For New Yorkers, how do you define"Upstate NY"?
 

I was born and raised in the Hudson Valley (Albany, Ghent) and to me "Upstate" is the Hudson Valley. Buffalo, Syracuse are western NY, Jamestown, Binghamton are the southern tier. What's your take on this? I may be pedantic but anything 2 miles west of Albany is "western" NY. Raison d'etre, Wolf Blitzer on CNN just referred to Buffalo as being "upstate".

You have better credentials than I, having been born in New York state. I can only say that I lived in Syracuse for three years. However, during those three years I did work at Upstate Medical Center!

Anything north of Westchester County, NY is "upstate" ;) Unless you ask my parents who live in New Jersey -- they call Westchester County "upstate" :)

We also refer to Buffalo as upstate - but in all fairness, we have many friends, who were originally from Buffalo, but now live in Westchester County also refer to it as "upstate". Confused? Me too :D

When I was a teenager living in New Jersey anything over the NJ/NY state line where we could drink at age 18 (vs. 21 in NJ) was considered "Upstate". Later on when I lived in NYC anything north of Westchester County was referred to as being "Upstate". Of course, a lot has to do with were your are at the time as in anything north of where you are standing can be "Upstate". I've been gone from the area for more than 20 years so maybe terminology has since changed.

I grew up in NJ about 25 miles north west of Manhattan. Anything outside the NYCity metro area was upstate NY. We also went to upstate(northern westchester) to drink when NY was 18 and we were under 21.

Funny, I lived in Westchester (Rye and Larchmont) and commuted to "the City" for years but never thought it upstate, it was always "Westchester". NJ was the Jersey pike, Newark, Seacaucus, the slaughterhouses and refineries. But I've since been to Hopewell, Ridgewood, Wyckoff, it is a lovely state. By the by, I'm a NYr living in Texas for the past 25 years.

Secaucus, sorry

I live in Manhattan. In my book, anything north of the city is "upstate."

I guess, therefore, that "upstate" is synonymous with "all-of-NY-except-the-city-and-Long-Island."

There's the Bronx, which is still the city, then there's Westchester, then there's Upstate.
And, by the way, when you're stnding in the Bronx and facing Upstate, to the left is Upper Manhattan, the Hudson River, New Jersey, Alla The Rest, and then California.

I live in Buffalo, and "upstate" to me has always been Syracuse, Albany, Watertown, the Adirondacks! Downstate would be toward Binghamton. Western New York is the Buffalo/Niagara Falls region. The southern tier is the Jamestown area.

BTW, Wolf grew up in Syracuse but went to college in Buffalo. It guess it all depends on the area you grew up in!

No no no. The "city"is Manhattan, Long Island is the "Island" even though Queens and Brooklyn are part of it. The Bronx is across the Harlem River, not part of Manhattan.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. " The city" is all the boroughs except possibly Staten Island, which is in limbo. Only if you live in Brooklyn or Queens is "the city" Manhattan -- and who would pay attention to the opinions of anybody who lives in Brooklyn or Queens, anyhow? And Long Island doesn't become "the Island" until after Queens, for Pete's sake!

LOL!

This question reminds me of a trip I made once to Binghamton, NY. I asked the people I was meeting there (business meeting) if they considered themselves to be in "downstate" NY? They said no, they were "upstate". To them everything north of Manhattan is "upstate".

so, really, there is no "downstate" NY, only "upstate". Somewhat like there are only "uncouth" people, but none that are "couth". LOL!

I grew up in Rockland County, across the Tappan Zee Bridge, and when I would tell anyone from the city or LI where I was from, they'd say, 'Oh, upstate.' like Gekko just did.

It seemed a bit silly to be in the southern part of the state, literally on the NY/NJ border (Suffern) and be told I'm upstate but what do those people know ;)

Rochester is between Buffalo and Syracuse, on Lake ONtario. For years the local paper had a magazine section called "Upstate."

I meant to type Rockland is across the TZ Bridge from Westchester...

From a native - unto the 3rd/4th generation - New York State is either the NYC metro area or upstate (everything else as far as Niagara Falls). Specifically - anything north of Westchester is upstate.

And the division is much more than geographical - there are huge political, economic and sociologial differences.

(This is why the movement to make NYC the 51st state keeps popping up - many people in the city are tired of supporting upstate - and then receiving back from Albany way less than their share of benefits.)

Well, my husband from Rochester would say he's from Western New York. I, a non-native who moved to Manhattan, would have called anything north of the Bronx "upstate" until I moved to those 'burbs. I still think most people call everything up there, no matter how far west, "upstate."

I was born in Glens Falls N.Y. which is 50 miles north of Albany and is considered " Upstate ". I currently reside in Syracuse N.Y. which is called Central N.Y. Binghamton is the Southern Tier and Buffalo is considered West. I think it depends on where you were born and raised.

It is anything north of New York City dalinks.