My month in New York

My take on New York

I'm somewhat hampered in drawing conclusions because I didn't get within 30 miles of New York City, where the vast majority of the state's population lives.

Despite that drawback, my impression is that New York is actually 2 states: the City, and everything else.  Outside the NYC metropolitan area, this is a state with mostly small towns.  There are a few actual cities - Buffalo, for example, and Albany - and a few other places that act like cities but have town-size populations - Syracuse and Ithaca, for example.  The rest of the state consists of towns, villages, hamlets - and that's what they're actually called.

When I asked people what they liked best about where they lived, I almost always got either "the weather" or "the people" or "how nice it is to live in a small town."  Several people told me they hated where they were living and wanted to live almost anywhere else, which surprised me.  But mostly I got the first kind of responses.

The people who seemed the happiest about where they were living were those in the Finger Lakes region.  They liked the scenery or the small towns or the out-of-doors opportunities.  And I have to say it is certainly a very scenic and laid-back area.

People talked about what was happening in state and local government but rarely mentioned NYC and didn't seem interested in it.  It's possible that, in turn, people who live in NYC know almost nothing about the rest of the state and it doesn't bother them that they don't.

NYC is staggeringly enormous; city government must have a budget and complications that dwarf those of the state government.  I'd think they might want to consider letting New York City become its own state, if it weren't that Long Island - most of which isn't part of the City - would be cut off from the rest of the state.  On the other hand, the state would become instantly impoverished without taxes from the City residents.  It's really a very odd situation.

Because of the combination of scenery and people and general vibes, my favorites were the Buffalo area and the Finger Lakes region and Albany.  Statewide people were generally pleasant, but in some way I can't put my finger on, they weren't as welcoming and hospitable and just pleasant as the folks in Pennsylvania.  The exceptions were in the 3 areas I liked the best, and that may be part of why I did.


What I didn't see that I wanted to see

Well, of course, there's the entire New York City.  I would love to spend at least a week there but even a day was absolutely impossible, traveling with animals as I am.  I can't even consider leaving the dogs in the RV all day, and Jasper would undoubtedly start yowling at some point, opening me up to possible animal cruelty concerns by others.  The only way I can figure to do it would be to board them somewhere outside the City and then take a train in every day.  Leaving aside the expense, I think it would be traumatic to the critters, especially the cats who have stayed overnight away from home only when they were having veterinary procedures.  It just couldn't be done.

Fortunately, I've been to the City several times very briefly in the past, and since this trip is about seeing things I haven't seen before it seemed okay to give it a miss.  But another time I'd love to make it work.  And missing the City meant I had to miss Long Island too.  But I've been all down the island long ago and, while I feel confident it's not the same mostly rural, agricultural place it was in the 1980s, at least it's not a place I've never been to.

Outside the City, in no particular order, here are places I'd hoped to see but just didn't get to:

• Boscobel mansion, near FDR's home, is a masterpiece of Federalist architecture that was torn down in the 1950s, and local residents bought the pieces from the wrecking crew and stored them in their garages until enough money was raised for restoration.
• West Point, which houses the largest and oldest military collection in the Western Hemisphere.
• Catskill Mountains - I was only on the edges of them and would like to spend more time there.
• The Thousand Islands region in the St. Lawrence River - I never even got up/over there and wish I could have.
• Ogdensburg has a Frederick Remington Art Museum that I wanted to visit.
• The International Museum of Photography in Rochester was closed because they were working on new displays while I was in the area, and sometime I'd like to go.
• The Ganondaga State Historical Site/Seneca Art and Culture Center, also the Seneca-Iroquois Museum in Salamanca - it seemed like every time I tried to learn something about the Senecas, I got stopped one way or another.  Next trip I'd like to visit both.
• New York has wine districts that I would love to patronize sometime, just not in an RV.  Lake Erie, the Finger Lakes, and the Hudson River Valley all have thriving wineries and vineyards.  The Lake Erie area claims to be the grape juice capital of the world.
• Platter's Chocolate Factory in Buffalo - actually North Tonawanda - where their specialty is sponge candy (which actually sounds awful to me but is adored by many up here and, anyway, it is a chocolate factory if I don't like the sponges).
• Howe Caverns, not far from Cooperstown, is the 2nd most visited attraction in the state, and I'm mainly interested because it was discovered by Mr. Howe's cows.
• Skaneateles (pronounced skinny atlas) is a resort town at the head of Skaneateles Lake in the Finger Lakes region; I want to go mainly because of the odd name, but I'm sure it's as nice as the rest of the district.
• The Jell-O Museum not far from Lake Erie in LeRoy.  I actually like Jell-O and would have really enjoyed this place but just couldn't get there.