Second Day: New York's Eighteenth and Connecticut's Half

Connecticut

It wasn't until the night before the trip, when I was looking at the map, that I realized I would be going to Sandy Hook, site of the 2012 massacre of 20 young children and 6 staff at an elementary school. It's right on US 6. Something just made me dread it. I think part of it was that, driving around to just look at it, I could be accused of gawking; making light of the tragedy and turning it into some kind of roadside car wreck that I stare at, wide-eyed, as I drive by slowly, but then quickly depart from to tell my friends about. It's such a small village and there were so many casualties that the chances of coming across a parent of one of the dead children seemed too high. It may also be the timing. With just eight months passed since the shooting, it just all seemed too soon. The village was just getting used to not having the attention of the world on it, and the families were just starting to be able to turn away from the cameras and the insincere condolences and do the real grieving.
The village is within the larger jurisdiction of Newtown, whose name is also typically associated with the same event. The truly tragic irony of the identity of one of Newtown's residents was only mentioned briefly in the media (on NPR): the National Shooting Sports Foundation has its headquarters there, not even two miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School. Despite its name, the group maintains a lobbying arm which actively seeks to limit gun control legislation. Their PR person was interviewed by several media agencies, and it may have been their location in Newtown that drove them to speak out first rather than be accused later.
When I arrived in Newtown, just past its commercial sprawl characteristic of all reasonably wealthy Connecticut towns, the first thing I noticed, and the only thing I photographed there, was the enormous American flag that sits in the middle of the main intersection in the town.
Sandy Hook is just east of that, across I-84 where modern US 6 joins it to go east across the Housatonic River. There is no green, Connecticut-shaped "Welcome to Sandy Hook" sign as you approach from this direction. The only such sign I found was on a side road approaching from the other direction. The elementary school is on a small side street on the right side of Riverside Road (which, as far as I can tell, is the old route of US 6). There is no sign for it, and the street access to it has been blocked by a large orange barricade, but first by a "Do Not Enter" barricade spanning the road just in front of the fire station.
One of the things I wanted to do was to visit one of cemeteries where the victims are buried. Not only to sort of pay my respects, but also ponder the whole event. I go into cemeteries a lot when I travel. It's not really an obsession with death. Rather, it's more of a strategic thing. Older cemeteries are typically on the edge of town, on a hill, and shaded by grand old trees. They're also peaceful, the grass is well-maintained, and the names on the headstones give you both an idea of how old the town is, but also a general ethnographic profile of the town's population. The cemeteries of Iowa and Kansas are my favorites. The cemetery that has the most victims interred does not fit the profile of the typical cemetery. It's at the edge of town, but lies on lower ground and is surrounded by forest, but features no shade. When I visited, a grounds crew was working, with their van parked in the back by a little gazebo. No one else was there, but I was still very self-conscious. As I pulled out and onto the neighborhood street that provides access, I stopped a woman backing out of her driveway. She stopped to wait for me, and looked at me as I passed. I tried a smile, but it likely didn't register. I normally feel a little bad about delaying people in their normal course of business when I'm just driving around, but I felt especially bad about that.
I ended up trying to get something to stave off the afternoon heat at the little Village Perk cafe. It's a great little coffee shop that features some amazing, locally made pastries, a good gelato selection, a very comfortable interior and - best of all - a mostly shaded patio overlooking the Pootatuck River. The staff were friendly and the other customers were talkative. You wouldn't have known it was different from any other coffee shop in New England. I drank my coffee and pondered the place. As I left, I found what I expect has become the mantra of the village on a sticker in the window of the business: "We are Sandy Hook. We choose love."

New York

There do not seem to be many signs for Kiryas Joel, and the local population probably would like to keep it that way. They are not seeking to attract anyone there and, unless you know how to get there, there does not seem to be any real reason for you to go. As you approach, just across the Quickway, there's a sign indicating that you've entered the town, in both English and Spanish, which asks you to, among other things, wear shirts with sleeves below the elbows and maintain separation of genders in public areas. It sounds like a foreign country and, in many ways, it seemed like it. The winding streets protrude into the surrounding hillsides to provide access to massive, vinyl-sided townhouse buildings. The enclosed yards are strewn with multi-colored plastic tricycles. And Hebrew is everywhere. The signs are all in both English and Hebrew, but signs on buildings were often just in Hebrew, meaning that I could not identify their purpose. The commercial center sits along Forest Road. There's a bakery, a clothing store and a number of other businesses in a very busy shopping center directly across from the main temple. Approximately 20,000 members of the Satmar Hasidic sect of the Jewish religion. They're often called "ultra-orthodox," wearing the braids and heavy clothing often associated with orthodoxy.
Like any people who refuse to completely assimilate and are easily identifiable (like the Amish), the residents of Kiryas Joel have received a lot of attention. Most of it has been negative. 2011 was a particularly bad year. That year, Orange County announced that they were removing the tax-exempt status for the numerous businesses within the town, most of which are indirectly owned by the local church. The town was also sued for its municipal government's violation of the First Amendment, specifically in relation to its restrictions imposed on visiting outsiders, most publicly late in the year, when several young New Yorkers decided to visit the town and were accosted by the local "public safety director," who ended up calling state troopers to arrest the visitors while they ate lunch at the local cafe. Charges were dropped, but the interaction with the troopers was videotaped and went viral on the internet.
Kiryas Joel is also perpetually at odds with its neighbors. The surrounding communities have raised concerns over the town's explosive population growth and its never-ending housing expansion. Additionally, Kiryas Joel has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest poverty rate of any place in the United States, a result of both the modest lifestyle of its residents, the restrictions on dual incomes by their religion, and the typically large families. The resulting massive public assistance roles means that the other residents of Orange County are, effectively, subsidizing Kiryas Joel's existence.
My drive into Kiryas Joel was prefaced with a major accident along Route 17, just in front of the town, that shut down the westbound lanes. A number of the residents had parked on the side of the road on both sides of the freeway, and on the narrow overpass leading into town. They may have initially gone to help, but a number of emergency personnel were on the scene already. Most of the cars I could see had people sitting in them, just looking at the wreck.

First Trip; First Day

My first truly dedicated US 6 research trip began on July 4th, and it could not be a more appropriate day to begin such a trip. A federal cross-country route conceived during the period in the United States generally considered to be the glory days of the automobile. Before interstate highways, worldwide international corporate domination, the obesity epidemic, and the Department of Homeland Security, there was US 6.

Pennsylvania

Choosing to start in Philadelphia was probably a mistake. For one, it's well away from anywhere I planned to be during the trip, and separated from it by a large swath of hilly, hellishly suburban Delaware River basin. Plus, Philly's airport is probably the most unfortunate thing about the city. It makes everything much more complicated than it has to be. Take the fact that, even though most of the rental car agencies are located in the same, general spot, each of those agencies run their own shuttles, driving around in circles in what I would call the exhaust barn, an area just outside the baggage claim where both shuttles to parking, hotels and rental agencies, as well as private passenger vehicles, circle to find their claimed passenger. But a $90 one-way on Southwest Airlines was enough to convince me. And I found a good one-way car rental.
Once I rushed the line and got the rental car, I asked about traffic. The unfortunate thing of the July 4th arrival in the United States' birthplace was that this was not exactly any other day for Philly. There were major, massive events planned, with thousands of people expected to be on the streets in Center City, Philadelphia's Downtown area. I was told, "Bad. Yeah, just really bad..." Google Traffic told me otherwise. In spite of its past tendency to lie about conditions, I went with its suggestion and took the route through the city. It couldn't have been clearer and I got out quickly, able to snag a cheesesteak in one of those sprawling, gigantic parking lots of a suburb in Bucks County. I can only explain it in that everyone else avoided the area, leaving it open to us few who were stubborn enough to try it.
The first stop was the Delaware Water Gap. Named as such for the Delaware River forming a sort of canyon where the Appalachian Mountains cross it. I had never been, but had heard nothing but good things, and had been trying to see it for a number of years. I don't really know the gap's boundaries, but the stretch managed by the national park service went from Interstate 80 near Stroudsburg, PA north to Milford, PA, near the New York state line. US 209 is the main road through this area, paralleling the river exactly, sometimes just a few yards from it.
The Delaware River is a large, fast-moving, muddy body of water. The sort of river that terrifies me and brings up my general (and mostly unfounded) fear of water where I cannot see the bottom. I've had the fear my entire life - long before the incident in college where I narrowly avoided stepping on a stingray in shallow water in the Gulf of Mexico at North Padre Island by shuffling my feet, as you're supposed to - and, in the case I've had to swim in a murky body of water, I've either sucked it up or stayed shallow enough where I can mostly see what's directly below me. Generally though, I'm intrigued by rivers and like to dip my hands in them at their banks, but I will not submerge myself in one. To me, it looked precisely the same here as it does in Philadelphia, about 100 miles to the south. The difference there is that it's wider and a little smellier.
Port Jervis, New York, my final destination for the evening, is where the Neverskirk River joins in to it.
I met US 6 for the first time on the trip at Milford, Pennsylvania. Milford is a cute, colonial-appearing town with quite a bit of tourist activity, likely directly a result of its position as the first town north of the Water Gap. I started immediately by going the wrong direction. I wound up leaving town, then realizing I was on 6 West, and flipped to come back through. It gave me another chance to see Milford, if anything.
Between Milford and Port Jervis sits a hilly stretch of terrain where the original US 6 basically vanishes for a time, and the route number multiplexes with I-84. A local later referred to this drive as "coming down the mountain." In the search to stay on a surface street, I took several u-turns and, during this, likely did some damage the car's undercarriage by hitting a bump too fast. There were no subsequent leaks but it certainly didn't sound good. Either way, I found my surface street, complete with adjacent batting cage facilities (both closed, maybe for the holiday) and traffic lights from commercial sprawl. Eventually, you end up in Matamoras, Pennsylvania, just across the river (and state line) from Port Jervis.
The unfortunately thing about having a town called Matamoras on both a border and a river is that it makes me think of one of the worst border towns in Mexico, its namesake. Luckily, Matamoras, Pennsylvania is nothing like its Mexican "hermana."
Port Jervis is also nothing like Brownsville, Texas. If anything, it reminds of Binghamton, just up the river. That probably isn't too surprising. Culturally and geographically, they're very similar cities. The difference with Port Jervis is that it's on the Metro North commuter rail line, providing easy access to New York City, just to the south. I was told an hour. That usually means approximately 90 minutes. But, if I were working in the city, I would consider it an option. There are some gorgeous, old estate homes, and the town has that sort of small town feel that people tend to look for. The only potential issue: heroin. When I crossed into New York, I stopped and walked onto the bridge to get some pictures of the sun setting over the mountains and against the river. As I walked back, what I thought were three teenagers were walking toward me. As I got closer and could see their faces though, I realized that they were probably at least 20-years-old and were just emaciated. They looked like cartoons of junkies: dirty, loose hanging clothes, nervous faces, cigarettes in hand... It was a little sad. I looked it up online and, in 2011, Port Jervis, with a population of roughly 9,000 had 13 deaths from heroin overdose. Compare that with the much more urban Passaic County, New Jersey nearby, which saw 24 deaths from heroin overdose in 2009 amongst its 500,000-plus population. Heroin is becoming a larger problem all over the country though, as meth becomes more difficult and expensive to make, and opiate painkillers become harder to obtain.
I closed out the night at the bar directly below my hotel room, at Port Jervis' former railroad hotel, the Erie. Yelp regards it as one of the best restaurants in town, and that doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch, as there are very few restaurants total in Port Jervis. It's not a wealthy town, despite its connection to New York City. The bar strangely had a very good beer selection, with a number of local microbreweries, including one from just a few miles east on US 6, in Chester. An IPA from Rushing Duck. It was good. I would drink more of their beer, but they've only been around 6 months, and only do tours each Saturday.