East Coast Travelogue №4: The Proud Foundry Along the Hudson

The capitol region in upstate New York was growing as a tech and games hub for some time, then the pandemic caused mass migration from downstate/NYC. But unlike its downstate counterpart, Troy seems comfortable in temporal discord.

Previously, on Episode 3 of the Return to the East Coast Travelogue, I had an unexpected little adventure checking out Moynihan Train Hall after returning to the northeast from Raleigh (which now feels more like an extension of the northeast rather than a southern city).

Now we pick up literally where that adventure left off: what happened after I actually boarded the train heading upstate.

As the Jewish Wedding Principle struck, I originally only had three nights planned in the capitol region. But I wound up getting an extra night with my friends on account of my parents having to quarantine in Europe, courtesy of my being a Best Western Diamond member. With my parents safely back in the US and testing negative, I hung with my friend Liz, who’s been in my life since my early days in the punk scene over 20 years ago. I also got to see one of my more recent friends from the games industry before it was time for my first international flight in ages.

That principle struck once again as Liz’s car wouldn’t start after she picked me up from Albany-Rensselaer station. Fortunately, she was able to jump the battery and we made it to my hotel in Troy. Where depending on how you see it, it’s either a small city or very large college town. In fact, it was being invited to give an entrepreneurship talk to the latest crop of game dev grads at nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic (RPI) that brought me up there for the first time some years back and introduced me to the other friend I was now visiting.

Just like how Raleigh is the helm of the Tech Triangle in North Carolina, there’s a similar one with the Capitol District: Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, which are a stone’s throw from one another. Although in upstate New York, you at least expect to see vast amounts of downstate people who departed the five boroughs (or the honorary sixth borough, Yonkers) in favor of lower real estate prices and a slower pace of life while still being within day trip distance of the homeland.

The Capitol District is certainly seeing rapid expansion that was only exacerbated by the pandemic.

While the crown jewels of the Capitol District saw an influx of new residents, bidding wars ensued in neighboring suburbs. Liz lives in a suburb about 15 minutes from downtown Albany and she saw it going down in real time. The Capitol District reached record lows of housing inventory after COVID first struck, with only about 28% of housing stock available for sale or rent. The median sale price was $380,000 in 2021, approaching a staggering $440,000 in 2022 thus far. Liz definitely got in for less than that.

Virtually all of her neighbors are from Brooklyn or Queens. I ran into a woman I knew from the games industry who graduated from RPI and had been part of the NYC game dev scene, then she boomeranged back up to Troy to enjoy a higher quality of life with significantly lower living costs than what Queens could offer.

Liz commented, “I like Troy. It reminds me a lot of Brooklyn before it got gentrified to hell and back.” Personally, I found that the low sidewalks lined with rowhouses and that ideal mix of grit and shine reminded me of Philadelphia, where I spent a significant amount of time in the early-mid 1990s.

The paucity of chain stores, banks, and restaurants in comparison to real mom-and-pop shops was certainly a welcome sight, given the corporate dystopia my home city had become. Cute coffee shops and tea lounges with colorful awnings invited people in from the calm streets. Restaurant windows proudly proclaimed that they offered many vegan and gluten-free options. I lost count of how many vintage clothing and home goods shops filled out storefronts down below.

Even the bank branches I observed on my walks were very small banks I never even heard of.

A Viking-themed shop was near a bougie baby boutique. Jewelry stores that had more of a crunchy and artsy feel instead of a mortgage-priced wedding band vibe were surprisingly numerous. A tiny storefront peddling handmade chocolates infused with CBD oil was a quick jaunt from my hotel.

Of course, there were also shuttered stores and vacancy signs but not nearly to the degree that they proliferated my home city before I left. But even the closed stores were incredibly interesting, with this one standing out if you’re a fan of Steins;Gate:

Downtown Troy was a veritable motherlode of quirky small businesses one used to see all over the Village. Before the times of trendy wine bars and multi-million dollar condos then years of blight because no one but chain stores and banks can afford the rent now.

But in front of me was the American Dream that had been stolen from so many. This is what used to be the beacon of Manhattan: if you don’t go digital with entrepreneurship aspirations like I did, this is where you go. While a lot of people went back to the city after they couldn’t take suburban ennui anymore once the COVID vaccines rolled out, it looks like small cities are only growing and Troy is no exception.

Unlike New York City, Troy is incredibly affirmed in its identity: the historical lives in harmony with the high-tech.

I’ve frequently said that New York City is a city in severe identity crisis. It can’t decide if it wants to keep old structures, attitudes, ways of life, and institutions preserved in amber, from a time when the working class was the heartbeat of the city and made it so attractive to the dreamers and the deviant. Or, if it wants to move into the 21st century but as the personal portfolio for a couple of oil and real estate oligarchs.

Between infrastructure and governance alone, it has the absolute worst of both worlds today which played a major role in why I left. Silicon Alley is probably going to outpace Silicon Valley soon enough, but it feels dissonant in a place that has a subway almost as old as our Congressmen. And they remember when Taft was freaking president.

Real estate markets aside, I can honestly see why so many game developers and techies migrated to the Capitol District: Albany and Troy are pretty comfortable with what they are. They’re not trying to be carbon copies of New York City. They’re small cities that stand on their own. There’s shiny gadgetry and brew pubs, but everyone just outwardly embraces that a bar used to be a 1910s candy shop. Or the fancy new loft apartments that used to be a factory, signage and all. One building was even a former peep show!

Many of the buildings are well-preserved, even if some received a facelift and Instgrammable garnishes. Somehow, they managed to make preservation a top priority while embracing the influx of tech talent and entrepreneurship.

This is particularly noticeable in the railings and other ironwork seen on the buildings downtown. The Capitol District, Troy in particular, was famous for its foundry. Iron was the city’s chief export and a cornerstone of the local economy. Iron shipments were floated down the Hudson River, which is why it’s still stained green to this day. (It also explains why so many bars, game studios, and maker spaces in the region use the word “foundry” in their names.)

Rivers have been integral to trade for eons and continue to serve that role today: even if it’s just apartments that can command more money with a river view, opposed to using it to ferry copies of your software all the way to New Jersey or Canada.

Of course, Troy isn’t completely free from identity crisis. Upstate New Yorkers were always known for having different values and priorities than us downstate people, and some are pretty salty about so many transplants from the city arriving en masse. I definitely felt it when I went to get Greek food one day. The decor, music, the owner’s hairstyle, and their refusal to take credit cards immediately transported me back to 1989.

Ditto for when I went to the fancier food hall that had acai bowl, artisanal hummus, and vegan Mexican vendors yet blasted jingoistic country music on the radio.

It’s there alright. The identity crisis just doesn’t feel nearly as strong as it does downstate, or even in Raleigh.

The upstate leg of this adventure also made me feel like I was in my own personal time flux.

I noticed I was not the only alternative woman walking around. There was even a small bar near the tea shop that proclaimed they were having a goth and post-punk show later that night. Funny, I remember lamenting being too young to go to shows or drink at bars when I was just dying to be out of that hellhole school and out in the world already: now I’d probably be creepily older than a majority of these showgoers, a lower likelihood at such a club in my new or old home.

Next thing I knew, I heard the unmistakable sound of Sheer Terror from a car window and immediately my ears perked up. A massive black SUV with the windows open was stopped at the light on 3rd Street and the driver was nodding along with “I, Spoiler”, seemingly lost in his own world. I happened to catch sight of an empty booster seat in the back.

I smiled and briefly wondered if Liz and I had seen him around at shows in the past and now they were neighbors. I take it he’s hardly the first or last emigrant from New York Hardcore who also couldn’t afford to raise a family in the homeland.

The proliferation of vegan restaurants nearby were also indicative how the world has changed since we first got in the pit for bands like Agnostic Front and The Casualties. When Liz and I went to dinner at one and I discussed the hot mess that single women my age must contend with in dating, even if we refuse to use dating apps, I realized she truly resides on a totally fucking different planet than the one I do. It only heightened the feeling that I was traversing multiple worldlines Steins;Gate style.

The exchange that went something like this:

“How did you meet this other guy who’s interested in you? The one who lives a few hours away?”

“He hit me up on LinkedIn.”

“Wait, isn’t that a place people go to look for jobs?”

I shook my head. “You’d think. I still think about that guy I slept with off of there. It was the last goddamn thing in the world I ever expected to happen.”

“Oh, so you already hooked up?”

“No, no, you’re getting them confused. That one was a while ago but is still on my radar. I hoped to get together with him again but he’s taken now, so it’s a no go. No, this OTHER guy who tried to date me off of LinkedIn was more recent. We haven’t met in person at all. It was initially all business. But when I rebuffed his sales pitch, he pivoted to personal and went the reply guy route — ”

“What’s a reply guy?”

“Hold on! You don’t know what a reply guy is?”

“No. Is that a bad thing?”

I then had to launch into a more detailed explanation of Reply Guy behavior than the Urban Dictionary definition, how it can be benign or malignant. (Benign in this case. But no, dear reader. We did not end up dating because I want to stay in LA and keep building on my life and business there so our priorities were divergent. I enjoyed our little exchanges though, he’ll be an amazing partner to someone physically closer.)

“So…how do reply guys work? Do women ever date them or do you just block them if they do it too much?”

I heaved a deep sigh. “You sweet summer child, who has been married 15 years and doesn’t have to deal with this shit. I love you, but baby. We are in different galaxies. I have to sort reply guys into who’s actually decent, who’s just friendly vs. a horny fanboy, who SEEMS decent then turns out to be a predator, and have I mentioned that 2022 has been a bloodbath of cishet dudes both online and offline who I thought were my friend but were just trying to sleep with me?”

“I’m glad I’m married!” she responded in a small voice. “I think I need a spreadsheet to keep up with all these guys and a pocket dictionary for all these new words that got invented.”

“Ah, the paradox of having six different men in your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reptiles Monthly DMs, yet have absolute fuck all happening with them from some combination of physical and emotional distance, overwhelm, and the one you truly want being so close geographically but unavailable. Up next on Single Alternative Women of Angel City.”

Life and cities change for both better and worse.

I’m part of the very same New York City exodus just like most of these new residents. Even though I left a different borough, went in a different cardinal direction, and all for entirely different reasons.

While I made incredibly different life choices than Liz, we have mutual respect for embarking on different paths and are still in each others’ lives. Plus, I get to be the cool aunt by proxy who teaches her kids about the differences between iguanas and monitor lizards.

Troy and Albany are in a different time flux than downstate, and a single woman who’s very online and literally out in the world is absolutely going to travel a different road than a married mom even if our origin points were similar. But while I’m happy to visit the quieter college town just for the matcha and carrot cake at The Whistling Kettle, megalopolises are in my blood. I couldn’t live in a place like this, even if I was happily married to my dream guy and bought a dream condo with a state-of-the-art thermostat. It’s too cold to have giant lizards there. And this girl doesn’t do connecting flights out of small regional airports. EVER.

The small city is having a moment in the sun. But I have to be where I can eternally soak up the rays with the monitor lizards.

Next Travelogue Entry: Returning to Sweet Home New York City