New York, New York
February 22, 2008 | Filed under: Humdrum, This side of the Hudson
“Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” ~Charles Kuralt
When I lived outside of New York and a non-New Yorker would ask where I was from, I would reply with a mere ‘New York’ and leave it at that. Of course then the natural assumption is New York City and I found perfectly fine to either correct that person or just smile and shrug and lament on the traffic on the West Side Highway.
If a straight up New Yorker asked me of my origins, there is no way in hell to give a simple answer. They want to know the county or the area code or whether or not you reside somewhere above Rockland County because anything above Rockland County – if say the person asking is from below Rockland County – is considered Upstate. And when responding Upstate it’s good to have a cache of comebacks relating to weather or cow tipping or OMFG where do you catch a cab?!
Sometimes the state doesn’t feel that large and other times I am amazed at the corners of the state that I’ve never stepped foot in. ‘Homogeneous’ would be the last word used to describe the inhabitants. A person from downstate will wax philosophical about how people from ‘upstate’ aren’t real New Yorkers. (Which of course begs the question ‘Why do you talk so proper?’ I talk ‘proper’ because I’m from Upstate New York and this is how everyone talks. But I digress.) And a person from so far upstate that they can see the RCMP three blocks away, can easily find Syracuse to be cosmopolitan, Albany to be ‘too damn big’ and New York will cause all five of their senses to spontaneously combust.
On a trip to Watertown yesterday, I found that there are places that look like a scene out of Deliverance and half expected for someone with a banjo to come busting out of the snow covered trees. That’s how New York is; one end of the state leaves me puzzled because there should probably be a log cabin right about here. Then there’s the other end with Rockefeller Center and the Anthropologie from Heaven. With bars and restaurants that stay open until the wee hours of the morning and the ketel one, pomegranate martinis flow like water.
I live somewhere in the middle. I’m getting used to this gray area of a town where on one corner there is a JCrew and on the next there’s a horse farm. I know I grew up here but I feel like I either missed so much, forgot all of it due to rail gin or blocked it all out to save my sanity. I can’t say that I’m ready to accept my lot in life and living in a place where an exciting night out is the bar at the Crowne Plaza. Maybe one day, I’ll be perfectly OK with it all but after yesterday’s drive to the North Country and the current gray skies and impending doom of an apocalyptic ice storm; that day will not be today.
Suzanne says:
Born and raised on Long Island. I know what you mean. I was lucky, my dad felt it was important to travel everywhere so we would go up to Albany. A sister moved to Buffalo and the road trip was very cool.
Then I moved to Western Maryland. It took a few years to adapt. No sooner did I that I was in Laurel and working in Rockville. Now, I’m in Florida, work in a city, but have a farm across the street.
As I get older, I find it’s less about where you live and more about the people around you. I moved here for the family connections that mattered. Now, I’ll move again-if one family member moves off Long Island.
Enjoy the dichotomy of your town. It makes it interesting.
Lawyerish says:
I hate to tell you, Heather B., but Rockland County is Upstate, too!
She Likes Purple says:
You know, after reading this all I can think about is visiting that Anthropologie.
aj says:
Amen.
I grew up in Syracuse, was schooled in Ithaca, and spent a chunk of time in the city. Now, living outside of New York State, I struggle to explain the diversity that is my home state. What can you do but love it?
Lissa says:
Oh how I miss that Anthropologie. Tears just thinking about it.
kat says:
Watertown is pretty dismal. I grew up on the western side of the state, but it took me years before I accepted calling it “upstate”. As an “upstater”, it is also my duty to complain about a lack of Wegmans in the capital district.
TheSpectrum says:
Word to this whole post. I grew up on LI too, went to college in Buffalo and dated a boy in Watertown. “I half expected for someone with a banjo to come busting out of the snow covered trees.” Wow. Just. Yeah. That is a log cabin town if I’ve ever seen one. Pretty in the summer though.
~Laura
nopasanada says:
I’m just now realizing that all of this makes very little sense if you aren’t from New York. Because only New Yorkers understand that being forced to go further upstate, in February, is probably a recipe for disaster. But the City in February is perfectly fine.
Also, the junior Senator from Illinois once asked me where I was from and I said Upstate NY. His exact reply was “It’s Cooooold up there”. To which I replied “Chicago isn’t exactly tropical”. And that is my junior Senator from Illinois story. The end.
Bone says:
I want a Watertown Red & Black t-shirt now.
Thanks.
Miss W says:
Funny…I grew up in the midwest and was guilty of assuming that all NY was the city. And then one day I met a nice formerly-Jewish boy from Sullivan County. We got married and moved to Poughkeepsie, but spent much time on the Hudson line into the city. And then we were sick of Poughkeepsie and his commute to Westchester every day. So we moved to Rochester. Which, seriously…once you get as far north as Kingston, it sort of ceases to be the same state. This far west? Not even close to the similar to downstate!
Camels & Chocolate says:
OMG, I LOVE the Anthropologie at 30 Rock. The sales floor kicks ass, too. Next time I make it back NYC, you know where to find me.
metalia says:
Oh, this is all so true. (Now why don’t you come back downstate soon so we can hit up the Anthropologie at 30 Rock?)
anne says:
I’m a fairly recent transplant to NY (by way of Ohio and then New England). I live in the Hudson Valley, and I used to find it so odd that everyone knew the county they lived in. I only knew my own county in Ohio, and never really figured out my county in NH. Now I find myself making statements and generalizations about counties as if I’d been doing it all my life! I also find the definition of “upstate NY” very strange. It seems to me that anything north of Westchester Co. is upstate, which is really quite silly. Maybe NYC, Westchester, and Long Island should secede?
The thing about counties is funny because where you and I would know of Westchester, Kings, Suffolk and Nassau but normally if I ask someone from Kings county about Jefferson County they look at me like I have 9 heads and a thumb where my eyeball should be.
anne says:
p.s. I live in Ulster county, just to give you some reference.
Jen says:
I’m thinking that you and I live frighteningly close to one another because I know all about thrilling nights out at the Crowne Plaza.
By the way, hi! I’ve never commented before, but I’ve seen you in The Working Closet and finally linked to you from Stara’s blog.