Central New York: Top Ten Places to Live

This was certainly news to me, especially in light of some news a few years ago that showed Central New York as one of the highest taxed in the entire nation.

Central New York is beautiful. We have plenty of water (probably too much!) but not enough sunshine; it’s quiet living here, but the larger cities are close enough for urban conveniences. But the taxes, OH, the taxes! Government is still pretty limited so residents have some nice freedoms. There’s culture, a TON of history, really nice events…. real estate in Utica is certainly not on par with, say real estate in San Diego, but Utica has some gorgeous grand old dames, still.

Zillow.com ranked Utica, NY, as the Number One place to buy a house, due to the city’s low foreclosure rate and low costs. Two other cities, Rochester and Albany, also made the list.

In case you’re wondering, these are the cities that made the list for 2010:

1. Utica, N.Y.
2. Oklahoma City, Okla.
3. Rochester, N.Y.
4. Pittsburgh, Pa.
5. Tulsa, Okla.
6. Albany, N.Y.
7. Lancaster, Pa.
8. Madison, Wis.
9. Green Bay, Wis.
10. Lincoln, Neb.

It’s nice to know that houses are so affordable here. Again, I sorrowfully lament the property taxes, though– in some cases, the yearly taxes would exceed the yearly mortgage payments! Lower the taxes, and this place is next to heaven. Central New York is a great place to live.

The FX Matt Brewing Company, Utica, NY

Mr. Mecomber and I had a little time together, so we took a short drive to check out the FX Matt Brewing Company of Utica to take the tour. I am always interested in how things work and in local history, so this was a fun trip!

First, a little history. Utica is a very proud city, and they are very, very proud of the Matt Brewing Company. This company started up in 1888 by German immigrants. It is the second-longest running brewery in the nation, and it’s undying devotion to the city has saved the city through quite a few financial plights. The brewery even continued it’s operations during the Prohibition (secretly, of course). The password for getting into the brewery’s “speakeasy” was the inauspicious phrase “Joe sent me.” LOL, no one would notice that in Utica, New York!

The brewery sponsors the Utica Boilermaker every year. The Boilermaker is THE event in Utica. It attracts people from all over the world.

The Boilermaker had the unique distinction of being the largest 15K road race in the country. This from the Boilermaker website:

The Boilermaker 15K Road Race was established in 1978 by Earle C. Reed. Reed was looking for a way to give back to the community that had supported his family’s business, Utica Companies (ECR International). The race began with just over 800 runners and a budget of $750. Now, the Boilermaker is the largest 15K in the nation with more than 10,000 runners.

The name is credited to the late Frank S. Owens, Jr., former Vice President of Advertising at the F. X. Matt Brewery. It was he who suggested the name, combining the nature of Reed’s company, Utica Boilers, with an old-time drink that was made by dropping a shot of whiskey into a mug of beer.

The Analytic Distance Runner shows the men’s Boilermaker field as the most competitive in the world for 1993, 1995-2005, and the women’s field as most competitive for 1996-2003 and 2006.

At the end of the Boilermaker race, everyone gathers to the brewery for free Saranac beer.

The National Distance Running Hall of Fame is located nearby, too. In the first week of July (Boilermaker week), the city of Utica is packed solid with runners from all over the world. It’s quite a festive time! When we arrived at the brewery, the tour had already started, so we hurried through the entrance lobby, to join the group in the next room. I had never been in the building and I admit, I was totally awestruck by the luxury and ostentation of the beautiful architecture and fixtures of the sitting room. The rooms are very dark, so I am hoping you can see the photos well enough. Look at the photo below– I think that ceiling is all carved wood! The wallpaper was heavily textured. The moulding and other woodwork was maple or oak (a little hard to tell, I’m no wood expert), and the old floors gave out a groan now and then, letting us know that it has supported thousands of feet for over a century. Very impressive. I probably looked silly, snapping photos of the ceilings and walls, and fawning over the gorgeous woodwork while I virtually ignored our talkative tour guide (Mr. T). I was so awed by the opulence of the room. I did eventually stop my salivating over the decor and turned my attention to our young and talkative tour guide, Mr. T. He quickly ran over the historical highlights of the brewery, emphasizing its importance to the Utica area’s economic health.The brewery has an innumerable number of beer varieties. Their flagship beer, Saranac, comes in many different tastes (including but not limited to pomegranate, india pale ale, black and tan, chocolate amber, and pumpkin). We have tried several varieties of Saranac, and they all do have a very distinctive taste. If I was blindfolded, I could probably determine if someone was giving me Saranac– it is that memorable. After our excursion through the gilded rooms, Mr. T took us through the area where all the action happens. Matt Brewing Company is very picky about their beer-making process. They still do some things by hand (for example, spreading hops or shredded pomegranates over a vat of fermenting beer for flavor), and these little nuances have made them famous.The tanks are enormous. The amount of beer they produce is incredible. Actually, Matt Brewing Company makes so much beer that they contract their beer out to other companies. Mr. T explained that the Matt Brewing Company purchases their hops from other states. Madison County in New York State used to be called the hops capital of the state, but the blue mold, competition from the west, and the ubiquitous bad policy coming from Albany killed the industry. We walked through a fermenting area. It was a bit smelly here, like refrigerant. While we walked between the tanks, it reminded me of a dairy farm, when you walk between “the ladies” with their big rearends facing you down a row. After this, we toured through the packaging area. Mr. T kept our steps lively with his narrative. Once in a while he threw in a joke to make sure we were still listening. By the way– if you ever go on this tour and he asks what does “Saranac” mean, say “cluster of stars” and you’ll win a free beer. This was the end of our lively tour. Mr. T escorted us into the saloon for a complimentary taste of the brewery’s product. It was my first time trying the Utica Club, and it was very tasty!The saloon is quite grand, so once again I was swooning over it’s architectural elegance. This chandelier reminded me of a Viking hat. What is this in the photo below? A polyphon, of course! Uhhhh….. I had to look this one up, folks. The thing looks like a music box, and lo and behold, it is! Kind of… It’s from Germany, judging by the engraving on the metal disk. I think it was considered to have been the German jukebox of the 1800s. I couldn’t tell what song was engraved on the large metal disk, but I strongly suspect it was a rousing rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The mantelpiece had a collection of collectible Schultz and Dooley steins. What a flood of memories! I remembered those old television commercials with the two talking, animated mugs, Schultz and Dooley. We kids loved the commercial so much that we would come running into the living room at the sound of Jonathan Winters’ voice.The mantelpiece woodwork is truly exquisite. We relaxed and got to chat with Mr. T a little more about the history of the brewery and of the many types of beers it produces. I also promised to blog a post about interesting things to do in Dallas, for Mr. T! I’ll be getting to that right away, T!I was pleasantly surprised at all there was to see at the brewery. I had been unaware of the local importance over the decades. Utica has seen some very difficult times; a friend in need is a friend indeed.

___________________________________________________________________________________

If you love to travel, do you need to find the best hotels? If you are traveling to Amsterdam, let us find you the best Amsterdam hotels! Going to Spain sometime soon? If you are looking for hotels in Barcelona we can also help. To find the best hotels worldwide, from Rome hotels to New York hotels, we can help!

Exploring the Utica Public Library

This is continuing our visit to the lovely Utica Public Library, built in 1904. You can read the first segment, here.

As I stated before, this is one of our favorite libraries to visit, but because it’s in the city and because I hate city traffic, we don’t go as often as we wish. But we just love to explore the library. The media selection here is superb, with more than 192,000 items to browse; and it’s an architectural delight to roam the floors and rooms.

Read more

The Old Main, or Utica Lunatic Asylum, NY

The Old Main is the local name for the original New York State Lunatic Asylum of Utica. It has had many names over its 150-year history: Utica Lunatic Asylum, Utica State Hospital, Utica Psychiatric Center. I didn’t travel out to the Old Main in Utica– not this time. I’ve been past the building a few times, and have walked the grounds when we visited an acquaintance of my husband’s, who was attending an alcohol treatment program there. That was fifteen years ago. I thought I had taken photographs then, as I was awestruck by the building’s architecture, but either I am wrong or I lost the photos. This is a “virtual visit.” Roger Luther has graciously granted permission to post his photos of the Old Main. For a multitude of awesome photos and a good summary of the Old Main’s history, check out Luther’s NYSAsylum.com. The photos are spectacular.

The building was open for patients in 1842, but is in terrible disrepair now. It is famous around the world for its architecture, and was home to many of the “firsts” in mental health in the nation. It was the first institute for the treatment of the mentally ill (previously, people had merely been confined). Remember the movie Jane Eyre? Orson Welles’ character kept his insane wife locked up in a tower. It wasn’t too uncommon for mentally ill and insane people to be locked up and the key thrown away. I personally think that a lot of mental illness came from the ingestion and absorption of lead, which was abundant in pipes, lining cisterns, in paints, etc.

The Old Main was the birthplace of the American Journal of Insanity by Dr. Amariah Brigham (this publication would later spawn the American Psychiatric Journal). Dr. Brigham changed the way mental illness was treated. He believed that most mental illness was caused by environmental problems (contaminated food or water, side effects of diseases) or mental strain (depression, stressful lifestyle). Unlike today’s physicians and Big Pharma, who are endlessly shoving pills down throats, Dr. Brigham believed that strenuous exercise, clean foods, and good hard work would cure most of the mentally ill. He was right, for most cases.

The architecture of the building is truly stunning:

[It] is internationally recognized as a monumental example of the Greek Revival architecture tradition… The huge size of the stone structure is perhaps its most significant feature; being 550 feet long and averaging 50 feet in depth. The projecting central portico is 120 feet long and is dominated by six limestone columns 48 feet high and eight feet in diameter at the base. “No European public edifice has a grander Greek Doric portico than that which dominates the tremendous four story front block….” architectural historian Henry Russell Hitchcock wrote in his definitive Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

The Utica building’s Greek Revival, doric columns (six of them) are eight feet in diameter at the base and 48 feet high. They are at the main entrance which also has a gray facade made of upstate New York limestone. Two four story main wings extend laterally from the entrance. Later construction added wings to either end, greatly increasing its capacity (parts of these additions have since been demolished). One estimate compared the asylum’s original square footage to that of a 26 story sky scraper. In the attic, visitors may still see murals and the stage of a patient’s theater; sunlight still floods the vacant day rooms downstairs.

In 1850, a listing of accommodations noted: 380 single rooms for patients, 24 for their attendants, 20 dormitories each accommodating from 5 to 12 persons, 16 parlors or day rooms, 12 dining rooms, 24 bathing rooms, 24 closets and 24 water closets. The mechanical systems of the original building incorporated the latest improvements. Hot air woodburning furnaces in the basement provided heat for the building. Ventilators opening from the rooms to flues in the walls allowed air to circulate constantly. Hot and cold running water was supplied to each floor, the cold water coming from the roof while the warm water was pumped by a steam engine from basement storage tanks.

Don’t these old romantic pictures make you feel like you are putting your loved one in a tender, safe place?

Those old Elm trees in the Utica area were so beautiful, weren’t they? Back then, even the asylums were built and kept up to be beautiful. But the truth is, the things that went on inside weren’t always beautiful. The Utica Crib was invented here. It was a combination cage and bed, to restrain the uncontrollable patients. The crib was sometimes suspended with chains and would rock the patient, to soothe him.

Critics called it savage even though some patients preferred it. It was removed from use in 1887.

There’s more history that runs down the Main’s halls. Famed abolitionist, U.S. Congressman, and Hamilton College alumni Gerrit Smith was admitted to the Old Main for over two months. The story is filled with speculation and intrigue! Smith (whose homestead we Mecombers hope to visit this spring when we go on our Heritage Freedom Trail trip) was a “Free-Soil” advocate, and an outspoken supporter of violent abolitionist John Brown. (We hope to visit John Brown’s historic site, also!) “They” say it was John Brown who started the Civil War.

To be associated with such a “vigilante” as John Brown was political suicide. After Brown’s failed raid on an arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and his hanging a few weeks later, Gerrit Smith was fingered for aiding and abetting Brown’s violent raid. Smith was promptly admitted to the Utica Lunatic Asylum (by his family). Some historians have speculated Smith was admitted to avoid his critics and investigations. Others, exposing more details of Smith’s illnesses (including a long bout of typhoid that contributed to his chronic health conditions), said Smith was genuinely distressed, having been depressed for a long time. They say it was the Harper’s Ferry incident that “broke the camel’s back.”

One source claimed:

“Gerrit Smith shows continued marks of insanity,” a New York journal reported later that month. “No one is allowed to see him, but it is understood that he refers in his ravings to the Harper’s Ferry matter, and supposes himself arrested.”

And another source has a longer and extremely interesting report of the history. You can find that at The “Black Dream” of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist.” I found the information and story there riveting. Here’s a portion:

The New York Herald dispatched a special reporter to visit Smith at Peterboro in late October to obtain more information concerning the abolitionist’s ties to Brown and the Harpers Ferry raid. The only statement the reporter could get from Smith was this remark: “I am going to be indicted, sir, indicted! You must not talk to me about it. . . . If any man in the Union is taken, it will be me.” This reporter had covered Smith’s gubernatorial campaign the previous fall and made some very interesting comments upon the changes in Smith since that time.

Concerning the controversy which followed the raid, the reporter observed:

[It] has not only impaired his health, but is likely to seriously affect his excitable and illy-balanced mind. . . . His calm, dignified, impressive bearing has given place to a hasty, nervous agitation, as though some great fear was constantly before his imagination.

The Herald reporter concluded from his visit with Smith:

He is in evident alarm and agitation, inconsistent with the idea that his complicity with the plot is simply to the extent already made public. I believe that Brown’s visit to his house last spring was immediately connected with the insurrection, and that it is the knowledge that at any moment, either by the discovery of papers or the confession of accomplices, his connection with the affair may become exposed, that keeps Mr. Smith in constant excitement and fear.

The Herald account was only one of several reports of Smith’s increasing state of agitation in late October and early November. The Rochester Daily Express reported that Smith had been “constantly wringing his hands and bemoaning the fate of poor Brown” and that the abolitionist’s friends were “apprehensive that his reason would give way under the load of grief and anxiety. . . .” The Albany Argus related that a visitor to Smith’s home shortly after the time of the raid reported that “his eye was wild and his appearance haggard, and his motion spasmodic and uncertain, but unceasingly restless”. Smith’s sleep and eating habits became increasingly erratic. He was despondent and his family feared he might attempt suicide. He even talked of going to Virginia to share John Brown’s fate. Finally, on 7 November, friends and family members were able to persuade Smith to accompany them to the state asylum at Utica by assuring him that he was on his way to Virginia.

Back to the Old Main. After years of dwindling financial support and the construction of better buildings, it was closed in 1978. The Old Main is in great disrepair now.

Some of its old wings have been demolished. You can see that there are huge gashes in the walls, allowing moisture and critters to invade.

When I attended Utica’s Genesis Group meetings years ago, there was some discussion about what should be done with the Old Main. There were some who wanted a museum of mental illness (which I didn’t think would be a very attractive draw), others wanted a Revolutionary War museum housed there, since central New York is so rich in history of that era. And others suggested that the City of Utica move its main offices there. There was talk about trying to get some rich investor to pour his billions into the place, but I don’t think anything came of that.

Part of the building was renovated a few years ago, and these rooms house the Records Archive and Repository for the NYS Office of Mental Health. But I think restoring the entire building could never be accomplished by the city (or the state) alone.

Sometimes, these beautiful old buildings are too difficult to restore, and they outgrow their usefulness; although I’m not ruling out any miracles. For now, the Old Main still stands.

Photos courtesy Roger Luther at nysasylum.com. (Thanks, Roger!)

Christmas at Fountain Elms in Utica, NY

I wrote a previous post that presented a Christmas decoration showcase of the formal rooms at Fountain Elms, here. Fountain Elms is a living museum in Utica, NY; it was once the home of Maria Munson Proctor. Her parents, Alfred Munson (a millionaire in the early 1800s) and Helen Watson Williams, built this house for Maria and her husband, Thomas Proctor. Maria and Thomas had no children and left their house and belongings for a museum after their deaths. The Proctors were world travelers and eclectic collectors of art and trinkets, so the house is a veritable jackpot of quirky 19th century treasures.

The downstairs of the home is set up as if the old family would walk through the doors at any moment. Family furniture (and some pieces purchased by the museum) are arranged, with dishes and toys and other household items displayed on the tables, chairs, and beds. Upstairs, the house is more like a museum, with displays cases and paintings on the walls. Some items are truly very valuable (like a Ming vase) and others are just quirky little things from the family’s everyday life.

I love these Queen Victoria playing cards.

There were a few display cases filled with pocket watches from the family’s world travels. Read more

Next Page »