only an hour away...
Syracuse, like Binghamton, is full of these old brick industrial buildings, leftover from their era of prosperity, which was 1880s to 1950's or so. Binghamton was once known as the "Valley of Opportunity" but you should see it now. It was once the home of IBM and the largest shoe company in the world, Endicott-Johnson. Many small towns all over the country had an E-J store on main street. Like many old industrial towns in the NE it's been in slow decline for 50 years as much of the industry left or died out, but even though it'll be a long climb back, it's encouraging to see some of these well built structures finally being reused. Revitalization has been happening here for the last 5 years, in large part due to Binghamton University, one of the best public universities in the Northeast. It's a good thing because overall it's a nice place to live if you've got decent employment, same with Syracuse.