Last weekend I went to a small town in upstate New York called Cuddebackville, which is located in Orange County, near the border with Sullivan County. This was an annual getaway with the women in my reading group. Every summer we pick a weekend and head out of the city to the country home of one of the members of the group. Although it’s only about an hour and a half from New York City (without traffic, of course) it feels like a totally different world. The house sits on almost 10 acres of land, and from the porch one has a beautiful view of a stream with the woods directly behind it. This is the kind of place where we were able to go for a 1 hour power walk/run and barely see another soul. But of course, when you do run into people, everybody says hello whether they know you or not. It’s definitely not New York City!
On Saturday, we went on a few excursions that let me see first hand the impact that the current economic crisis is having on small towns, along with some reasons for optimism. First, the good news. Our first destination was a small farm stand called The Farmer’s Daughter. Owned by a young woman, and staffed by the owner and her mother, the stand sells fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods, eggs, etc. We chatted with the owner for a bit, and learned that she grows some of the produce herself and buys some from other local farmers. We bought quite a bit there, including the most delicious corn on the cob and cherry pies. I don’t think this woman will ever become a millionaire doing this, but the business seemed to be thriving and that was nice to see. Next we set off to visit the Bashakill Vineyards (Check out their website: http://bashakillvineyards.com/). This is the first winery to open in Sullivan County and has only been operational since 2005. We went there last year as well, and had the opportunity to talk to the owner, a young guy who just decided to learn how to be a winemaker. It seems like he’s doing pretty well. Last year I bought a bottle of a fabulous white wine and was really looking forward to buying another bottle or two. However, when we visited this year, I learned that they were all sold out of the wine that I wanted to buy. In fact, they were completely sold out of 2 out of their 3 varieties of whites. While disappointed that they were out of the wine I was so looking forward to buying, I was happy that the business is doing so well. There were quite a few customers enjoying wine tastings inside, and out in back of the winery was a blues musician playing harmonica and guitar while other guests were drinking wine on the patio and just hanging out.
Later that day, we drove to the town of Port Jervis, about 15 minutes away. This is where I clearly saw the negative impact of the current economic climate. I remember visiting Port Jervis a few years ago and my memory of it was of a cute little town. This time it felt like a ghost town. Our primary destinations were some antiques stores, which were enjoyable. What was sad was how many empty storefronts there were. Every other store had a “For Rent” sign in the window. Not that that doesn’t happen here in NYC too; however, in the city, it’s the phenomenon of high rents driving out small independently owned businesses, with larger chain stores eventually arriving to fill the empty spots. But in Port Jervis there were no chain stores, just a lot of empty spaces. Furthermore, quite a few shops that seemed to be operational were closed on a late Saturday afternoon. For example, we were going to visit a used book shop, and at 4:55 PM, it was closed although the sign out front indicated that was open until 5 PM. I imagine that business was slow, so the owner just decided to close early for the day. I totally understand; aside from our group of 4, it didn’t seem like there were too many potential customers that afternoon. The town just felt desolate and empty. It was pretty depressing, to be honest. However, there too, we had some reasons to be optimistic about the future. We passed a cute little coffee shop that wouldn’t have been out of place in Greenwich Village (or Seattle for that matter!), restaurants that looked inviting, and a funky art gallery type space.
It’s pretty incredible that by travelling a short distance (geographically), we can arrive at a world so different from what we are used to.
Fierce Sunflower 