WaPo: New Yorkers not sure where “upstate” is but it’s definitely not Ithaca

In rebuke to Cynthia Nixon’s claim about “upstate” beginning at Ithaca, Philip Bump, reporter for The Washington Post, decided to conduct his own survey in order to determine where, exactly, New Yorkers think “upstate” begins. His methodology and results:

Beginning on Sunday (shortly after reading Nixon’s opinion), I asked 1,016 New Yorkers: Where does “Upstate New York” begin?

When you ask 1,000-odd people the answer to a question, you get a lot of variation. Some is subtle, such as “Albany” vs. “near Albany.” Some is dismissive: Got a “do not care,” 40 “don’t know” replies and one “no.” Others made jokes: “my house,” “upstate someplace,” “Peoria,” “San Francisco.” Others identified very specific locations in and around New York City: 14th Street, the George Washington Bridge. Six people said that upstate started at 125th Street, meaning that the Bronx is in Upstate New York.

I love “no” because that’s my initial reaction, too, and “San Francisco” is a pretty good nod to the NYC-SF shared connections.

Read the rest of Bump’s article here.