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Like many others, we're considering a move to NY. We're most drawn towards the Finger Lakes regions, and we like the Ithaca/Syracuse/Utica triangle, too. Recently, we've looked at some properties (online only) for sale in Waverly, but haven't had a chance to check them out yet. But this area seems hard to get to know (not a lot of newspaper coverage, few major companies, etc. Anyone up for listing pros/cons? One we've heard so far is that there can be an 'unusual' odor in the area due to a cheese-processing plant.
We drive through Waverly often. The big Victorians on Rt 17C (forget the street name) are jaw-dropping if you apply standards of just about anywhere other than upstate NY. They all seem to be for sale too, seemingly the same ones each time we drive through. Closely associated as "The Valley" with adjacent Sayre, South Waverly, and Athens in PA. Seems like the Guthrie health system is the big thing in The Valley, folks would often go down there for treatment from Cortland, rather than heading to closer Syracuse.
We'd be relocating from Richmond, and although it's definitely a move that won't be happening for several years, our scouting trip will be sometime soon.
Waverly has struck our interest several times when searching for land/homes, but it's difficult finding people who can tell us first-hand anything about the area.
I live near Owego, east of Waverly. Give some idea of your wants..house/amount of land/$$price range/other needs...special schooling, medical care, etc....
To be honest, we don't really need a lot of help right now with finding land, houses, etc. Our concerns are more about getting to know the area from people who've actually been through there (like Ki0eh's comments). It will be some time before we can get to NY, but we're spending our wait time planning a route. The above links are informative, but first-hand knowledge can sometimes be so much more insightful.
So, that being said - here are some basic questions we have regarding many of the small towns in the Finger Lakes region, but especially Waverly:
- Are they 'nice' towns (relatively clean, not a lot of boarded up houses, people aren't afraid to walk the streets, etc.)? Are people smiling when they walk around or do they look like they'd rather live anywhere but there?
- Are they convenient or scenic enough people actually opt to drive through them? (For comparison, we live in Richmond. To get to Roanoke, we have 2 choices - drive across the bottom half or up and across. Everybody goes up and across because the bottom route takes FOREVER. It's not really scenic, so there's no sufficient reason to waste the time).
- Are there a lot of local businesses (mom-and-pop's, B&B's) or does everyone drive somewhere else for even the smallest conveniences?
- Does everything shut down in the winter or does the region cope well (meaning, someone's got a ski slope going, tourists still come through, etc.)?
- Are wineries the predominant 'reason to visit' - how much do they dominate the area (for comparison, there are wineries near Niagara Falls, but most newbie-visitors opt to see the Falls first).
- If someone handed you a million dollars with one condition (you have to stay in NY, but can't live in NYC), would this be an area you'd head for or would you go somewhere else? Where would you go?
- How 'scholarly' are the college towns? Can you walk into coffee shops and hear people arguing philosophy? Are there several used-book stores? Or are there wild parties all the time, and nobody in their right mind would ever live near the campuses?
So, let's start discussing from there - hope this helps clarify!
Waverly's in the tourist "Finger Lakes Region" probably by default - the "Southern Tier" likely didn't make the cut on tourist regions. It's between where the Chemung River and Susquehanna River finally leave NYS, three towns down the row in Athens the rivers come together and flow down to Pittston then the Chesapeake Bay. The Finger Lakes drain north to Lake Ontario.
Grape growing is advantageous in narrow belts near the larger lakes. You're talking 45 minutes to an hour from Waverly to the wineries. One trick that I'm told nearby residents do is to sample all the wines at the wineries but not pay winery prices, on the way back to The Valley they stop at the GCP wine store on the strip in Horseheads (one does now need to exit I-86 to get there) and get all the same wines for cheaper especially with a mixed case discount. That's an advantage to living in Waverly, if you lived in South Waverly you'd be violating PA law by doing that.
Here's a few thoughts...If you plan a trip up here it will be obvious that for whatever the area is/isin't...we are(my opinion) situated well for other travel. Examples:and let's say you pick Waverly or Owego to situate at........3 hrs to NYC.......3 hrs to the Adirondacks...3-4 hours from the coast....1-2 hours from the wineries......1 hour from Ithaca(Cornell U. w/all the stuff Ithaca has)...~30 min to rt81 which will take you north to Canada or south thu Pa..........1 hr to the Catskills....1-2 hours from most of the Finger Lakes. As for hospitals/big stores, etc...Binghamton, NY and Sayre, Pa. will cover those.
I think you get he idea. And by the way..as far as crime goes...well it's EVERYWHERE in the US.
HOWEVER, house invasions, car jackings, gang shootings, armed robberies are "almost" negligible here.
Not puttin' down your state, but, from my days with "UNCLE"...I seem to recall more crime in Va., Georgia, La., than I had expected. Many upstaters are gun owners, but aren't "over the top about it".
I think there's quite a bit to do in the Finger Lakes/Southern Tier besides wineries. I like hiking, XC skiing, starting to get into paddling, etc. The Finger Lakes was an area if intellectual ferment during the 1800s and there are many traces of that today - some harder to find than others. The roots of both the LDS Church and of civil rights movements are all here.
Perhaps the most enduring legacy of that period is all the colleges in the area. Cornell has a beautiful campus (especially during the summer when the students are away ) and as the largest Ivy League institution is not known for partying although some do. Binghamton University has some departments more highly rated than Cornell's in the same discipline, its campus is postwar to modern suburban and not comparable in beauty to Cornell's. Elmira College is pretty small and no one would really call Elmira a college town. Ithaca College is not very small but is much smaller than Cornell and registers less as an attraction, although its modern campus is nicely sited looking up Cayuga Lake. It's more of a party school than Cornell but as a newer campus isn't as integrated into an off-campus zone. There are many threads on here about Ithaca and some about Elmira.
Elmira has gotten box stores recently, in the Town of Big Flats between Horseheads and Corning. These would be closer to Waverly than are those in Binghamton or Ithaca, especially as I-86 achieves interstate standards in the gap between Elmira and Waverly.
The older villages in the Finger Lakes are all wonderful to drive through. Rarely are any super-prosperous (maybe only Skaneateles, and even then only until you get on some of the side streets away from the lake) but even more rarely are they boarded up war zones. The New England settlement pattern offers large houses on large lots, a dramatic difference in the older community form from PA and VA tiny lots or row homes. The New England influence does spill over into the Northern Tier of PA much of which historically was more closely tied economically to the larger (still small) cities on the I-86 corridor. In fact Waverly might be the only area on the corridor where the daily newspaper comes over from the PA side (Sayre Evening Times) - elsewhere in the Twin Tiers the daily comes from Binghamton, Elmira, Corning, Olean, Jamestown.
If money were no object and I could live anywhere in the Finger Lakes region - I might pick Aurora, a tiny town with a tiny college where some of the big old houses even come with lake frontage. Close enough to Ithaca for dinner or events but not close enough to get embroiled in the teapot tempest politics that can result from too many underemployed overeducated people in the same stew. Possibly Seneca Falls, or Moravia, or Montour Falls, or Penn Yan, or Trumansburg, or Cortland (nearest to where I'm from).
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Possibly Seneca Falls, or Moravia, or Montour Falls, or Penn Yan, or Trumansburg, or Cortland (nearest to where I'm from).
