YO MAN's definitions

White Plains

A boring, phony, sterile "city" in Westchester. Has a lot of malls though little culture, flavor, or character to it. Basically a more built-up version of affluent suburbia, calling it a "city" is misleading.

White Plains just seems to perfect to me...it seems more planned than evolved, unlike Yonkers, a haphazard mess of everything.

by YO Man December 25, 2004

Crestwood

A neighborhood in Yonkers, New York. Thought of by Yonkersites as being its own "stuck-up town", Crestwood chooses not to identify with the rest of Yonkers. It is entirely residential, middle to upper-middle class, and to compound their sense of being separate from Yonkers, it shares a zip code (10707) with the neighboring town of Tuckahoe.

Crestwood is the northeasternmost section of Yonkers, bound by the Yonkers city line and by Scarsdale Road, Crisfield Street, and Central Avenue. (plus maybe a couple of blocks over those boundaries.)

by YO Man July 7, 2004

mount vernon

An inferior version of Yonkers. The northern half of Mount Vernon is a boring area called Fleetwood that looks like a clone of New Rochelle. The south side is a hellhole ghetto with like 2 white people which adjoins the similar Wakefield section of the Bronx.

Yonkers has 25 distinct neighborhoods. Mount Vernon just has Fleetwood. Who's more culturally sophisticated?

by YO Man June 24, 2004

Staten Island

The odd man out of the New York City boroughs. Staten Island is west of the Hudson and should be considered part of New Jersey. Kind of like how Marble Hill is on the mainland but is part of Manhattan. Go figure.

Growing up in Yonkers, Staten Island was like the moon: a shithole, no reason to there, feels a lot farther than it actually is, a place you see and hear about but still seems mythical.

by YO Man July 11, 2004

rockland

The reason why Westchester and Long Island are downstate and Rockland is upstate has nothing to do with urbanization or location, but rather historical connection to New York City. The Bronx used to be part of Westchester County until the late 19th century and much of Westchester's nomenclature still exists in the Bronx today; the Eastchester neighborhood used to be part of the present-day Town of Eastchester; there is an Eastchester Bay and Westchester Creek in the Bronx, as well as an Eastchester Road, White Plains Road, and Westchester Square. There is a Town of Pelham in Westchester as well as Pelham Bay Park, Pelham Bay, and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. Also, there is a Bronx River and Bronx River Parkway running through the Bronx and Lower Westchester. However, by this method Upper Westchester might qualify as upstate because it really is not involved in the Bronx/Lower Westchester history, and has some upstate names (e.g. "-on Hudson","-kill" as in Peekskill).

Nassau County used to be part of Queens and that is apparent based on similar names on both sides of the city line. Little Neck is in Queens adjacent to Great Neck in Nassau County. There's an East Rockaway in Nassau and Far Rockaway in Queens. Also, some towns in Nassau on the Queens border have the same name as the QUeens neighborhoods on the other side, like Floral Park and Bellerose. Furthermore, many zip codes straddle the Queens-Nassau border.

Rockland has none of those. It does not border any borough of NYC nor share any history with it. In fact, Rockland County used to be part of Orange County (which is upstate according to most Rockland County residents) until about 1800. This is why Orangetown is in Rockland County.

Nobody seriously believes Rockland County is rural or far from the city, it just has no historical connection to the city, which Westchester and Nassau Counties do.

by YO Man July 16, 2004

Hudson Valley

A region of New York State. While it technically could mean everything in the Bronx to Albany corridor, people who identify with this region are those who live just past the NY suburbs but relatively close to the city, typically in Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, or Putnam County. Poughkeepsie could be said to be the capital of the Hudson Valley region.

Everyone from this region thinks they are from "Po-town" (Poughkeepsie). Kind of like how everyone in Westchester thinks they are from the Bronx or Yonkers when they really live in Scarsdale.

by YO Man July 27, 2004

Marble Hill

That's not actually correct, JB. (I do love your upstate-bashing, though!) Originally Marble Hill was attached to Manhattan, but a canal was dug in the Harlem River which separated it from Manhattan and put it on the mainland. Though it has always been part of New York County, it is generally regarded as the Bronx. It looks like the Bronx, it feels like the Bronx, the address says Bronx, NY 10463, and the area code is 718.

When you're walking down Broadway, Kingsbridge (Bronx) becomes Marble Hill (Manhattan) after W 230th St, but there is no "Welcome to Manhattan" sign.

by YO Man July 7, 2004