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Thank you, Vinnnie for the wonderful overviewyou gave of the Watertown/Evan's Mills/Ft Drum area. As someone who will be relocating to the area in the near future, I relish each bit of information I can find about the place and it's people. With each bit of positive feedback I become more and more relaxed about the idea of moving to someplace unknown. Also, I travelled through NY state last week with my family while on vacation, and I have to say that what I could see from the turnpike was breathtakingly beautiful.
I grew up in Watertown and will offer some more details to help you before your move. Watertown is a safe city as it is small and doesn't have the large city problems. Any school district your children attend will be fine. New York has high quality schools compared to other parts of the country. I am a teacher and work in the south now. I miss the New York State schools.
I attended Watertown schools and received a great education. The elementary schools were K-3 but I believe this past year they switched to k-4so that the intermediate school would be just grades 5 and 6. The intermediate school has a planetarium in it.
Watertown has grown a lot in the last few years and several new businesses just opened. There is a mall in Watertown called Salmon Run Mall. The anchor stores are Sears, JC Penney, The Bon Ton, Best Buy and Dicks Sporting Goods. A new shopping area opened almost across the street from the mall and has a Kohl's, Bed Bath Beyond, Target, and Petco.
Watertown also has a Walmart, a Sam's Club, Lowe's and Home Depot. A Super Walmart opened near Fort Drum.
As for restaurants in Watertown, there are plenty with a wide variety of foods. There are locally owned Italian restaurants. There are a lot of chain restaurants from the Cracker Barrel to Red Lobster, to Applebees, a steakhouse opened near Target, Panera Bread, Ruby Tuesday's, and Ponderosa and I'm sure there are others I forgot. In Sacket's Harbor, the Tin Pan Galley is popular.
Watertown has a lot of fast food too. There is Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, Long John Silver, Arby's, Sbarro, Taco Bell, and Subway.
Watertown is pretty close to the Canadian border so trips to Canada will be options. Kingston is likely the closest Canadian city. Toronto is around 3 hours and Montreal 4 hours.
Syracuse is an hour south and has more culture and activities. It has three shopping malls, a hockey team, AAA baseball team, the Syracuse University sports teams, two theatre groups, an opera, a nice zoo. The State Fair is held in Syracuse.
Watertown has a low cost of living and the house prices are low if you decide not to live in military housing. From what I remember, on base housing was for single soldiers and the families lived in military housing throughout the community.
If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.
My family is moving to Fort Drum at the end of August. I called the on post housing office and they say the wait for an E7 is 8 to 12 months. They also told me they turned a lot of the previous senior NCO housing into Junior NCO housing. I guess that means the housing shortage is greater for senior NCO's. This makes no sense. Since my husband was a Pvt. we have always had a longer wait time, and now that he is an E7 it has since changed? Were also priority 2 on the on post housing wait list. This also is hard to believe. A new coming soldier to the area without a house to live in is NOT priority 1 on the wait list?? But a soldier already in 801 housing has priority over us?
Also, If anyone has any information on the 801 housing in Carthage or West Carthage please let me know. Or if there are any families out there with the same problem or already went through it and have any answers on how long the wait list really is please reply.
My family is moving to Fort Drum at the end of August. I called the on post housing office and they say the wait for an E7 is 8 to 12 months. They also told me they turned a lot of the previous senior NCO housing into Junior NCO housing. I guess that means the housing shortage is greater for senior NCO's. This makes no sense. Since my husband was a Pvt. we have always had a longer wait time, and now that he is an E7 it has since changed? Were also priority 2 on the on post housing wait list. This also is hard to believe. A new coming soldier to the area without a house to live in is NOT priority 1 on the wait list?? But a soldier already in 801 housing has priority over us?
Also, If anyone has any information on the 801 housing in Carthage or West Carthage please let me know. Or if there are any families out there with the same problem or already went through it and have any answers on how long the wait list really is please reply.
Thank You
From my experience, I would say not to listen to what housing tells you on the phone. Get up here and go in person. The reason I say this is when I called in April, I was told the wait for CO grade was 18-24 months. I got up here 4 weeks ago and the housing wait is now 0-1 month for CO grade. HUGE DIFFERENCE! Of course, we didn't know it could change so drastically so we bought off-post and will be paying about $1000 a month OVER our BAH to cover the mortgage and utilities.
Also, I believe they have stopped issuing the 801 housing as it is going private now.
Good luck and make sure no matter what you do, that you do it based on what you are told face-to-face.
We are headed up there at the end of August. I just got the kids school physicals done. My husband went to the Indian River school district and picked up the enrollement paperworK. I would try to do that ahead of time, if you can. We will be staying in the guesthouse for the month of Sept.
Instead of waiting for housing, we have decided to build in Evans Mills. We had a few friends that went up looking a few months back for houses to buy and were not too happy with what they found. We are Field grade and new housing is 3-6 month wait. For the older housing, its about a month. By building, we are still looking at 3-4 months, but we wanted to buy off post. I went up to visit in May--pretty area and looks like Watertown has everything we could need.
There is a huge Brand-new Super Walmart right outside the Route 11 gate. If you get back on 81 and get off at the Arsenal exit--a mall, resuarants, about everything. Canada is about 30 minutes up on I81. I plan on taking advantage of what the area has to offer. I just hate shoveling snow.
I grew up in the Watertown area, but now live in Florida. I LOVE every area in NY and still own a home and land outside of Ft. Drum. I was reading the e-mail exchange (and discussion of lack of restaurant) and just had to tell everyone that the BEST place to eat is Shuler's Restaurant. It is an independently owned and operated, family restaurant with AMAZING food. I live on the ocean in Florida and still can't find seafood as good. They have a little bit of everything (mostly homemade) and the prices are great for families too. I'm not a big fan of chain restaurants, and Shuler's is a little diamond in the rough. I wish I could eat there right now!!! The address is 802 Mill St and the phone number is 315.782.1429.
Best of luck to all the military families. Watertown and the surrounding areas, are extremely patriotic and you should be treated very well!! Happy holidays!
Hello, we will be moving to Ft Drum also around the end of Feb beggining of March.My husband is also a W01 and we are currently station in Ft Sill Ok. I will love to move on post hopefully we will be lucky and get housing soon after arriving , if not we are thinking in maybe buying a house.Good luck and maybe we will meet in Ft Drum.
I'm moving there in early May of '08, and I am stationed at Fort Lewis, WA. I'm doing all this research stuff over the net and totally having a hard time with it all. One good jump was checking ahrn.com which is set off from the housing office there. I found a few possibilities, but don't know what really to do. My husband won't be joining me until later that summer, but it will just be me and my son. I really don't have the funds to be sitting on my thumb for months waiting and looking since I have to drive across country and make my first stop in VA for 2 months to go back to AIT (MOS change!!!) then boot scoot it up to NY. That's alot of driving and alot of hauling things back and forth. I had to get rid of my dog because I just can't keep her without a house. Luckily my son is going to be with my x husband when I am in school, but as far as everything else, things are in limbo, and from what I am reading, I am pretty much bent! I don't want to live on post, would rather live in the economy, but it sounds like living under a bridge is all there is left!!!! WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!?! Settle for what I can get? Or keep looking and praying!?
What is "801 Housing?" From the info I am gathering is it housing off post that is losing its contract. And where is the 801 housing located at Ft. Drum. Any all info would be great! Thanks!
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The best place to eat in Watertown!!!
