[Leica] Recession/Crisis in the Hudson Valley

[glehrer at san.rr.com (Jerry Lehrer)]

Larry,

Having lived in NY State for the first 24 years of my life, The only 
really happy memories of it are centered on races at Watkins Glen; and 
the US
Military Academy at West Point.  Oh, and maybe visiting my girl friends 
Sorority house (Alpha Phi) at Cornell :-)

Jerry


Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
>
>
>
> The population in most of the communities has remained stable or 
> slightly declined for several decades. Young people see no future in 
> staying near home unless there is a family business they can inherit. 
> Towns near NYC have become bedroom communities for commuters. They 
> have no industrial base. There are several large tech companies  in 
> the region, most notably IBM, but they offer employment to the 
> intellectual few. And even they have outsourced many jobs to Asia. 
> Towns further away from big cities have simply declined. Property in 
> upstate NY is comparatively cheap. Cities as far west as Rochester are 
> suffering the fallout from Kodak layoffs and the bankruptcy of Global 
> Crossing. Most of my son's 1985 and daughter's 1990 high school 
> classes moved away. Following college a substantial number went into 
> New York's financial industry to be in the center of the action - and 
> you know where that got most of us. After a stint in the Navy during 
> the first Iraq war, my son got an MBA from the Univ. of Indiana 
> business school and ended up running a portion of Sony/Ericsson's US 
> television operation, based in Atlanta. My daughter ended up a TV 
> writer/producer for an ABC affiliate station in a major market. My 
> next door neighbor's kid is a Microsoft millionaire and 3000 miles 
> from home. The average distance from us of members of our immediate 
> family is 400 miles. And that is an improvement. For a while it was 
> over 2000 miles.
>
> The tragedy is that the Hudson Valley is an incomparably beautiful 
> area. The river cuts through the Appalachian mountain range and 
> presents vistas equal to the best of the Norwegian fjords. My 
> Norwegian wife certifies that this is a fact. It has been called the 
> most picturesque waterway in America and nurtured the first purely 
> native art movement, the "Hudson River" school. I've cruised down the 
> Rhine and the Hudson and the Hudson is far prettier - but it has only 
> one castle and that made of concrete. It does have the summer homes of 
> the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Roosevelts on the shore to make up 
> for being castle impaired. European photographers, if you doubt my 
> assertion, take a trip on the Hudson and see for yourself.
>
> In fact, as soon as I finish editing the 20,000 or so photos I've 
> spent the past year scanning into iPhoto, many of the Hudson Valley,  
> I'll start posting them.
>
> Larry Z
>
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