Cultures Collide: The Intersection of Rural and Urban America in the Catskills
Our country is torn: Rural and Urban America, a division that runs deep economically, socially, and politically. Often these two distinct realms operate entirely separate from each other. The people seldom interacting other than the occasional vacation or trip. However, tucked away in the mountains there is a place called the Catskills, where although this divide still exists there is a harmonious symbiotic relationship between the residents of upstate and the city. No longer seen as simply a place to vacation this enclave has become the home of many New Yorkers. A flip from the weekend getaway in the mountains to a home away from home.
When you think of New York, what often comes to mind are tall skyscrapers, busy streets, and the lifestyles of chic Manhattanites and more recently cool Brooklynites. What doesn’t usually come to mind, particularly for people outside of New York, are the bucolic landscapes and small towns nestled into the dense forests that make up essentially the rest of the state. Like most of rural America, Upstate New York has a forlorn feeling of a forgotten time. The once vibrant streets have a grayness to them, as paint peels from empty storefronts, you can’t help but feel as though if you stay too long you too may be forgotten.
I grew up in a place like this; a place called Livingston Manor. I can remember walking down the streets; in my mind, it always seems to be Spring. When the snow is left in melted dirty patches on brown grass, and the streets are covered in a layer of sand and salt. The whole world slightly warmer but still a defeating wash of grey, as though summer would never come, like nothing in the world would ever be green again. I can remember walking down Main Street; a small strip with one traffic light that a stop sign could have easily replaced. The only time there actually being traffic was at the end of the school day. As I walked, I thought, “I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”
And then something began to change. This small forgotten Catskill town, along with many others began to become a bit brighter. As if overnight, a coffee shop appeared, flower-filled baskets hung from new street lights, and peeling paint was replaced by murals celebrating rural life. As a twelve-year-old searching for any morsel of culture, I embraced these changed with every fiber of my being. Days were spent hanging out in Peez Leweez, the local café, watching the Obama campaigners work, flipping through pages at the local book shop, and spending hours at Weegee & Co, a small oddity shop.
The Catskills have long been an escape for New Yorkers; a beautiful mountainous landscape with cool clear lakes and rivers only a short drive from the hot crowded city. For a long time, they were the place to be, attracting people from Elizabeth Taylor to Woody Allen. Of course, times change, and with the popularization of air travel, the people who could afford to vacation went elsewhere. Tourism was an essential aspect of the economy, and when tourism stopped these small towns began to fade.
What I know now and what I was only superficially aware of as a child is that not everyone saw this new vitality as welcome. Tension mounted during those years, a push between the old and the new, the locals and the “city folk”. Local shop owners and building owners began to push newcomers out and one by one the town began to slowly dim, like the ebb and flow of winter. I suppose change is hard, particularly for those who find comfort in the familiar.
After achieving my dream to “get the hell out”, a shift happened. Small Livingston Manor became the it place to be. Write-ups in the New York Times, celebrities walking down the street, and a flux of once city residents buying up small cabins and making their home in the mountains, commuting to the city only when absolutely necessary, even a small bar in the heart of Brooklyn named Livingston Manor.
What has struck me the most, every few months when I make the trek home to visit, isn’t the change in the physical community but the change in the social one. In this small town, two distinct parts of American culture have merged: the urban and the rural. There, of course, are many layers to the nature of this relationship but for all intents and purposes, one supports the other. Perhaps there is still some work to be done to perfect this relationship but looking at Livingston Manor it seems an important lesson in how we can begin to coexist and repair the social fabric of the country.
The community members, both new and old, are invested in the well-being and growth of the town. Of course, there is always bound to be a certain amount of tension in a small town, but a synergetic relationship has been built and continues to grow. In a place so beautiful it seems both worlds have put down their pitchforks and merged.