15 questions about the Thruway cities (Buffalo, Rochester: loan, home, construction)
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How you decide to buy is your decision, but all I'm saying is that there are affordable houses. There are 147 homes in Stratford right now that are under 200k that some may need a little elbow grease but are liveable. That's just one town. If you really want a home, you could get one on your salary, in that area. There are many people making it there on much less, trust me, I know several of them.
If you decide on Syracuse or Buffalo, ckh is the man when it comes to finding people the right spot there. All it may be is a matter of taking down roadblocks and refusing to see the world through the scope of grim and dire outcomes.
Well of course. Of course I could technically afford many homes in Bridgeport, CT for example. But it's a total shiithole of a city. And Stratford has some very gritty areas, too, which are probably the homes for under $200K that you looked up. Safety and comfort is important to me when settling in a neighborhood.
I suppose one of many ways Ithaca is an outlier in upstate NY is its relative lack of Italian-American ancestry. Or Slavic, for that matter.
That is interesting considering that even nearby cities of similar or smaller size like Cortland and Auburn have at least a presence of one and/or both groups.
That is interesting considering that even nearby cities of similar or smaller size like Cortland and Auburn have at least a presence of one and/or both groups.
I would attribute that difference to the lack of concentrated industry in Ithaca during the Ellis Island migration period, compared to the other smaller and larger cities of upstate. Never any "Which way EJ" there.
I would attribute that difference to the lack of concentrated industry in Ithaca during the Ellis Island migration period, compared to the other smaller and larger cities of upstate. Never any "Which way EJ" there.
That's true. Outside of maybe Ithaca Gun, I don't know if there were any other big manufacturers. Like the Binghamton area example you mentioned, they were literally looking for Italian and Eastern European immigrants. Hence the strong Italian presence in Endicott and the strong Eastern European presence in Johnson City, with a little bit of both in Binghamton. Auburn is interesting in that its diversity is largely in the western half of the city(Italians, Ukrainians, Polish, Blacks, Irish). There is a social/community club that serves each of those groups on that side of town.
That's true. Outside of maybe Ithaca Gun, I don't know if there were any other big manufacturers. Like the Binghamton area example you mentioned, they were literally looking for Italian and Eastern European immigrants. Hence the strong Italian presence in Endicott and the strong Eastern European presence in Johnson City, with a little bit of both in Binghamton. Auburn is interesting in that its diversity is largely in the western half of the city(Italians, Ukrainians, Polish, Blacks, Irish). There is a social/community club that serves each of those groups on that side of town.
When I was growing up the only big old brick factories I remember in Tompkins County were Morse Chain (Internet search brought up this: http://www.borgwarner.com/en/MorseTE...20Brochure.pdf ), Ithaca Gun which probably never was big enough to draw much unskilled labor from abroad, and Smith-Corona in Groton (which most folks referred to as "Corona" right up until it closed in the 1980's). Auburn had many more, my immigrant ancestors worked at International Harvester, Dunn & McCarthy/Enna Jettick, Auburn Spark Plug, and lived on the west side not too far from American Locomotive, Columbian Rope, and Singer. The big old places in Cortland during the immigrant era were Wickwire Bros. steel mill and Brockway Motor Trucks - Wickwire closed in the 1960's (after leaving behind The 1890 House ) and Brockway at the end of the 70's. Brockway was next to the core of Cortland's Italian neighborhood in the East End and Wickwire was in the South End. I remember hearing that Cortland's small Ukrainian community was told to get on a train to Binghamton during the Palmer Red Raids after World War I, but Ukrainian Pentecostals came to the area after the fall of the USSR.
Of course the scale of the industrialization/urbanization/immigrant experience was much greater in the actual Thruway cities; interestingly when Theodore Dreiser fictionalized the Grace Brown murder case, he moved the venue from Cortland to a fictional Mohawk Valley town. That brings up an important point of distinction compared to PA - the Ellis Island era immigrants probably never formed a majority or plurality in the Thruway NY cities (with possible exception of Buffalo), as the later generations of the New England sourced leavened by some Dutch first-settler stock (and of course Erie Canal-era Irish, and Mohawk Valley Germans) coming off the farms would have met proportionately more of the demand for industrial labor in NY compared to the mines and mills of PA.
When I was growing up the only big old brick factories I remember in Tompkins County were Morse Chain (Internet search brought up this: http://www.borgwarner.com/en/MorseTE...20Brochure.pdf ), Ithaca Gun which probably never was big enough to draw much unskilled labor from abroad, and Smith-Corona in Groton (which most folks referred to as "Corona" right up until it closed in the 1980's). Auburn had many more, my immigrant ancestors worked at International Harvester, Dunn & McCarthy/Enna Jettick, Auburn Spark Plug, and lived on the west side not too far from American Locomotive, Columbian Rope, and Singer. The big old places in Cortland during the immigrant era were Wickwire Bros. steel mill and Brockway Motor Trucks - Wickwire closed in the 1960's (after leaving behind The 1890 House ) and Brockway at the end of the 70's. Brockway was next to the core of Cortland's Italian neighborhood in the East End and Wickwire was in the South End. I remember hearing that Cortland's small Ukrainian community was told to get on a train to Binghamton during the Palmer Red Raids after World War I, but Ukrainian Pentecostals came to the area after the fall of the USSR.
Of course the scale of the industrialization/urbanization/immigrant experience was much greater in the actual Thruway cities; interestingly when Theodore Dreiser fictionalized the Grace Brown murder case, he moved the venue from Cortland to a fictional Mohawk Valley town. That brings up an important point of distinction compared to PA - the Ellis Island era immigrants probably never formed a majority or plurality in the Thruway NY cities (with possible exception of Buffalo), as the later generations of the New England sourced leavened by some Dutch first-settler stock (and of course Erie Canal-era Irish, and Mohawk Valley Germans) coming off the farms would have met proportionately more of the demand for industrial labor in NY compared to the mines and mills of PA.
You have your exceptions with specific communities like Solvay, which is still has one of the highest percentages of Italians for a community in the US and perhaps places like Canastota, the Frankfort-Schuyler area, NY Mills, Seneca Falls and Amsterdam, among maybe a few others. Each of those places have an Italian and/or Eastern European presence as well.
That's true that Solvay is a bit of an exception (also Lackawanna in the Buffalo area; East Rochester; and Endicott and Johnson City in Broome County) as it was more common in PA for industries to have their own legally distinct communities. But Solvay never dominated the population of the Syracuse metro area.
And we haven't even tried to talk about Niagara Falls yet in this thread.
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