The Official Argue About Where Upstate NY Is Thread

[gravitylover]

Quite popular in West Virginia and Ohio valley area as well. Dicarlos pizza has a square type slice of pizza with cold shredded provolone. I’m a pizza maven from former work travel. New haven is tops, but pizza Bianco in Phoenix is great, of course di fara in Brooklyn is great also, but I digress.
That cold cheese shredded dicarlos is A plus in my book.

I've never found pizza in New Haven to be anything special but I really don't know where to go, I've only tried a few suggested spots in the College Street area.

[m2711c]

Socially distancing in the front yard.

[m2711c]

upstate culinary secrets revealed by the Deep State....

[glademaster]

I love a good tomato pie! There was a pizza place in Alpha, NJ that my family frequented when I was in middle school that made a fucking stellar tomato pie. The owner also looked exactly like Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons.

[Peruvian]

Maybe S. VT. I haven't eaten up in Burlington but a few times.

All you need to know is people think the Man Of Kent is good food before crossing over the border.

Most folks in S VT never cross into Upstate NY.

Not that anything is open and apparently NY/NJ visitors brought the covid to Zippy over the holiday, but try Silver Fork, Chantecleer, the Chop House, Harry’s, or even JJ Hapgood for a meal. Don’t expect good service or reasonable prices, but the food is good.

For all you bag on SVT, it’s like you have never been there sometimes.

[rideit]

upstate culinary secrets revealed by the Deep State....

I think I’d rather have some Utica Greens on the side with a proper slice...

[Timberridge]

Most folks in S VT never cross into Upstate NY.

Not that anything is open and apparently NY/NJ visitors brought the covid to Zippy over the holiday, but try Silver Fork, Chantecleer, the Chop House, Harry’s, or even JJ Hapgood for a meal. Don’t expect good service or reasonable prices, but the food is good.

For all you bag on SVT, it’s like you have never been there sometimes.

Hold on a bloody minute. You left for greener pastures upstate, and I see plenty of VT plates at the Price Chopper in Granville, NY. And there's a steady stream of VT plates heading home on 7 from Albany at 5 pm on workdays.

[Brownski]

Hold on a bloody minute. You left for greener pastures upstate, and I see plenty of VT plates at the Price Chopper in Granville, NY. And there's a steady stream of VT plates heading home on 7 from Albany at 5 pm on workdays.

I’m back and forth to Smalbany almost every weekend and VT has to be first or second most seen out of state plates on the thruway. They seem to be a traveling people to me.

[Long duc dong]

I have not read the entire thread, but some interesting perspectives.

I grew up in Poughkeepsie. I would have to say it makes sense to have some different lines. I guess one might be Westchester County, south of that is really pretty suburban NYC. People do commute from Poughkeepsie to NYC in the train, but that is tough. Above Dutchess County things are a bit different, more of a capital region feel.

In another sense I think a sensible line might be Poughkeepsie, as that is where the train line we take to NYC stops. Above that you are really getting into the Capital area. But I don't see how one can really separate Poughkeepsie and Kingston into different regions.

I guess Westchester makes sense. Then the mid-Hudson valley region, which is part capital region part Westchester, than the Albany area above that. Western NY and the far north are different.

Growing up in Poughkeepsie most of the kids I knew either had Dr./Lawyer, Vassar, or IBM parents. Poughkeepsie is a strange place, although I didn't know any better at the time. The Vassar faculty don't feel remotely similar to the rest of the town. It took me a while to figure out that having parents with advanced degrees was NOT the norm in the area. I also eventually realized that the friends my parents had were not typical of community. IBM was also another world, there was an IBM country club in Poughkeepsie at that time. I went a couple of times with friends whose parents worked there. For 13-15 year olds there was even an IBM baseball league instead of Senior League. There is a community in Poughkeepsie called Spackenkill, which seemed to be a suburb composed of IBM families. It was somewhat different than the more blue-collar areas.

There were a reasonable number of boarding school kids, and when we went away we found things quite different. One of my friends, who was a year older than me, went off to Hotchkiss for his freshman year. When he returned, he said "mom, Poughkeepsie is so proletariat" or something like that. His mom sighed, but he was not wrong. I found the same thing when I went away a year later. There were a million kids from Westchester and Manhattan, but Dutchess County had only a few representatives. When I would look through the facebook and see someone from Dutchess County it was always a surprise.

Poughkeepsie was different from Millbrook and Rhinebeck, areas which had more old money, horses, wineries and antique shops. Lots of people in Poughkeepsie desperately wanted to live in Westchester, that is less true with Rhinebeck and Millbrook, more of those people had choices. Those areas also have lots of second homes, I don't think many NYC types would want a second home in Poughkeepsie.

Poughkeepsie actually has lots of good restaurants surprisingly enough, due to the presence of the Culinary Institute. A filet which would cost 50$ in Newport Beach might be 30$ in Poughkeepsie.

So I guess I would say that the first line would be Westchester, but that the mid-Hudson valley should be cut off from from the capital region. Dutchess County always felt a bit different from the areas north and south, and certainly from the areas to the west. When we would drive west we would always notice that things changed when we left the Hudson Valley. I don't think it is as simple as dividing into upstate and downstate, as Dutchess County feels far more similar to northern Westchester than it does to western or northern NY.

From what I understand the IBM country club is now gone. I would spend summers at home in boarding school, but I went to California for college and never looked back. I went to UCSB and we had to sign year long leases, so the choice between taking a summer school class and valet parking cars in Monticeito in a community of college students, right on the beach, or going home to Poughkeepsie for the summer was an easy one to make.

My knowledge is very dated. We visit my family over the holidays, but other than going home for a month and a half to study for an actuary exam after I left Tahoe I have spent no more than a couple of weeks at a time in the Hudson Valley. It is certainly different than how I remember it, but in many ways it does not seem to have changed all that much.

I will say that I love being able to take a train into NYC. My wife grew up in Huntington Beach, and when we first visited my family she asked what car we were going to take into the city when we went in. I told her we would take the train. When she saw how Manhattan was she understood why. As much as I love California I do wish it was more rail friendly. If I could hit Mammoth, Vegas and LA easily by using a train that would be great.

[Benny Profane]

They renovated the old railroad bridge that towers over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie and made it the centerpiece of a rail trail that extends about 12 miles on either side of the river. It's a huge hit with the public. Probably one of the nicest rail trails in the country.

[rideit]

Benny, you should check out the rail trail from Tetonia to Ashton. Possibly the most scenic rail trail in the country.

[Long duc dong]

They renovated the old railroad bridge that towers over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie and made it the centerpiece of a rail trail that extends about 12 miles on either side of the river. It's a huge hit with the public. Probably one of the nicest rail trails in the country.

My parents love that. I am rarely there during the summer, but I have biked on it before. My dad can basically go from our house to the Gold's in Lagrange on his bike. If he was still teaching at Vassar it would have made for an easier bike commute.

The area near the Hudson in Poughkeepsie has gotten a whole lot better. The civic leaders have realized (took them fucking long enough) that the Hudson is one of the really great features of the area and that they should clean up the waterfront. Years ago the park right down by the river was a good place for high school kids to buy bad weed, not that I would know , when Arlington and Spackenkill high schools were dry. I actually knew a couple of kids who got robbed at gunpoint going down there. They have really tried to make the area much better and take advantage of the Hudson. The rail trail is really cool.

In the mid-80's there was a mall on route 9 called the South Hills Mall. One of the big development companies came in and offered to build the Poughkeepsie Galleria about half a mile north, on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Hudson. The more sensible in the community wanted to make the area a park, but there was a push for a fancier mall with fancier anchor stores, similar to what can be found in Westchester. My dad actually worked with some of the economists analyzing the project, they were friends of his so he helped them out even though he was not officially part of it. They came to the conclusion that the area simply did not have close to the economic power to support those stores, and that what would end up happening was that the fancy anchor stores would leave, the South Coast Mall would be destroyed, and the Galleria would end up being essentially the same as the South Hills. This was not a popular opinion, the economists were looked at as ivory tower elites from Vassar who didn't know anything about the real world by the mostly blue collar community. They were not happy to be told that they didn't have the money to support G. Fox and Filene's and whatever the other anchor stores were. The Galleria ended up going in, and one by the fancy anchors left, the South Coast was destroyed, and they essentially duplicated what they already had. As the South Coast Mall had once killed the Main Mall in downtown Poughkeepsie, the Galleria killed the South Coast. It really is a shame, the area would have made a great park.

Downtown Poughkeepsie has actually gotten (somewhat) better. One of my favorite restaurants was there for a number of years, the Artist's Palate, unfortunately it recently closed. I'm hoping the chefs do something else in the area, it was always one of the highlights of going home for the holidays.

[riser4]

My parents love that. I am rarely there during the summer, but I have biked on it before. My dad can basically go from our house to the Gold's in Lagrange on his bike. If he was still teaching at Vassar it would have made for an easier bike commute.

The area near the Hudson in Poughkeepsie has gotten a whole lot better. The civic leaders have realized (took them fucking long enough) that the Hudson is one of the really great features of the area and that they should clean up the waterfront. Years ago the park right down by the river was a good place for high school kids to buy bad weed, not that I would know , when Arlington and Spackenkill high schools were dry. I actually knew a couple of kids who got robbed at gunpoint going down there. They have really tried to make the area much better and take advantage of the Hudson. The rail trail is really cool.

In the mid-80's there was a mall on route 9 called the South Hills Mall. One of the big development companies came in and offered to build the Poughkeepsie Galleria about half a mile north, on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Hudson. The more sensible in the community wanted to make the area a park, but there was a push for a fancier mall with fancier anchor stores, similar to what can be found in Westchester. My dad actually worked with some of the economists analyzing the project, they were friends of his so he helped them out even though he was not officially part of it. They came to the conclusion that the area simply did not have close to the economic power to support those stores, and that what would end up happening was that the fancy anchor stores would leave, the South Coast Mall would be destroyed, and the Galleria would end up being essentially the same as the South Hills. This was not a popular opinion, the economists were looked at as ivory tower elites from Vassar who didn't know anything about the real world by the mostly blue collar community. They were not happy to be told that they didn't have the money to support G. Fox and Filene's and whatever the other anchor stores were. The Galleria ended up going in, and one by the fancy anchors left, the South Coast was destroyed, and they essentially duplicated what they already had. As the South Coast Mall had once killed the Main Mall in downtown Poughkeepsie, the Galleria killed the South Coast. It really is a shame, the area would have made a great park.

Downtown Poughkeepsie has actually gotten (somewhat) better. One of my favorite restaurants was there for a number of years, the Artist's Palate, unfortunately it recently closed. I'm hoping the chefs do something else in the area, it was always one of the highlights of going home for the holidays.

Dong. Dong. Where is my aut-toe-mo-beelll?

[Skidog]

Dong. Dong. Where is my aut-toe-mo-beelll?

Lake.....big lake.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using TGR Forums mobile app

[riser4]

I had crawdads at Spanky's once.

[ex-powderbroker]

once poughkeepsie got a skate park it really started to take off.

[Peruvian]

Hold on a bloody minute. You left for greener pastures upstate, and I see plenty of VT plates at the Price Chopper in Granville, NY. And there's a steady stream of VT plates heading home on 7 from Albany at 5 pm on workdays.

the entire town of Rupert could shop at the Price Chopper in Green-witch, NY and it wouldn’t put a dent in ‘most of So VT’.

Retired So VT’ers cross to Albany for the airport or to visit their adult children who still live in the metro area, but not because they can find a better entree in Schaghticoke.

[Flounder]

I can't think of much good food from the 80s in syracuse. The one thing I did love was Sals Birdland, not traditional Buffalo wings but damn good. Of course you have to not get grossed out on the occasional feather and the fact that the sassy sauce would eat through the Styrofoam container.
https://salsbirdland.com/#

[huckbucket]

Country Sweet

[rideit]

I can't think of much good food from the 80s in syracuse. The one thing I did love was Sals Birdland, not traditional Buffalo wings but damn good. Of course you have to not get grossed out on the occasional feather and the fact that the sassy sauce would eat through the Styrofoam container.
https://salsbirdland.com/#

Hmm, the ‘80’s.
There were some good joints on Westcott, Acropolis and Munjed’s.
Johnny’s Pizza in Julian Plaza was hands down my favorite Pizza.
Juanita’s Mexican in N. Syracuse was pretty good.
Pastabilities was all the rage.
D’Angelos and the Celebrity Den for eye-Talian.
There were some ‘decent’ Irish restaurants near Tip Hill.
Pickles was a great sandwich joint.
Don’t remember when Dinosaur BBQ opened up, (googled it, ‘88) but that was/is great from the ‘90’s and on.

[Flounder]

Pastabilities was all the rage

Ha. Forgot about that place. All the rage but still pretty meh. Acropolis was good, I'll give you that. Used to hit Ichibans for sushi now and again, had some roommates that loved it.

For the most part I was a broke college punk so eating out wasn't really my thing. Bars were a different story. Still have my t shirt for completing the Shifty's world tour of beers. Also remember the worst one on the list, 3 Horse Beer. Tasted like 3 horses pissed in a bottle. Fuck Madagascar.

[DBdude]

the entire town of Rupert could shop at the Price Chopper in Green-witch, NY and it wouldn’t put a dent in ‘most of So VT’.

Retired So VT’ers cross to Albany for the airport or to visit their adult children who still live in the metro area, but not because they can find a better entree in Schaghticoke.

what about west rupert?

[Timberridge]

They go to Salem, in NY.

[Peruvian]

what about west rupert?

They shop at Hannaford.

[wooley12]