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The capital city of New York is Albany, another Northeastern city which has flourished, declined, and is now on the rebound. Its eastern border is the Hudson River, and it is at the crossroads of two major interstates, I-90 and I-87, which makes it easy to head into and out of. It’s almost exactly halfway between New York City and Montreal, as well as Buffalo and Boston. It has classic Upstate New York weather, with hot summers, snowy winters, lovely springs and eye-popping fall foliage.

Albany has been the state capital since 1797, so politics have always played a major role here. The city was originally a center of transportation, as it was on the Hudson River, part of the Erie Canal, crossed by railroad lines and home to one of the first commercial airports in the country. Government eventually became its biggest employer, although construction was certainly going strong during former Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s creation of the Empire State Plaza, a 98-acre collection of marble and steel buildings built between 1959 and 1976. Today most of its jobs are in government, healthcare, higher education, and a growing technology industry.

During the 1970s and 1980s many of the city’s wealthier residents moved to the suburbs, leaving the poorer population behind. Today there is redevelopment going on in the downtown areas, and the controversial Albany Convention Center – a proposed 300,000 square-foot space – is still in the works. Albany received the “All-American City Award” in 1991 and 2009, which “recognizes communities whose citizens work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results.”

Anyone wanting to look around Albany should start at the Visitor’s Center on Broadway. There’s a Planetarium with shows about the city’s history and its entertainment, and you can take a walking tour, ride the trolley, or survey the city from a boat on the Hudson River. Albany has a trove of historic buildings, with 57 listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Head for Lark Street, the village-within-the-city often likened to New York City’s Greenwich Village, for cool little shops, restaurants, and clubs. Downtown’s Center Square has galleries, more restaurants, shops and nightlife; Pearl Street and Broadway have restaurants, theaters and pubs. Every first Friday of the month many museums and galleries open free to the public from 5-8, where you can view all kinds of works of art.

Albany is an eat, drink, and be merry kind of place, with wineries and breweries, tours and tastings, 15 wine and/or beer festivals during the year, and a 4 AM closing time for bars and clubs (this is true for the entire Capital District, which includes the counties of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, and Saratoga. It is usually explained as a holdover from the days when bars stayed open to accommodate the late-shift factory workers.) Speaking of liquids, Albany tap water is rated the best in New York State.

Albany is a culturally busy city. It has its own symphony orchestra, and musicians and actors flock to the Palace Theatre, the architecturally-unique Egg, and the Capital Repertory Theatre. The Times Union Center hosts sports and concerts, and the Albany Riverfront Park at the Corning Preserve hosts summer events in its 800-seat amphitheatre. There are over 60 parks and recreation areas.

There are all kinds of festivals from which to choose, including Albany Chefs’ Food and Wine Festival, LarkFest (Upstate New York’s largest one-day street festival), Fabulous Fourth Fireworks Festival, African American Family Day Arts Festival, Albany Jazz Festival, Winter WonderLark (featuring the annual Santa Speedo Sprint), and the early May Tulip Festival, where you can see thousands of every kind of tulip in bloom, all in honor of the city’s Dutch heritage.

The city itself is 21 square miles and has a population of about 98,000, with the metro area home to about 877,000. In the city public school system there are 12 elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high school. Albany high school is not highly ranked either in New York State or the country.

The University of Albany (founded in 1905 as the “New York State Normal School”) is here, as are the Albany Medical College, Albany Law School, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Science, SUNY Albany, as well as seven other colleges within the Albany-Troy area.

Median city income is $37,505, median house/condo value is $181,800, median rent is $813. Albany is 57.0% white, 30.8% black, 10.6% Latino, the remainder comprised of various other races.

Author William Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Ironweed” was set in Albany, where he grew up.

Hazy summer dawns spent leaning over a railing, holding a cup of coffee, watching as the horses breezed by during their morning workouts … this is how I remember Saratoga, also known as Saratoga Springs. Forty-five minutes north of Albany, Saratoga is the home of the famous racehorse track and auctions, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It is a truly beautiful and welcoming place, no matter what the season and whether or not you care about horses.

The “Springs” part of the name comes from the famous mineral waters that flow beneath the area, and which has made it a spa destination since the 19th century. Combine this with the racetrack, polo matches, an array of winter festivals and sports activities, and world-class cultural offerings, and you have a tourist destination that still manages to keep an air of old-time gentility.

Tourism is the backbone of Saratoga, but definitely not its whole. Industries include the Saratoga Spring Water Company, the offset printer Quad Graphics, Ball Corporation (manufacturer of aluminum cans and Mason Jars) and Stewart Shops (convenience store/gas stations.) Many people commute to Albany, either by car, Amtrack (which continues to New York City), or several different bus companies.

Saratoga covers about 29 square miles, has a population of 26,586, and Saratoga Lake, which is about four and half miles long and a mile and a half wide, is at the southeast end of the city.

The summer racing season lasts from mid-July to September, which is when the population booms and hotel rooms are hard to find. Horse lovers will be in heaven, as there are horse shows (one for dressage only), polo matches every Friday and Sunday afternoons, and a harness racing track. The latter also offers the Racino, a casino with over 1700 state-of-the-art video gaming machines, and Vapor, a nightclub featuring live performances (you must be 18 for the casino, 21 for the nightclub.)

Not into horses? Not a problem. Outdoorsy types can go ballooning, rent a canoe or kayak, charter a boat, take a canal tour, go fishing or camping, hike through nature trails and geological sites, choose from 20 different golf courses, go mountain biking, river rafting, skydiving, or spend the afternoon at the Extra Innings Indoor Baseball Training Center or the Saratoga Springs Municipal Skatepark. In the winter, there’s ice skating, ice hockey, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.

The architecturally inclined can head for downtown Saratoga, where there are seven different designated Historic Preservation areas. Here’s where you’ll find all kinds of shopping, as well as over 90 restaurants. There are museums galore, including the two-story, interactive Children’s Museum. As you would imagine, Saratoga has 5-star night life, with fine restaurants, wine bars, pubs, jazz and dance clubs.

The 2,200-acre Saratoga Spa State Park is where you’ll find both culture and recreation, as well as carefully preserved wild areas. Here is the renowned Saratoga Performing Arts Center, with its 5,000-seat amphitheatre (20,000 on the lawn) that is a regular stop for nationally touring artists, the summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City ballet, and the site of extravaganzas like Battle of the Bands and fundraisers like the Saratoga Wine, Food & Fall Ferrari Festival. There is a smaller venue, the Spa Little Theater, as well as the Saratoga National Museum of Dance, the Saratoga Automobile Museum, the Gideon Putnam resort, and Roosevelt Baths and Spa.

The Spa State Park has a two pools, one with a 19’ double slide, as well as food, showers and locker rooms. There are also two golf courses - one 18-hole and one 9-hole course.

Yaddo, the 400-acre artists’ community which has hosted 60 Pulitzer Prize winners and one Nobel laureate is here; make sure to visit and stroll through its beautiful rose and rock gardens.

In 2011, CNN Money rated Saratoga Springs as 75th out of the 100 best places to live, citing “a lively, walkable downtown … low crime and a solid school system. And culture? Tons.”

It’s not very diverse, though, with 93.8% of the population Caucasian. Median household income is $63,945, and median house/condo value is $303,322. Median gross rent is $851.

For those so dazzled by their visit that they want to settle down here, there are six elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school in the Saratoga Springs City School District. The District and Saratoga Partnership for Prevention sponsors Parent University, which provides workshops and classes for parents addressing their childrens’ issues. In 2011, the Washington Post ranked Saratoga Springs High School in the top 7% of 27,000 public high schools based on how well the students were prepared for college. There are a number of private schools, including Catholic Schools and a Waldorf School.

Skidmore College and Empire State College are both in Saratoga Springs.

Great Neck is actually a region, not a town, although the village of Great Neck (population almost 10,000) lies within it. It is on the North Shore of Long Island, bordering Queens, and is the epicenter of the famous “LawwnGuyland” accent. It is an area of endless upscale subdivisions, strip malls, and gas stations, but with a diverse and polyglot population.

The area of Great Neck is in the town of North Hempstead, home to about 40,000 people, spread over 9 villages and hamlets. An express train during peak hours can get you into Manhattan’s Penn Station in 24 minutes, making it a desirable commuter place. It’s on a peninsula, so beach and boating lovers don’t have to travel far.

Besides the Village of Great Neck, there are twelve hamlets or villages within the region of Great Neck, including King’s Point, home of the US Merchant Marine Academy. There is a large Jewish population – Ashkenazi, Iranian, and Orthodox – as well as many Asians and a growing Hispanic/Latino community. One need only to check the website of the Great Neck Union Free School District to see the diversity here, as it gives you the option of reading in Chinese, Korean, or Spanish, and tells you that the students come from over 40 different countries.

The public school system is highly rated (in 2010 US News rated Great Neck South High School as 21st in NY and 101st in the nation). There are three high schools, two middle schools, and four elementary schools. There are a number of private schools, including private Hebrew schools.

There are 21 parks in the Great Neck Park District. The big ones are the Parkwood Sports Complex, which contains an indoor tennis center, a pool, and an ice skating rink, and offers a summer camp for children. Steppingstone Park has a marina on the edge of the Long Island Sound, where you can moor a boat, attend sailing school, fish, go on a dinner cruise, use the extensive children’s playground and aqua park, or watch a performance at the Steppingstone Waterside Theatre. Memorial Field has baseball diamonds, handball/basketball/ tennis courts, and a playground; Allenwood Park has the same, plus an aqua park and a children’s play area. The 175-acre King’s Point Park has sports facilities and picnic areas, as well as more than five miles of hiking/cross-country skiing trails, plus a sledding hill. There are 16 smaller parks; three have no facilities, just trails for walking.

Head to the Great Neck Arts Center to view exhibitions of contemporary artists and collections, to watch performances by singers, dancers, comedians, actors, poets and magicians, to take classes in art, ceramics, dance, theatre, chess, fencing, and music, or to watch the Furman Film Series, which shows independent, art and foreign films.

The US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point has a museum filled with nautical treasures. If you’d rather be outdoors, you can take a historic walking tour of Great Neck Village, or play a round of golf at the Fresh Meadows Country Club in Lake Success.

Literary historians will know that F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in Great Neck Estates, and that Kings Point was the inspiration for “West Egg” in “The Great Gatsby.” Sands Point became “East Egg,” the home of old money and grand estates; if you’d like to see what Fitzgerald was writing about, go to the 216-acre Sands Point Preserve and tour Hempstead House, the former Gold Coast home of Daniel Guggenheim, and Falaise, the house built by his son Harry, founder of Newsday. The drive from Great Neck to Sands Point will take you about 25 minutes.

Great Neck restaurants well-rated by Zagat’s include the famous Peter Luger Steak House, Restaurant Lola, Morton’s, Burton & Doyle, and Simply Fondue.

North Shore Hospital is right in Great Neck.

Hempstead is a 191-square mile suburb on Long Island so densely packed that it has more residents than the city of Buffalo. It contains 22 villages, 37 hamlets, and the population is nearly 760,000. It is on Long Island’s South Shore, borders Queens, and has nearly 3 miles of shoreline, including the famous Jones Beach.

A suburb this large defies generalization, especially since there is such a broad spectrum of income levels. However, if you’re looking for a low-key, slow-paced place with privacy, you won’t find it here. Hempstead runs the gamut from burned-out areas rife with gunfire and drug dealing to places where they build 10,000-square foot, $4 million look-at-me’s on less than ¾ of an acre. Wherever you go you’ll be looking at your neighbor’s window, so the anti-social should just keep going.

But the beaches are great, if crowded, and the Town runs four marinas. Bay Constables enforce the boating and conservation laws, and provide help for those who need it. There are quite a few golf courses. There are 1,400 acres of parkland in more than 90 parks, 23 pools, and the Department of Parks and Recreation provides all kinds of sports, classes, entertainment and cultural activities, and sponsors events like the Seaside Spectacular Car Show, the Festival By The Seat, and the Town of Hempstead Triathlon.

The Town is so large that it provides the kinds of services for its residents normally only found in cities. It provides interest-free loans to senior citizens, and grants for people with handicaps. The Housing Authority helps the elderly and those with limited income find residences, and the Department of Occupational Resources provides assistance to both businesses and jobseekers.

There is a successful clamming industry here, monitored both by marine biologists and law enforcement officials. People can dig for clams but only with a special permit and within certain boundaries.

The Hempstead Animal Shelter receives 6,000 calls per year, and has one of highest adoption rates in the nation.

History buffs may (or may not) appreciate that Roosevelt Field, a shopping mall in Garden City, was once an airstrip used by Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post. It was from here that Charles Lindbergh took off in the Spirit of St. Louis, bound for France, on his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight.

Again, the schools run the gamut. The Hempstead High School, located within the Village of Hempstead, is unranked by US News and World Report. Its college readiness index is 13%, but 56% of its students are economically disadvantaged. Garden City High School, on the other hand, was rated 26th within NY and 138th in the nation by US News; its college readiness index is 67.2%, but the number of economically disadvantaged students is 1%. The median household income for Garden City is $165,000, while the Village of Hempstead’s is $45,234.

Hofstra, Long Island’s largest private college, is located on 240 acres in Hempstead.

The Village of Hempstead, especially around Terrace Avenue, has long been known as a dangerous area of gangs, drugs, etc. Two years ago its violent crime index was twice the national average. However, they are working on it … last year 25 members of a notorious street gang were indicted, and this summer a high-tech gunfire detection system was installed in the Village, allowing police to locate shots within seconds. The Village of Hempstead is currently negotiating with a developer for $2-billion downtown revitalization plan, which, naturally, would transform the area as so many have been done before.

It takes about 50 minutes to get to Penn Station on the Long Island Rail Road from the Hempstead Station.

Although this overview may be helpful, those considering moving to the Hempstead area really need to investigate its individual villages and hamlets.

The famous Levittown was born after World War II, when returning soldiers were faced with a serious housing shortage. William Levitt, who had mass-produced military housing while in the Navy, bought large areas of blight-ravaged potato fields and created endless tracts of identical Cape Cod-style houses. Initially offered as rentals, such was the demand that half of the first 2,000 houses built were rented within two days.

Additional houses were quickly built and offered for sale. The first ones available, in 1947, had four rooms and a bathroom and went for $6,900; later versions, the larger 800-square foot ranch houses, were $7,900. Within four years Levitt and Sons had built 17,447 houses. The name of the town changed from Island Trees to Levittown, in part because there wasn’t a tree left standing after they were finished.

Now, however, trees have been planted and the houses have been renovated to the point where they are unrecognizable as the cookie-cutter “dream homes” of the post-war era. This is still hard-core suburbia, where rows and rows of houses are situated on a small square of lawn just a bit bigger than the house; but the numbing uniformity of design is gone.

Levittown is located between the Village of Hempstead and Farmingdale, ten miles east of Queens. Although it’s technically a hamlet, it’s a very populated one: there are 51,881 residents. It is within the Town of Hempstead, population 759,757; Hempstead contains 22 villages and 37 hamlets, and has more people than the city of Buffalo. If you’re looking for a very tightly packed community, you’ve come to the right place.

William Levitt refused to sell his houses to anyone but Caucasians, and today the town is still mostly white. The Town of Hempstead is far more diverse, with about 60% white, 17% Hispanic, and 16% African American. Levitt also talked about building communities but preferred to build his houses, take his money and move on, leaving municipalities scrambling to provide services for the growing population. Today, however, the Town of Hempstead does a good job of providing services for all its villages and hamlets. Levitt and Sons went bankrupt in 2007.

There are three school districts in Levittown. The Levittown Union Free School District has six elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools; US News & World Report ranked MacArthur High School 79th in NY and 622nd in the nation, and Division Avenue High School was ranked 146th in NY and 1160 in the nation.

The Island Trees Union Free School District has two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school; the Island Trees High School was ranked 304th in NY and 885th in the nation. A small area of Levittown is served by the East Meadow Union Free School District, with five elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. There are quite a few private as well as vocational schools as well.

The beach is big here; Jones Beach, the most popular beach on the East Coast, is in Hempstead. Popular destinations in Levittown are South Levittown Lanes, Governor’s Comedy Club, and Cue Nine Billiards & Restaurant. Faddy Malone’s Bar & Grill, a sports bar with a dance floor and karaoke on Wednesday nights, is open until 4 AM. Head to Newbridge Farms for gourmet grocery shopping, and Broadway Warehouse Liquors for a great selection of wines.

The best-rated local restaurants include Napolitano Brothers, Villa Carmela, Fortune Wheel Seafood Restaurant, Portofino Restaurant, Pat’s Pizza, Tropical Smoothie Café, Sang Sang Kitchen, Miller’s Ale House, Newbridge Farms, and Calda Pizza.

New Island Hospital is two miles away, in Bethpage. The North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, which is less than 25 minutes away, was rated the nation’s top hospital by AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine.

Commuters can catch a Long Island Rail Road train from nearby Bethpage or Hicksville (both approximately ten minutes away – unless there’s traffic) to Penn Station.

Huntington is a busy, highly developed town in Suffolk County, Long Island. Once it was known for agriculture and shipping, then for tourism and as the summer destination of New Yorkers. From the 1950s to the 1980s, wild tracts of land and farmland disappeared as the population soared, and today Huntington has over 203,000 residents. For some reason, a very large number of famous people either were born here or lived here at one point in their lives.

Huntington is right next to the Nassau-Suffolk County border. If you look on a map, its boundary lines form a sort of flower-splatter pattern, thanks in part to its five harbors and various bays. This is a place for beach lovers, as the town has nine beaches and three marinas. Within the 93-square mile town are the incorporated villages of Asharoken, Huntington Bay, Lloyd Harbor, and Northport, and there are 15 unincorporated hamlets as well.

This has to be the most organized town I’ve ever encountered, with 42 departments listed on their website – Adult Day Care Division, Huntington Small Business Resource and Recovery Center, Maritime Services, Transportation and Traffic Services, the list goes on. Need help? They’re prepared to give it to you. There are five different Human Services divisions – for Handicapped, Minorities, Senior Citizens, Veterans, and Women. There’s a Board of Ethics and Financial Disclosure, and a Public Art Advisory Committee. There’s a Conservation Board instead of the usual Conservation Council, which means the group can actually accomplish something.

The Town keeps up its parks, offers entertainment like Movies on the Lawn (a modern-day drive-in movie night), sponsors parades, Animal Adoption Days, and town festivals featuring events like Sand Castle Building and Meatball Eating. There is the annual Tulip Festival, with all kinds of vendors and performances, not to mention 20,000 tulips.

The Huntington Union Free School District contains 4,100 students housed in Flower Hill, Jefferson, Southdown, and Washington Primary Schools (K-3), Jack Abrams and Woodhull Intermediate Schools (4-6), J. Taylor Finley Middle School (7-8), and Huntington High School (9-12).

Since Huntington contains so many villages and hamlets, there are seven other school districts as well: Cold Spring Harbor, Commack, Elwood, Half Hollow Hills, Harborfields, Northport, and South Huntington. This year Whitman High School in South Huntington was rated the best out of schools in this area by US News, coming in 102nd out of 1,165 other New York schools (789th nationally.)

Here you’ll find the Heckscher Museum of Art, with a collection of over 2500 pieces of American and European artists, as well as a growing accumulation of photographs. You’ll definitely want to tour Eagle’s Nest, the Vanderbilt’s 24-room summer estate. Their planetarium is currently under renovation, but when it re-opens will be one of the best-equipped in the country. Living tours, with actors playing the roles of staff and guests, show you what summer life was like among the rich and famous in the 1930’s.

There are two private clubs here, the Huntington Crescent Club and the Huntington Country Club (actually in Cold Spring Harbor, a hamlet of Huntington).

Huntington is full of night life, and one of the destination points for the smaller and ultra-quiet villages of Nassau County. Here 25A becomes Main Street and it’s filled with bars and restaurants, as is New York Avenue. You can find trendy wine bars, sports bars, pubs, cigar bars, karaoke bars, and bars with dancing. You definitely won’t be bored here.

The largest employer in Huntington is Estee Lauder, followed by Newsday, Huntington Hospital, Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Henry Schein, and Western Suffolk BOCES. Huntington Hospital, by the way, was ranked 7th in New York State by US News & World Report.

It’s an easy commute to New York City on the Long Island Rail Road, which has four stops in Huntington.

If you’re looking for a large, bustling suburban town with great beaches, services, and all the amenities, Huntington may be for you.

Suffolk County’s Cold Spring Harbor is a lot like Putnam County’s Cold Spring. Both are charming and sleepy, without too many reminders of the crass modern age in which we live. Cold Spring is on the Hudson River and Cold Spring Harbor is on the Long Island Sound, but both have the same feeling of scenic beauty and old-time tranquility. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that I grew up ten minutes from one, and now live ten minutes from the other.

Cold Spring Harbor is a four-square-mile hamlet within the Town of Huntington, home to about 5,070 people. Once a whaling town, it became known as a resort area after the death of the industry. It is now known for the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (though the lab is actually in adjoining Laurel Hollow), a research and education non-profit which specializes in cancer, neuroscience, quantitative biology, plant biology, bioinformatics, and genomics. Renowned for both research and education, it operates the DNA Learning Center, a science center that sponsors class field trips, summer day camps, and teacher training workshops, all devoted to genetics education.

There is a lovely little protected marina and beach club, and right down the road is the Cold Spring Harbor Library & Environmental Center, a big, bright, wonderful place that offers - besides educational seminars, workshops, and everything else you’d find in a modern library - yoga, pilates, Tai Chi, and music performances.

The Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Aquarium, originally a trout hatchery and now over a hundred years old, has become a non-profit education center. They have two aquarium buildings, eight outdoor ponds, and the largest living collection of New York State freshwater reptiles, fishes and amphibians. Visitors can either feed the trout, or “Catch and Keep” them. The Hatchery offers a summer kids’ camp that I can tell you (from personal experience) is an awesome place, and one that can instill a life-long appreciation of nature.

The Whaling Museum slides gracefully from the area’s bloody history to its modern appreciation of the sea and the incredible creatures who live there, offering all kinds of programs, outreach, overnights, and field trips. Move inland and you’ll find the Uplands Farm Sanctuary, an old dairy farm-turned Nature Conservancy headquarters, with its meadows, forests, and old pastures.

History and decorative arts lovers should head to the Main Street gallery of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, which has changing exhibitions and programs. The Society owns three historic houses, including Joseph Lloyd Manor in nearby Lloyd Neck.

Main Street is filled with shops, boutiques, and restaurants. If you’re hungry, check out Cold Spring Harbor Plaza Delicatessen, The Gourmet Whaler, Grasso’s Restaurant, Sweetie Pie’s on Main, or Harbor Mist.

If you’re itching for more action, you’ll have to drive to Huntington, which is only five minutes away but far more connected to the modern world.

Cold Spring Harbor Central School District contains the Goosehill Primary School (k-1), West Side and Lloyd Harbor Schools (2-6), and Cold Spring Harbor Junior/Senior High School (7-12). The schools are excellent, with the high school consistently ranked in the top 100 of the nation’s schools.

The median household income is $133,209; the median house value, $783,916.

Not exciting, not diverse, not everyone's cup of tea - but not without its charm.

Locust Valley is often characterized as the place where WASPs are overbred to the point of caricature, and everyone looks and talks like Mr. and Mrs. Howell on Gilligan’s Island. Actually, this is somewhat true, although the last 20 or 30 years has seen an influx of (not always welcomed) new blood.

Jim Backus, who played Thurston Howell III, did a dead-on imitation of Locust Valley Lockjaw, the languid, teeth-clenched, “r”-less speech pattern common throughout this part of the North Shore of Long Island. If you grew up here, it takes determination not to jettison the accent once you leave; drop a few “tomahto”s and “vahse”s and “rahthah”s in a mixed crowd, and you will become the subject of such hilarity that soon you will find your jaw flapping about like the rest of the world’s.

Locust Valley is a hamlet within the Town of Oyster Bay, named for the beautiful trees that line the back roads. It’s only one square mile, and its population is 3,406. Like the surrounding villages of Mill Neck, Matinecock and Lattingtown, it’s an area of grand old estates; some of which still survive, many of which have been sold off by non-productive heirs and turned into the North Shore version of subdivisions, which contain new houses but with enough land to hide them from view.

So much is made of the clubs here that I should probably mention them. Piping Rock and The Creek are both golf/country clubs, and Piping has a beach club at a separate location. You may refer to The Creek as “Creek Club” but if you refer to Piping Rock as “The Piping,” you’ll immediately be spotted as an arriviste and ostracized. Supposedly there is some sort of rivalry between the two; I’d never seen it, so I asked a long-time resident. However, he’s a member of Seawanhaka, the yacht club on Centre Island, so his response was, “We don’t pay much attention to either one of them – we’re sailors, and they’re only golfers.”

So if you weren’t born here but have the determination and the cajones to try to break in, bring money and give it a try. If you need a practice club go for Beaver Dam, a winter sports club where everyone plays ice hockey and goes sledding, and where the scrutinization is far less fierce.

The Locust Valley Central School District is excellent. In May of 2012, three national publications (including US News) ranked the high school as one of the best in both the state and the nation. The district includes Bayville, Brookville, Lattingtown, Matinecock, and portions of Mill Neck, Muttontown, and Old Brookville. The schools are Bayville Primary, Ann MacArthur Primary, Locust Valley Intermediate, Bayville Intermediate, and Locust Valley Middle-High School.

There are two private schools here, Friends Academy, a Quaker school (although less than 1% of the students are actually Quaker) and Portledge School.

Locust Valley’s main drag consists of a small area containing restaurants, shops, a library, a firehouse, and a Long Island Rail Road train stop. The central gathering place is the traditional Tavern on the Plaza; there’s also Basil Leaf and Buckram Stables Café, where you can wear your riding clothes to lunch (as long as you look well in them). Barney’s Corner, on Buckram Road, has changed hands several times over the years, but remains a beloved institution.

There are a number of clubs and organizations within Locust Valley, although there is no Recreation Department or umbrella organization. The Locust Valley Civic Association hosts town events, parades, keeps up the town’s website, and “maintains our quality of life,” which basically means opposing all subdivisions. There’s the Locust Valley Tennis Association, Neighborhood Association, Neighborhood Watch, Grenville Boys and Girls Club, Historical Society, Garden Club, Friends of the Arts, Friends of the LV Library, Senior Club, Chamber of Commerce, the Clan Gordon Highlanders Pipe Band, and the LV Republican Club (there’s a Democratic Club here somewhere, but that sort of thing would obviously not be included on the town website.)

What’s there to do? There’s the beautiful 4-acre Humes Japanese Stroll Garden and the 60-acre Shu Swamp, both in Mill Neck; the 42-acre Bailey Arboretum in Lattingtown, and the 20-acre C.W. Post Community Arboretum in Brookville. The Arboretum is part of LIU Post, the college campus, which is also home to the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, a great concert hall which hosts all kinds of performers. A ten-minute drive will take you to Oyster Bay, where you can explore the town and visit the Waterfront Center, where you can learn to sail, swim, take certification classes, rent boats and kayaks, go fishing, or sail on Christeen, a National Landmark and the oldest Oyster Sloop in North America.

The median income in Locust Valley is $87,988, although I have no idea where they came up with that number; median house value, $638,138; and rent, $2,001.

Embarrassingly enough, even though I grew up in Oyster Bay Cove, I didn’t know until just now that the Town of Oyster Bay encompasses almost 170 square miles, includes 18 villages and 18 unincorporated hamlets, extends from the Long Island Sound on its northern border to the Atlantic Ocean on its southern, and is home to 293,214 people. And here I thought every small village was its own island, and that my hometown consisted of a couple hundred families.

Since 36 villages and hamlets are too much for one review, I’ll stick to the hamlet of Oyster Bay (population 6,707), which has a post office, a train station, stores, restaurants, and museums; Oyster Bay Cove, which, except for an Audubon Center, is purely residential; and Cove Neck, residential except for Sagamore Hill, former home of Theodore Roosevelt, now a museum and historic site.

This is serious sailing/riding country, and its backbone population remains old-money WASP. Traditionally Republican territory, Obama beat McCain here in Nassau County in 2008, I’m sure because residents are only fiscally Republican; no one would dream of trying to legislate any sort of personal behavior laws, as that would be rude.

Social lives revolve around clubs – yacht clubs, beach clubs, golf clubs, some of which are so private you can’t even get onto their website without a password. Here dress codes and behavioral issues are strictly enforced; cellphones are forbidden, and, according to one club’s by-laws, “women are allowed to wear a shirt without a collar or without sleeves, but may not wear a shirt without sleeves and a collar” (translation: no tank tops.) One club only began allowing women into their bar area in the early 1980’s. Notice I am not mentioning any proper names, as that would entail name-dropping, which would also be rude.

That said, this is a truly beautiful area. Located right on the Long Island Sound, it is a sailor’s dream, with sweeping vistas of blue skies and distant yachts flying multi-colored spinnakers. As long as there is wind and open water, people will sail; frostbiters continue into November, and a family friend used to don a drysuit and go windsurfing in December until he was nearly 80. People are protective of their paradise and the zoning laws are fierce; whenever another grand old estate bites the dust, land trusts and nature groups rush to preserve at least parts of it, and set-back laws prevent the cheesier types of brand-new McMansions from being built right alongside the main road.

The public schools here are part of the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Central School District, which includes Oyster Bay (hamlet), East Norwich, Oyster Bay Cove, Cove Neck, Centre Island, as well as parts of Upper Brookville, Muttontown, Laurel Hollow, and Mill Neck. Kids go to the Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School (K-2), the James H. Vernon Middle School (3-6) and the Oyster Bay High School (7-12.) The schools here are fairly good; US News ranks Oyster Bay High School as 64th within New York. Many people prefer to send their kids either to a private day school (East Woods, Friends Academy, Portledge, Green Vale, St. Dominic’s) or to boarding school.

What is there to do? This place is rich in history, and there are several restored circa-1700’s houses which have been turned into museums right in town: the Townsend Museum, Raynham Hall, and the Earle-Wightman House, and are all worth a look. There’s the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum, which is open now even as they expand to include more exhibits and displays. Right along Oyster Bay Harbor is the Waterfront Center, a fantastic marine environment education center, where you can learn to sail, swim, take certification classes, rent boats and kayaks, go fishing, or sail on Christeen, a National Landmark and the oldest Oyster Sloop in North America.

The Department of Community and Youth Services offers all kinds of workshops, concerts, art programs, pre-schools, and programs for children, adults, senior citizens, veterans, the handicapped and disabled. They oversee many centers, including the Community Center on Church Street.

Every Tuesday night from May through September the town shuts down Audrey Avenue, provides live music, and hosts Cruise Night, where anyone with an awesome car or motorcycle can show it off. It’s advertised as “from radical to rat-rods, Duesenbergs to Ducatis!” Who could resist?

Oyster Bay hamlet is home to a fine array of restaurants (with several oyster bars, naturally), as well as supply stores, shops, bakeries, and even two spas. Appallingly enough, Oyster Bay now has a McDonald’s, though at least it’s been relegated to an out-of-sight spot on the road leading away from town.

If you’re into hiking and natural beauty, there are no shortage of preserves and refuges around Oyster Bay and the Cove, including the 3,000-acre Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge, home of New York State’s only remaining commercial oyster farm. Several beautiful old estates have been preserved as museums, parks, botanical gardens, and event venues; definitely check out Coe Hall/Planting Fields Arboretum, C.W. Post Community Arboretum (in Brookville), and Bailey Arboretum (in Lattingtown).

Oyster Bay Cove is home to the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center, the first Audubon songbird sanctuary in the country, which provides all kinds of education programs for children and adults. Continue into Cove Neck and eventually you’ll find Sagamore Hill, the former President’s “Summer White House” and home until his death in 1919. I can still remember walking through the front door during an elementary school class trip and being traumatized by the sight of all the gorgeous exotic animals he had slaughtered and stuffed, and who filled the building like props from a medieval house of horrors.

Oyster Bay is the last stop on the Oyster Bay Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, although some residents prefer to drive to neighboring Syosset and take a quicker and more direct train from there into Manhattan. You can drive here on the infamous Long Island Expressway, where they still seem to be working on the same sections of road they were working on 40 years ago. LaGuardia Airport, in Queens, is 19 miles away.

There are seven colleges within 14 miles, including Hofstra and Adelphi; and three hospitals within 10 miles. Oyster Bay has had its share of celebrities, including Typhoid Mary, who was discovered working as a cook in a summer house here in 1906.

The median income for a household is $79,802; median house value, $605,552; and median rent, $1,586.

Right in the middle of New York State is Syracuse, its fifth most populous city, and the perennial winner – until this year, when Rochester won in an upset – of the Golden Snowball Award, presented to the upstate New York city that receives the greatest amount of snow in a season. With an average of 121 inches per winter, and with blizzard conditions causing drifts of up to 20 feet, Syracuse is a city of hardy, can-do souls, and, maybe not coincidentally, has a thriving industry of microbreweries.

Until 1900, most of the salt in the United States came from the briny springs around the southern end of Syracuse’s Onondaga Lake, its sale aided by the opening of the Erie Canal. Eventually the salt industry declined, replaced by a wide array of manufacturing businesses. Like Buffalo and Rochester, Syracuse’s population and fortunes swelled thanks to industry, only to taper off and plummet during the 1970s, when companies began moving their factories south or overseas. Today the top five employers are Upstate University Health System, Syracuse University, Oneida Indian Nation, Wegmans Food Markets, and St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center.

Onondaga Creek runs through downtown Syracuse, flows northward into Onondaga Lake, and eventually ends up in Lake Ontario. Unregulated manufacturing left its mark here, as it did to most industrial cities, and Onondaga Lake is still heavily polluted. Efforts to clean it up and make amends continue, though, and recently National Geographic’s Green Guide named Syracuse “One of America’s Top 20 Green Cities.”

In 2010, Forbes rated Syracuse fourth out of the top ten places to raise a family; in the spring of 2012, CNN Money ranked it 8th in the nation for housing affordability. The median house/apartment/condo price is $106,000, the median income $66,900, so 90% of households can afford a median-priced place to live. There is a wide housing market, with many available. This city is home to about 145,170 people, with 662,577 living in the metropolitan area. There is some crime here, but there are active Neighborhood Watches throughout the city, connected by a group website.

Once an active stop on the Underground Railroad, Syracuse is now home to an array of ethnic groups, and is 56% white, 29.9% African-American, 8.3% Hispanic/Latino, followed by Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander. During the 1980s quite a few immigrants from Africa and Central America moved here - “God Grew Tired Of Us,” a really good 2006 documentary, chronicles the lives of three young men who fled the genocide in Sudan in the 1980s, and ended up in Syracuse.

As with most cities, the rankings of Syracuse’s public elementary, middle, and high schools depend on the area; but its State University (SUNY) schools, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and SUNY Upstate Medical University, are both well-regarded. US News ranks Syracuse University #62 in the nation. There are two nursing schools located within the city, and in the suburbs is Le Moyne College, as well as several satellite campuses of other universities.

Syracuse has nine Community and three Senior Centers, and over 170 parks and recreation areas with playing fields, pools, ice rinks, and public golf courses. Hikers can head to the glacial lake and forests of Green Lakes State Park, beach lovers to Jamesville Beach and Oneida Shores. There’s all kinds of entertainment for kids: the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Beaver Lake Nature Center, International Mask & Puppet Museum, Saint Marie Among the Irouqois Living History Center, Erie Canal Museum, Museum of Science & Technology (complete with planetarium), as well as all kinds of sports complexes and arcades.

The arts are alive and well here, with forty museums and galleries from which to choose, the Syracuse Shakespeare Festival, the Society for New Music, the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, Syracuse Stage (experimental theater) and the Red House Arts Center, which hosts theater, concerts, art exhibitions, films, and special events. The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra was a cultural mainstay until it went bankrupt in 2011, but from its ashes rose the Syracuse Opera Company and the Clinton String Quartet. There is even Metal ‘Cuse – which describes itself as “one of Upstate New York’s most anticipated yearly Heavy Metal Events.”

Sports lovers can revel in Syracuse University’s Carrier Dome. Seating almost 50,000 people, it is the largest domed stadium in the Northeast and the largest of any college campus in the country. Baseball fans can watch the Syracuse Chiefs play at Alliance Bank Stadium; shoppers can head to Armory Square for stores, restaurants, and a view of the historic Jefferson Clinton Hotel; and beer aficionados can tour seven breweries along the Syracuse Beer Trail.

Syracuse loves its festivals, and hosts – to name just a few - the Syracuse Jazz Festival, the largest free outdoor jazzfest in the country; the Northeast Jazz & Wine Festival, also free; the Polish Festival, hosted by the Polish Scholarship Fund; the Home and Garden Show, the Taste of Syracuse, the Jamesville BalloonFest, OktoberFest, Great American AntiqueFest, Empire Brewing and Music Festival, Syracuse WinterFest, and, of course, the 12-day Great New York State Fair, which draws nearly a million people and is held at the Empire Expo Center just west of the city.

There’s something for everyone in Syracuse, especially if you love the challenge of a snowy winter.

On the southern shore of Lake Ontario is the City of Rochester, which is west of Syracuse, east of Buffalo, and bisected by the Genesee River. Originally an industrial town with flour mills and clothing factories, it was also where Mobil, Xerox, Bausch and Lomb, and Eastman Kodak began. Frederick Douglass, the former slave and anti-slavery speaker, lived here, as did women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, and labor rights activist Emma Goldman.

By the early 1900s Rochester was a thriving city filled with music and art, thanks in your part to George Eastman, who started Eastman Kodak, and who founded (among many institutions) the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music. But as industry declined, jobs were lost and the population fell, and Rochester seemed headed toward becoming yet another ragged Northern city clustered around a heavily polluted river. However, the city has worked hard to restore its river, and has re-emerged as a center for research, technological development, and higher education.

The biggest employers now are the University of Rochester (known for both academic and medical research) and Wegmans, a large grocery store with specialty items from all over the world. Since 1950 the population has become smaller but more ethnically diverse, from a high of 332,500, 97% white to its current 210,500, 43% white. It is the third largest city in New York, after New York City and Buffalo; there is a large LGBT community, and is home to the largest deaf population in the country.

In 2012, Rochester was rated by Kiplinger’s as the 5th best city for families, because of its good schools, low cost of living, and low joblessness. However, as far as cities go, the crime rate is fairly high. Rochester is the second snowiest city in the east, just behind Syracuse: cold winds move across Lake Ontario and pick up water vapor, which turns into copious amounts of snow. This means it’s a snow lover’s paradise, but it also means everyone has a car and there is a lot of traffic.

The city has a large Recreation Department and over 800 acres of parks, several of which were designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. It has 14 Recreation/Community Centers, with skating rinks, baseball fields, basketball courts, tennis courts, playgrounds, pools, etc. (It even has two mobile recreation centers.) Its Youth Services provide opportunities for employment, education, sports, horticulture, environmental education, and anti-gang intervention. The city operates the Rochester Public Market, a huge farmers market which is open all year round.

If you’re looking for culture, you’ll have a lot from which to choose. There’s the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, the Strasenburgh Planetarium, the Eastman International Museum of Photography and Film, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Memorial Art Gallery, the Strong National Museum of Play, and the East End Theater, to name but a few.

Rochester has lots of nightlife, whether you’re looking for the new and trendy (the South Wedge district, popular with students), the older and established (the East End district, home to the more expensive restaurants and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra), or the arty, clubby, theater-y eateries (scattered all over the city.)

Rochester is a determinedly active city, with fun festivals year-round. Even in the heart of the winter, you’ll find iceboating, snow sculpture contests, dog sled demos, polar plunges, snowshoe races, and the Annual Lake Ontario Ice Wine Festival. In May, the city bursts into bloom with its annual ten-day lilac festival, which showcases nearly 400 varieties of lilacs and draws nearly half a million people. Summer begins with the Rochester International Jazz Festival, which is now one of the biggest jazz festivals in America, and continues through the fall with film, art, crafts, and food fairs, as well as ethnic celebrations of many different groups.

Diverse, active, and innovative, Rochester is a city on the upswing.

North of Buffalo and south of Niagara Falls is the Town of Tonawanda, home to about 74,000 people. Tonawanda means “swift waters,” and was the name given to the area by its original Native American inhabitants. The Town of Tonawanda includes the City of Tonawanda (population about 15,000), as well as the Village of Kenmore (population also about 15,000.) The latter two are sometimes referred to as “Ken-Ton,” and all three are part of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area.

Here the Erie Canal joins the Niagara River, and there are miles of bike trails and walking paths along the riverfronts of Niawanda and Gateway Parks. Although this area has a reputation as a snowy Arctic, both Syracuse and Rochester actually receive more snow, and the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area has some of the best summer weather in the East. Everyone takes advantage of the sunshine, with many outdoor summer concerts, a Canal Fest in July, and lots of boating.

Like Buffalo, Tonawanda was once a thriving industrial hub. Its chief industry was Spaulding Fibre, manufacturer of leatherboard, bakelite, and fiberglass tubing. During the turn of the century, most residents moved here because of manufacturing jobs. By the 1960s, however, the company was sold and began declining, and it closed its doors in 1992.

Because of its industrial background, this area continues to have quite a few environmental problems. Tonawanda’s industrial area is home to 53 different air polluting industries, and in 2009 the Environmental Control Manager for Tonawanda Coke Corporation was arrested for covering up violations of clean air, clean water, and toxic waste laws (coke being the product derived from coal and used for fuel and in steelmaking, not the shortened version of Coca-Cola.)

This event galvanized some of the population, and now there are citizen watchdog groups that continue to monitor these industries, and to try to work with (or, if that fails, bring lawsuits against) various state agencies to enforce stricter environmental regulations. Green energy and initiatives are big here, with a town-sponsored website (www.RenewTonawanda.org) dedicated to offering residents grants, subsidies, rebates, etc. to lower their energy costs and use renewable energy.

You can find all kinds of housing in Tonawanda, from apartments and condos to multi-family dwellings, from small single-family homes to large McMansions. The median house/condo value is about $92,000.

The crime rate here is about 40% lower than the national average for violent crime, and about 10% lower than average for property crime.

The Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District is one of the largest in the state, serving over 8,400 students; North Tonawanda and the City of Tonawanda each have separate districts. Buffalo Business First publishes an annual list rating public and private schools in the eight counties of Western New York in terms of academic excellence, and last year, out of 280 elementary schools, Tonawanda, Ken-Ton and North Tonawanda came in 22, 61, 77, 86, 89, 90, 97, 99, 107, 108, 109, 123, 142, 159, 167, 173, 187, 194, 202, 207; out of 210 middle schools, 19, 37 46, 51, 59, 67, 70, 113, 117, 121, 143; and out of 133 high schools, 8, 11, 60, 68, 69, 75, 87, and 92.

There’s lots to do here, whether it’s right in Tonawanda, twenty minutes south in Buffalo, or twenty minutes north, where you’ll find the legendary Niagara Falls. Right in Tonawanda is the Veterans Memorial, with its famous blue Korean War-era Grumman F9F–6P Krueger Naval airframe; there is also a local recreation area, with a skate park, ice hockey rink, tennis court, and soccer field. You can continue on to the Buffalo Zoo, the Buffalo Museum of Science, the Botanical Gardens, or the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. There’s the Explorer and More Children’s Museum, and the Herschel Carousel Factory Museum, both great for kids. You can go on a 45-minute Whirlpool Jet Boat tour into the Niagara River Gorge, or, if you’d rather supply your own power, rent a kayak from Buffalo Harbor Kayaks.

You’re so close to Canada that Canadian shoppers routinely cross the border to shop for bargains in New York, so as long as you’re in this area theatre lovers should head for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, which the Chicago Tribune says is “North America’s largest and arguably its most prestigious classically-based theater.”

Hospitals near Tonawanda include the Kenmore Mercy Hospital in Kenmore, and the Sisters of Charity Hospital and the Erie County Medical Center, both in Buffalo.

There are 3 Amtrak stations within 11 miles of Tonawanda, and the largest airport is the Buffalo–Niagara Airport.

One last info bit: in Mark Twain’s “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” published in 1904, Tonawanda is where the pair ended up after they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Check out Tonawanda and decide for yourself!

Buffalo is located at the eastern end of Lake Erie, where the lake meets the Buffalo and Niagara Rivers, a half-hour south of the famous Niagara Falls. It is the second most populated city in New York, after New York City. By 1900, it was the eighth largest city in the country, a thriving commercial area of railroads, manufacturing, shipping, and storage; less than 100 years later it was in decline, its shipping rerouted, most of its manufacturing relocated. Buffalo is now in the process of reinventing itself, and so is a city of contradictions.

In 2010, Buffalo was rated the second poorest city with a population of over 250,000, just behind Detroit; the same year, Forbes magazine rated it the tenth best place to raise a family in America. The only city in America with more vacant and abandoned houses than Buffalo is St. Louis; yet the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area now has one of the most affordable housing markets in the country. In 2008, the metropolitan area was rated by the United Nations as one of the worst in the world in terms of racially-based economic inequality; yet progress is being made, thanks in part to Buffalo’s first black mayor, elected at the end of 2005. Two of Buffalo’s nicknames sum it up: “The Queen City of the Lakes,” and “The City of No Illusions.”

Today Buffalo’s main economies are healthcare, education, high technology, light manufacturing, industrial and private sector companies. It is also a destination for Canadian shoppers, who, believe it or not, cross the border to take advantage of our lower prices and taxes. It’s the headquarters of M & T Bank, Rich Products (one of the world’s largest family owned food manufacturers), and the Canadian beer brewer Labatt. The city’s original Erie Canal Harbor has recently been transformed into a tourist destination, with restaurants, stores, and condominiums.

There is a great deal of greenery in Buffalo, as it has more than 20 parks. A network of them were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and his partner Calvert Vaux, designers of Manhattan’s Central Park, and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Also listed on the NRHP are more than 80 buildings, including City Hall, a gorgeous Art Deco building that looks like something out of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”

There are art galleries galore, a thriving theater community, an outdoor Shakespeare Festival, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Botanical Gardens, the Buffalo Zoo, and Shea’s Performing Arts Center. Buffalo loves a party, and there are an array of food festivals, a festival to promote African-American heritage, and a garden festival that offers 14 garden walks and tours within a five-week span.

Prefer to hike and bike? Try the Olmsted Parks, Chestnut Ridge Park, Zoar Valley or Niagara Gorge. Like to watch sports? Football fans have the Bills, hockey fans have the Sabres, and minor-league baseball fans have the Bisons, an AAA affiliate of the New York Mets.

Buffalo stays up late, with the bars staying open until 4 AM, although there is a debate right now as to whether the law should be changed and patrons sent home earlier. Most of the nightlife centers around West Chippewa Street, with Allentown and the Elmwood Strip a bit more low-key. No trip to Buffalo is complete without a visit to the famous Anchor Bar on Main Street, where the original Buffalo Wings were created in 1964.

There are three SUNY (State University of New York) schools here: the University of Buffalo, Buffalo State, and Erie Community College, as well as Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. There are 78 public schools in the city, as well as charter and magnet schools, and 47 private schools. There is also a continuing education program for adults. As part of its revitalization effort, the city is currently undergoing a $1 billion school rebuilding plan.

Many programs serve the city’s kids – theater groups, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, Boy and Girl Scouts, counseling services, and recreation and sports programs. The Office of Senior Services operates two Senior Centers, and provides information, trips, a medical van service, meals, discount cards, and health help.

Buffalo has a reputation as being the snowiest city in the East, but it’s undeserved. Each year the Golden Snowball award is presented to the upstate New York city that receives the most snow, and Buffalo nearly always loses to Syracuse, and occasionally to Rochester. Summer weather usually includes plentiful sunshine, with lake breezes that keep the temperature moderate.

Once one of America’s most successful cities, Buffalo is in the process of recapturing its former glory. Take a trip to Niagara Falls and check out the city – you just might stay.

Malverne is a one square mile Village in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County. It is 45 minutes from Penn Station, yet 10 minutes from white sandy beaches. Although it is a heavily populated area, Malverne has many civic groups, clubs, and volunteers who try to keep its atmosphere like that of a small town. People keep Westwood Park clean and user-friendly, follow initiatives promoted by the Malvern Environmental Council, have formed a Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and consult their resident groundhogs in a weather-predicting ceremony each February. Christmas is taken seriously here, with the Lighting of Malverne held the first Saturday each December. After a festive parade, thousands of people watch as the Mayor flips a switch, and the entire business district is illuminated by gaily colored lights.

Malverne is on the South Shore of Long Island, once the territory of the Rockaway Indians, and older residents report having found Native American artifacts years ago. Now, however, it is single-family houses, townhouses, apartments and condos on small plots of land. The median house/condo value is about $450,000, and the average rent is about $1,200. Residence grouse about the taxes, which, at $60.59 per hundred dollars of assessed value, is quite high. The cost of living index in Malverne in March of 2012 was 155.4, against a national average of 100.

Even though the taxes are high, the public schools are not highly rated. Currently 40% of Malverne’s children are in private schools. However, it is one of the few public school systems in New York where enrollment is increasing rather than decreasing, which some say is evidence of the rising quality of the system. The Malverne School District includes portions of Malverne, Lakeview, Lynbrook, Rockville Center, West Hempstead, and the unincorporated areas of Malverne and North Lynbrook. The Maurice W. Downing Primary School is for grades K–2; the Davison Avenue Intermediate School for grades 3, 4, and 5; the Howard T. Herber Middle School for grades 5–8: and the Malverne High School for 9–12.

There is a wonderful library in Malverne, with all kinds of databases (including several for genealogy research), a huge selection of books and audiobooks, and quality programs for kids, teens, and adults.

It is easy to get to and from this town. There are two stops on the Long Island Railroad, Malverne and Westwood, both located on the West Hempstead Branch, which will take you right to Penn Station. There are bus services to Kennedy Airport, 7 miles away, and to La Guardia, 13 miles away.

Looking for education? There are seven colleges within eight miles of Malverne: St. John’s, two CUNY schools, Nassau Community College, Hofstra, Adelphi, and Molloy College.

Three hospitals serve the area: Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream, Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Center, and South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside.

As for demographics, 64% of residents are married, 23% single; 92% have completed high school or higher, 37% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 14% have a graduate or professional degree; and it is predominately white and Catholic.

Close to transportation, the city, all amenities, and beaches, Malverne may be just the place you’re looking for.

Ossining’s pretty, well-kept residential area is Briarcliff Manor, the probable subject of many a John Cheever story. Not much has changed since the 1960s, although many of the houses have grown in size. It is an affluent suburb without being insanely lavish, like many of its neighboring towns, and there are actually some affordable areas.

The Briarcliff Manor School District has one elementary school, and a combined middle and high school; it’s a small district, and has excellent facilities and high test scores, and almost all its graduates go on to college.

Westchester Community College has a campus in Ossining, Pace University has one in Briarcliff, and SUNY Purchase is a short commute.

Briarcliff Manor has an active Recreation Department, and there are a multitude of great clubs and gatherings based here: The Briarcliff Garden Club, the Choral Arts Society, Friends of Music, The Handweavers Guild of Westchester, the Ossining Arts Council, and the Westchester Ballet Company. The Calvary Baptist Church even hosts “Dynamic Sunday Sermons,” as well as jazz events.

There are two town parks in Ossining, with one located on the waterfront, and a new aquatic facility at the Community Center, which sports a competition-sized pool. In the Village of Ossining there is a yearly Village Fair, and a weekly summer Farmer’s Market on the corner of Main and Spring Streets Saturdays from 8:30 until 1.

For those in need, the Phelps Memorial Hospital Center is located in nearby Sleepy Hollow.

Briarcliff Manor is a nice choice for those who want a pretty suburb which is close to New York City – safe, clean, with good schools, but without the edgy competitiveness of some of the other areas of Westchester.

There are about 25,000 people in the Village of Ossining. It’s located the Town of Ossining, at the widest part of the Hudson River. Like Peekskill, in Putnam County, it has much more of a diverse population than its surrounding areas, with a mix of races, religions, and cultures.

The Village’s downtown shopping area has a variety of stores, shops, banks, and restaurants. Westchester Magazine just named Ossining as the “Best Place to Live for Architecture,” and many of its Village buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are buildings from every era – Victorian, Gothic Revival, Federal-style, Italianate, Art Deco, American Craftsman - even a Sears Roebuck kit house from the 1920s. The Ossining Public Library, a nearly-$16 million renovation completed in 2007, is a dazzling 48,000-square foot building which uses a geothermal system for heat and cooling. It has over 50 public Internet terminals, a 250-seat theater, an art gallery, and a café. The main reading room is named for long-time Ossining resident John Cheever.

Ossining has two school districts. The Briarcliff Manor School District has one elementary school, and a combined middle and high school; it’s a smaller district, and thanks to the pricey real estate in Briarcliff Manor, has better facilities and higher test scores. However, the Ossining Union Free School, which has 3 elementary schools, one middle, and one high school, does very well itself; the high school offers AP classes, as well as SAT and ACT prep courses, and has a far more diverse student body. The Maryknoll headquarters is located in Ossining, so there is a strong Catholic presence here: private schools include St. August, St. Anne, and St. Theresa.

Westchester Community College has a satellite campus in the Village, Pace University has one in Briarcliff, and SUNY Purchase is a short commute.

Metro-North stops at Ossining as well as nearby Croton-Harmon. There is a Bee-line Bus System, and a ferry between Ossining and Haverstraw (in Rockland County.)

There are two town parks, with one located on the waterfront, and a new aquatic facility at the Community Center which sports a competition-sized pool. There is a yearly Village Fair, and a weekly summer Farmer’s Market on the corner of Main and Spring Streets Saturdays from 8:30 until 1. Ossining has a Food Pantry for those in need, and even delivers to those who cannot travel.

The Phelps Memorial Hospital Center is located in nearby Sleepy Hollow.

Like Buchanan, the quaint little Putnam County village whose main drawback is that it is the home of Entergy, the nuclear power plant, Ossining is a nice, more-affordable-than-most Westchester town whose main drawback is that it is the home of Sing Sing, a maximum security prison housing over 2,000 inmates. As with Entergy, the threat of what could go wrong with Sing Sing is far worse than the odds of it actually happening.

Ossining has not yet been completely gentrified, which is why it’s still possible to live there on a budget. There is a range of real estate, from the million-dollar neighborhoods of Briarcliff Manor to the more run-down apartment and townhouse areas of Ossining. An artist friend recently told me how excited he was to have located a fixer-upper for a great price, only to find that in that specific area, street crime was still an issue. However, he liked the town so much that he’s still looking.

Ossining is 15 square miles, includes the Village of Ossining and Briarcliff Manor, and its western boundary is the Hudson River. There is a Metro-North stop right in Ossining, making it an easy commute to New York City. It is more racially diverse than many of its neighboring towns, making it a far more culturally interesting place to live.

Westchester Magazine just named Ossining as the “Best Place to Live for Architecture,” and large areas of it have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The village of Ossining is home to buildings from every era – Victorian, Gothic Revival, Federal-style, Italianate, Art Deco, American Craftsman - even a Sears Roebuck kit house from the 1920s. The Ossining Public Library, a nearly-$16 million renovation completed in 2007, is a dazzling 48,000-square foot building which uses a geothermal system for heat and cooling. It has over 50 public Internet terminals, a 250-seat theater, an art gallery, and a café.

Ossining has two school districts. The Briarcliff Manor School District has one elementary school, and a combined middle and high school; it’s a smaller district, and thanks to the pricey real estate in Briarcliff Manor, has better facilities and higher test scores. However, the Ossining Union Free School, which has 3 elementary schools, one middle, and one high school, does very well itself; the high school offers AP classes, as well as SAT and ACT prep courses, and has a far more diverse student body. The Maryknoll headquarters is located in Ossining, so there is a strong Catholic presence here: private schools include St. August, St. Anne, and St. Theresa.

Westchester Community College has a campus in Ossining, Pace University has one in Briarcliff, and SUNY Purchase is a short commute.

There are two town parks, with one located on the waterfront, and a new aquatic facility at the Community Center which sports a competition-sized pool. There is a yearly Village Fair, and a weekly summer Farmer’s Market on the corner of Main and Spring Streets Saturdays from 8:30 until 1. Ossining has a Food Pantry for those in need, and even delivers to those who cannot travel.

The Phelps Memorial Hospital Center is located in nearby Sleepy Hollow.

West Harrison is not even a hamlet – it’s either a community or a neighborhood, depending on who you talk to, but either way it’s a nice little area of Harrison bounded by geography and I-287. There is just one main road winding through a residential area, with Silver Lake Park on one side and a small business district on the other. There is a second park, the Passidomo Veterans Memorial Park and Pool. The Leo Mintzer Center, a very nice community recreational center, is here as well.

Harrison has four elementary schools, and the Preston School serves West Harrison. Several years ago, Fordham University opened its Westchester campus on 32 acres here. West Harrison is low-key and working-class, a place where many families have been here for generations, and where neighbors look out for each other.

The Town of Harrison is 30 miles northeast of Manhattan, close to Long Island sound, and 5 miles from the border of Connecticut. Here you will find both grand estates and working-class homes, private country clubs and public parks, elegant restaurants and affordable family bistros, all thanks to the expansion of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1870. Immigrants, mostly Italian, built the railroad, which subsequently brought the wealthy here from New York City. The immigrants stayed to build and work on the estates, and today their descendents make up the largest ethnic group in Harrison.

This is a genteel yet busy area, as would befit a place so close to New York City. Purchase is home to Manhattanville College, located on the 700-acre former estate of Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune, and now on the National Register of Historic Places; SUNY Purchase; and Keio Academy, a high school affiliated with Keio Academy in Tokyo.

Thanks to the tax base, quite a bit of which is paid for by the dozen corporations located in Harrison, the schools and their facilities are excellent. All together there are 8 parks totaling 80 acres, with playgrounds, basketball courts, pools, and a bocce court.

St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester, part of St. Joseph’s medical center, is located in right in Harrison, as is the Scarsdale Medical Group.

Harrison’s recreation department is both active and creative. Besides the regular array of sports teams, they offer ballroom dancing, drawing and cartoon making, pottery painting, a Lego class, and the chance to learn Italian, in whatever age group you may be. There are spring egg hunts, Halloween programs, summer concerts, sports tournaments, and, with a nod to the large and close-knit Italian community, an “It’s great to live in Harrison/Columbus Day Celebration” which is held in October. There are two community centers, the Sollazzo Center and the Leo Mintzer Center, both splendidly equipped to keep everyone from teenagers to senior citizens busy and occupied.

The Harrison Youth Council provides educational programs, parent support groups, counseling, consultation, and referral to families dealing with drug and alcohol problems, collaborating with the schools and professionals to achieve their mission.

There is not much to do in West Harrison itself, but you’re not far from Harrison, which is one of the few Westchester towns that actually has a nightlife. You are also close to White Plains, and of course, New York City. West Harrison is far more affordable than its surrounding areas, and its community spirit makes it a nice place to raise kids.

Purchase is a land of estates, multimillion dollar houses, two college campuses, several corporate parks, and a wonderful museum. It is quiet and low-key, and residents like it that way. They are willing to go to bat for their town, as they did in the early 1970s, and again in the past several years. 40 years ago, parent town Harrison’s pro-development Supervisor began inviting major corporations to build industrial parks, and with the most land to lose, Purchase residents were not amused. They decided to secede and incorporate as a village, and thus have more control over their own destiny. Unfortunately, the presiding Supervisor managed to avoid being served the papers which would have started the legal proceedings, and instead incorporated part of the town of Harrison as a village. This ended Purchase’s hope of becoming a village, as legally a village cannot be formed from another village.

The result is the “Platinum Mile,” a string of corporate office parks along I-287. PepsiCo, at least, has a sculpture garden, with 40 works by artists such as Rodin, Calder, and Nevelson, which is open to the public. Altruism only goes so far, though, as the town must pay for the upkeep of the park, which is not cheap.

Purchase residence recently went through another real estate battle, with a developer who wanted to take beautiful open land and turn it into yet another golf course (Purchase’s sixth) combined with a Monopoly board of McMansions. Unfortunately residents lost, which, as usual, will mean that their taxes will go up, while the developer destroys their land and makes out like a bandit.

Aside from all this behind-the-scenes turmoil, though, Purchase is normally a tranquil place. It is the home of Manhattanville College, located on the 700-acre former estate of Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune, and now on the National Register of Historic Places; SUNY Purchase; and Keio Academy, a high school affiliated with Keio Academy in Tokyo.

The Neuberger Museum, which features mostly contemporary works of art, is in Purchase. There are a few restaurants, but most people go to Rye, Greenwich, or White Plains for shopping and entertainment.

This is a genteel yet busy area, as would befit a place so close to New York City. The Hutchinson River Parkway and I-95 are easily accessed, and a Metro North stop and the Westchester County airport are both in Harrison.

Thanks to the tax base, the schools and their facilities are excellent. There are four public elementary schools in Harrison, one middle school and one high school (one of the elementary schools is in Purchase.) There are 8 parks totaling 80 acres, with playgrounds, basketball courts, pools, and a bocce court.

St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester, part of St. Joseph’s medical center, is located in right in Harrison, as is the Scarsdale Medical Group.

For residents who don't have their own entertainment center, Harrison’s Recreation Department is both active and creative. Besides the regular array of sports teams, they offer ballroom dancing, drawing and cartoon making, pottery painting, a Lego class, and the chance to learn Italian, in whatever age group you may be. There are spring egg hunts, Halloween programs, summer concerts, sports tournaments, and, with a nod to the large and close-knit Italian community, an “It’s great to live in Harrison/Columbus Day Celebration” which is held in October. There are two community centers, the Sollazzo Center and the Leo Mintzer Center, both splendidly equipped to keep everyone from toddlers to teenagers to senior citizens busy and occupied.

The Harrison Youth Council provides educational programs, parent support groups, counseling, consultation, and referral to families dealing with drug and alcohol problems, collaborating with the schools and professionals to achieve their mission.

If you can afford the price tag, life is good in Purchase.

The Town/Village of Harrison is 30 miles northeast of Manhattan, close to Long Island sound, and 5 miles from the border of Connecticut. Here you will find grand estates and working-class homes, private country clubs and public parks, elegant restaurants and affordable family bistros, all thanks to the expansion of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1870. Mostly-Italian immigrants built the railroad, which subsequently brought the wealthy is all is you and him and himhere from New York City. The immigrants stayed to build and work on the estates, and today their descendents make up the largest ethnic group in Harrison.

Purchase is a hamlet in the northern part of Harrison, which is where most of the largest estates are located. West Harrison is south of Purchase, and south of that is Harrison, often known simply as “downtown,” even though that name conjures up images of a business district. Harrison’s “downtown” contains residential areas of various income levels, both its Middle and High Schools, one country club, two private golf clubs, and several historic cemeteries.

This is a genteel yet busy area, as would befit a place so close to New York City. The Westchester County airport is here, the Hutchinson River Parkway and I-95 are easily accessed, and there is a Metro North stop. Purchase is home to Manhattanville College, located on the 700-acre former estate of Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune, and now on the National Register of Historic Places; SUNY Purchase; and Keio Academy, a high school affiliated with Keio Academy in Tokyo.

There are four elementary schools: two in Harrison, one in West Harrison, and one in Purchase. Thanks to the tax base, quite a bit of which is paid for by the dozen corporations located here, the schools and their facilities are excellent. There are 8 parks totaling 80 acres, with playgrounds, basketball courts, pools, and a bocce court.

St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester, part of St. Joseph’s medical center, is located in right in Harrison, as is the Scarsdale Medical Group.

Harrison’s recreation department is both active and creative. Besides the regular array of sports teams, they offer ballroom dancing, drawing and cartoon making, pottery painting, a Lego class, and the chance to learn Italian, in whatever age group you may be. There are spring egg hunts, Halloween programs, summer concerts, sports tournaments, and, with a nod to the large and close-knit Italian community, an “It’s great to live in Harrison/Columbus Day Celebration” which is held in October. There are two community centers, the Sollazzo Center and the Leo Mintzer Center, both splendidly equipped to keep everyone from toddlers to teenagers to senior citizens busy and occupied.

The Harrison Youth Council provides educational programs, parent support groups, counseling, consultation, and referral to families dealing with drug and alcohol problems, collaborating with the schools and professionals to achieve their mission.

Harrison is one of the few Westchester towns that has a nightlife–Uncle Harry’s actually stays open past midnight on the weekends, a rare find in Westchester. Multimillionaires who want to live on an estate close to New York City, or regular mortals who simply want to be a part of this type of rarefied atmosphere and take advantage of its perks, may find what they’re looking for in Harrison.