.

Nothing against Upstate New York, but it isn’t any different from the rest of the U.S. I think people use the “New York” as a wedge to trick people into thinking it is any different from the areas directly surrounding it. If you put Buffalo and Rochester in a neighboring state, 50% fewer people would be able to identify them. “New York” means one thing to most Americans, and it ain’t Onandaga.

[jimmmy]

I think of 1/2 the yellow in wiki’s definition

[saoirse]

I always considered Upstate to be “Our Side of the Catskills.” Rochester, I think, is not so much a city as it is a small town with a thyroid condition. That’s one of the things that makes it so pleasant. I personally live in a neighborhood off South Clinton Avenue, and I don’t think I’d choose to live anywhere else. It’s never going to be Williamsburg (or is it Kensington this year?), but it’s still pretty cool.