I took a job and spent 3 months in Utica, NY in the fall of 1997 (the time of which she speaks). I went to the local shopping mall, Sangertown Square, and it was a ghost town. There were no young people from age 18-40. Everyone was less then 18 and much older than 40. There was nobody in the middle. That’s when I decided to leave town like everyone else had done.
We were in Utica New York about 7 years ago. We were camping nearby and went in to the City on a Friday for dinner because hubby had read that some hole-in-the-wall fish place had a great fried fish dinner.
We’re all pretty street smart, and we were pretty well scared at 6 pm on a summer afternoon. Hubby even asked our friend: do you have your gun? Which he did not, btw.
What a dump of a city. It makes Newark, NJ look like Paris France. It must be really a delight in the winter.
Sorry Uticans who may read this, but your city is a mess.
When I was a kid, we left Utica (Whitesboro) in 1960 and moved to Ithaca. Stayed there five years. Moved to Syracuse (Fayetteville) and spent a year there. Ithaca was the nicest place of the three, but I got jumped and sucker punched by a city ghetto rat around 1964.
Even in the late 50s, Utica wasn’t much.