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PortlandME

What's your favorite New England city?  

180 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your favorite New England city?

    • Springfield,MA
      5
    • Manchester, NH (nice airport there)
      15
    • Fall River,MA
      3
    • Providence,RI
      112
    • Hartford,CT
      45


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Actually, I'd like to disagree. I know a ton of people that travel to Hartford from New Haven, or vice versa. Same with Waterbury and Springfield. Take music for example. Hartford has a solid 4 venues in the city alone, not to mention the real small joints that still get decent acts. New Haven has been whittled away to basically one (Toad's) with a few acts rarely at the Palace. I think people travel around the state more than you think. Some people literally never leave their town if they don't have to, but I don't think those are the types of people we're talking about. I know people that live in Wethersfield that haven't been into Hartford in 10 years, and it's literally a 2 minute drive to the town line. I also know people that go every single night. I think you're right in saying that the lines can get blurry, but I think you are currently underestimating how closely tied the Hartford/New Haven/Springfield/Waterbury area is. Take tattoos for example. Most people stay right in their immediate area to get something like that, but I've gotten some of mine in Waterbury, Meriden, and New Haven, though most I got in West Hartford and Hartford.

Just an FYI, the Brass Mill Center in Waterbury is pretty good, and Waterbury probably has the 2 best record shops in the State (Brass City and Phoenix). Waterbury is still a hole, but it has it's gleaming qualities...

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Actually, I'd like to disagree. I know a ton of people that travel to Hartford from New Haven, or vice versa. Same with Waterbury and Springfield. Take music for example. Hartford has a solid 4 venues in the city alone, not to mention the real small joints that still get decent acts. New Haven has been whittled away to basically one (Taod's) with a few acts rarely at the Palace. I think people travel around the state more than you think. Some people literally never leave their town if they don't have to, but I don't think those are the types of people we're talking about. I know people that live in Wethersfield that haven't been into Hartford in 10 years, and it's literally a 2 minute drive to the town line. I also know people that go every single night. I think you're right in saying that the lines can get blurry, but I think you are currently underestimating how closely tied the Hartford/New Haven/Springfield/Waterbury area is. Take tattoos for example. Most people stay right in their immediate area to get something like that, but I've gotten some of mine in Waterbury, Meriden, and New Haven, though most I got in West Hartford and Hartford.

Just an FYI, the Brass Mill Center in Waterbury is pretty good, and Waterbury probably has the 2 best record shops in the State (Brass City and Phoenix). Waterbury is still a hole, but it has it's gleaming qualities...

i'd disagree with tying waterbury into new haven... maybe hartford, but there's no easy way to get from new haven to waterbury.

speaking of record stores... have you been to cutler's in new haven? it's usually voted the best record store in the state from what i remember. there's also a really good one in branford (exile on main street).

other than webster, what music venues are in hartford that bring in national acts? new haven used to have more, i really don't know why they disappeared. similar thing is going on in providence right now. the dance clubs seem to be more popular these days.

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Let's see, the Webster, the Hartford Civic Center, the Meadows Music Theatre, the Bushnell still has shows. Throw in some of the smaller joints, Sully's, a few of the Hip-Hop spots, there's a ton of things going on musically.

Yes, I've been to Cutler's, I don't like the setup. Go to Phoenix Records, you'll never go to Cutler's again.

Also, I'm not necessarily tying Waterbury in with New haven specifically, I'm tying it in with Hartford/New Haven/Springfield. PS, take Rt 8 to Rt 34, it's about a half hour....

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Let's see, the Webster, the Hartford Civic Center, the Meadows Music Theatre, the Bushnell still has shows. Throw in some of the smaller joints, Sully's, a few of the Hip-Hop spots, there's a ton of things going on musically.

Yes, I've been to Cutler's, I don't like the setup. Go to Phoenix Records, you'll never go to Cutler's again.

Also, I'm not necessarily tying Waterbury in with New haven specifically, I'm tying it in with Hartford/New Haven/Springfield. PS, take Rt 8 to Rt 34, it's about a half hour....

it's a little more than half an hour, probably 40 min.

i didn't realize you were counting the civic center and meadows. new haven just doesn't have the space for something like the meadows, and they (stupidly) just tore down the colisseum, which used to bring a lot of good concerts. do they have concerts in the park? new haven does that on the green in the summer, i knwo that much.

they do have a bunch of bars that have live local bands, as do the neighboring towns.

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i'd disagree with tying waterbury into new haven... maybe hartford, but there's no easy way to get from new haven to waterbury.

speaking of record stores... have you been to cutler's in new haven? it's usually voted the best record store in the state from what i remember. there's also a really good one in branford (exile on main street).

other than webster, what music venues are in hartford that bring in national acts? new haven used to have more, i really don't know why they disappeared. similar thing is going on in providence right now. the dance clubs seem to be more popular these days.

What?!?! Hartford Venues always bring national acts. The Civic Center - Springstein and Greenday both came in 2005, and others I can't remember

The Meadows - The 50 Cent Tour, Snoop's Up in Smoke Tour, Dave Mathews all came in 2005

Hartford get's the most national acts in New England other than Boston. Hartford is not hurting at all to attract national artists, this is not a shot at PVD, but we get alot more than them. For the obvious reason that our state is 3x as populous, but also due to PVD's proximity to Boston and the Casinos. This is really hurting the PVD music scene from what I gather on your guys forum. If I am mistaken please correct me...

I wrote this before your response to Vlad.

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What?!?! Hartford Venues always bring national acts. The Civic Center - Springstein and Greenday both came in 2005, and others I can't remember

The Meadows - The 50 Cent Tour, Snoop's Up in Smoke Tour, Dave Mathews all came in 2005

Hartford get's the most national acts in the New England other than Boston. Hartford is not hurting at all to attract national artists, this is not a shot at PVD, but we get alot more than them. For the obvious reason that our state is 3x as populous, but also due to PVD's proximity to Boston and the Casinos. This is really hurting the PVD music scene from what I gather on your guys forum. If I am mistaken please correct me...

I wrote this before your response to Vlad.

i think it's a bit more than just the casinos hurting our music scene. i was mainly referring to smaller venues where you pay no more than $20-25 per ticket and that's the highest price you'll see there (aside from my $40 phil and friends ticket at lupos).

providence does have the tweeter center (which sucks as a venue in my opinion), as it (like foxboro stadium) is a fair amount closer to providence than boston (although boston likes to throw their name on it mainly because they're in MA). generally everything that goes to the meadows goes to the tweeter center (which is actually closer to providence than foxboro).

the renovations of the prov civic center should help pull in more tours here than we've had in recent years.

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Yeah, Hartford has a ton of stuff going on in Bushnell Park. They have concerts in the Bandshell, and they used to have Monday night Jazz, not sure if they still do. Most of the smaller places that I used to go to in New Haven have closed down... the Moon, the Urban Jungle, the Grotto. I don't think anything of that caliber has popped up to replace those. They used to get all kinds of good shows. I go to New Haven less just because these places no longer exist, I really wish they would replace them. I'm not trying to make this a Hartford vs. New Haven thing at all, I love New Haven and still go a bit (my wife is Turkish and her friend bellydances at the Istanbul Cafe on friday nights). The point I'm trying to make is people consistanly remember Hartford from the days when it didn't have much going on, and these days, that just isn't true. The old ideas of people staying in their home city aren't true anymore, in my opinion.

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in the last 25 years, i have worked in nj, nyc, boston, hartford, new london, fairfield county, and westchester county and more. i have done a lot of commuting. i grew up in bpt and have lived in ridgefield, milford, woodbridge, avon, wallingford, new haven, and farmington and more. i can't accept that the hartford metro should be anything except west to burlington, south to meriden/wallingford, east to mansfield, and north to the border. this area is way big enough as a metro area. it needs to grow jobs. lots of jobs. transportation in this metro area, other than highway, is a very big, and until recently, ignored problem. if something is not done now, it will go back into the dark and be revisited again in 20 years (lets hear it for the mid 20th century DOT and the politicians that we elect here.

while hartford metro has by far the most and the best highway roads in the state, bradley could be so much more. hartford metro could be a serious business hub, no question whatsoever, with international flights and.................... then there is the railways. do people at this site realize that it costs as much to take a train on amtrak from wallingford to new haven (13 miles), as it does to take a metro north ride from milford to grand central (65 miles)? so who can afford to take the train often to hartford from....anywhere? how many times have i wanted to hop the train and go up to hartford for the evening? don't ask. there is no commuter service other than lowest new haven county and fairfield county in the state. its a miracle that the hartford area is growing as it is. and it is. without these transportation services, hartford is really up against it when competing with their suburbs as well as the rest of the country.

people in bridgeport don't go to danbury to shop.

just about everyone i know that lives in wallingford (current res) works locally, in fairfield county, or hartford county. i know 1 person out of many hundreds that is employed by an institution of any kind in new haven, so it is hard to believe that many north of me work in new haven.

people don't drive west from new haven to catch a train in west haven or milford. the idea is to avoid i95. its about $1.50 cheaper from milford than new haven. save that for another hour of driving (and sitting in traffic) each day?

there are 3 malls in new haven county. they are all run of the mill. lets face it, except for lower fairfield county for the most part, its all mall shopping in ct. people from all over the world come to new york. so i should avoid it for some reason? its the greatest city in the world. i'm all for hartford and i am more hopeful now than ever for the region. with guys like Amann, there is hope. by the way, i just heard that Rell wants to eliminate prop tax on automobiles by july. hallelujah!!

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This is a tremendous disadvantage because people from outside of the area can't see how interconnected it really is on paper.

99.9% of people have no clue what a metro area is what metro area they are in or what any of it means, and they don't care. The 0.1% of people who do know and do care and who's opinions on these things matter know the ins and outs of how things are divided up and how that impacts the numbers.

What's a real disadvantage for a city like Hartford is the actual municipal boundaries that lead to statistics like the city's crime stats ranking so high. Those 99.9% of people who don't know or care about these things don't realize when reading stats like that, that Hartford is being compared to mega-cities like Houston and Jacksonville with impossibly large land areas.

Actually, I'd like to disagree. I know a ton of people that travel to Hartford from New Haven, or vice versa.

You personally probably do know a ton of people who travel about throughout the metros. But your comments on music venues and tattoos make me assume that you are relatively young. Us old folks who pair off (and have kids :shok: ) rarely leave our homes, never mind travel about our respective states getting tattoos and attending concerts. Americans are shockingly sedentary, we go to work, then we go home. I can't remember the last time I left Providence, never mind traveled to a diffferent metro area.

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I agree with alot of what you said. I never really meant that New Haven and Springfield shoud be considered Metro Hartford Per se, but that this urbanized area needs to market itself as a region. If you live in Hartford you have easy access to New Haven and Springfield, and somehow I would like people to realize that on a national level.....

Nobody works in New Haven, there aren't really many jobs there unless you work for Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, or the City of New Haven.

Amann is starting to really show me something and hell yeah, it is about time to get rid of the car tax.

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99.9% of people have no clue what a metro area is what metro area they are in or what any of it means, and they don't care. The 0.1% of people who do know and do care and who's opinions on these things matter know the ins and outs of how things are divided up and how that impacts the numbers.

What's a real disadvantage for a city like Hartford is the actual municipal boundaries that lead to statistics like the city's crime stats ranking so high. Those 99.9% of people who don't know or care about these things don't realize when reading stats like that, that Hartford is being compared to mega-cities like Houston and Jacksonville with impossibly large land areas.

You personally probably do know a ton of people who travel about throughout the metros. But your comments on music venues and tattoos make me assume that you are relatively young. Us old folks who pair off (and have kids :shok: ) rarely leave our homes, never mind travel about our respective states getting tattoos and attending concerts. Americans are shockingly sedentary, we go to work, then we go home. I can't remember the last time I left Providence, never mind traveled to a diffferent metro area.

You are so right about people not knowing what a metro area is. You don't know how many people I have had to explain the whole concept to.

"You see, there is a city in the middle and then there are suburbs surrounding it, and exurbs surrounding those....."

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I agree with alot of what you said. I never really meant that New Haven and Springfield shoud be considered Metro Hartford Per se, but that this urbanized area needs to market itself as a region. If you live in Hartford you have easy access to New Haven and Springfield, and somehow I would like people to realize that on a national level.....

Nobody works in New Haven, there aren't really many jobs there unless you work for Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, or the City of New Haven.

Amann is starting to really show me something and hell yeah, it is about time to get rid of the car tax.

the new haven comment made me chuckle. i have always said that the i91/i95 interchange is the second reason for the congestion there. the main reason is that no one is getting off the damn highway in new haven. we agree. good.

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people don't drive west from new haven to catch a train in west haven or milford. the idea is to avoid i95. its about $1.50 cheaper from milford than new haven. save that for another hour of driving (and sitting in traffic) each day?

New Haven City is not in NYCs Metro. New Haven County is. There could be zero people commuting from New Haven City to NYC, it's all the people in the western part of the county heading to NYC that make it part of the NYC metro. If all factors have changed enough by the 2010 census, we could see New Haven County added to Hartford's Metro.

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then there is the railways. do people at this site realize that it costs as much to take a train on amtrak from wallingford to new haven (13 miles), as it does to take a metro north ride from milford to grand central (65 miles)? so who can afford to take the train often to hartford from....anywhere? how many times have i wanted to hop the train and go up to hartford for the evening? don't ask. there is no commuter service other than lowest new haven county and fairfield county in the state. its a miracle that the hartford area is growing as it is. and it is. without these transportation services, hartford is really up against it when competing with their suburbs as well as the rest of the country.

people don't drive west from new haven to catch a train in west haven or milford. the idea is to avoid i95. its about $1.50 cheaper from milford than new haven. save that for another hour of driving (and sitting in traffic) each day?

2 things. first, amtrak is the single largest waste of money i have ever seen. why anyone would take it is beyond me. there needs to be a commuter line between hartford and new haven (or a commuter line for hartford in general). also, you seem to forget about shoreline east. travel between new london and new haven (and i think it actually goes farther west to bridgeport now).

second thing. i used to drive from east of new haven to bridgeport everyday (just off the rt 8 connector) on 95 (believe it or not, 95 was quicker than the merritt for this). i never hit traffic until i got to the stratford-bridgeport line. this wasn't all that long ago either. so i could see people driving to bridgeport to take the train rather than taking it from new haven. the drive to bridgeport from new haven is quicker than the train ride, even during rush hour.

Nobody works in New Haven, there aren't really many jobs there unless you work for Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, or the City of New Haven.

you forgot pfizer, curagen, and some chemical engineering company (olin maybe?). nevermind the other colleges (SCSU, albertus magnus, UNH (i realize it's in west haven, but it's close enough)). there's also banks and SBC.

new haven is actually looking to become a bigger biotech area.

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2 things. first, amtrak is the single largest waste of money i have ever seen. why anyone would take it is beyond me. there needs to be a commuter line between hartford and new haven (or a commuter line for hartford in general). also, you seem to forget about shoreline east. travel between new london and new haven (and i think it actually goes farther west to bridgeport now).

i guess that 4 mile backup heading into new haven on i95 is no longer there in the morning, but it has been 3 years since i worked in new london. metro north trains takes 22 minutes from new haven to bridgeport. from i91 to route 8 on i95 is 20 miles. i don't think the amount of time saved driving could be worth it to me. and then there is gas and wear and tear, and surprise backups. i'd go nuts.

second thing. i used to drive from east of new haven to bridgeport everyday (just off the rt 8 connector) on 95 (believe it or not, 95 was quicker than the merritt for this). i never hit traffic until i got to the stratford-bridgeport line. this wasn't all that long ago either. so i could see people driving to bridgeport to take the train rather than taking it from new haven. the drive to bridgeport from new haven is quicker than the train ride, even during rush hour.

you forgot pfizer, curagen, and some chemical engineering company (olin maybe?). nevermind the other colleges (SCSU, albertus magnus, UNH (i realize it's in west haven, but it's close enough)). there's also banks and SBC.

new haven is actually looking to become a bigger biotech area.

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A few points: Cotuit, you are wrong. I'm almost 36 years old, and I will admit I am more sedentary than I used to be, I just have an affinity for tattoos. But by the nature of my business, I've gotten to work in every city in this State (not all towns, but all cities). I'm familiar with all the music venues, comic book shops (yes, I still collect those at 35 years old), and some Tattoo parlors. It isn't a young thing, though that seems to be the current trend. The people I know are all over the place age-wise.

I work for AT&T (formerly SNET and SBC), and we have large amounts of people all over the state. Our headquarters in CT is New Haven, but we have large amounts of people all over, in Meriden and Hartford in particular. I know people that live on the shore and travel to Hartford almost daily for meetings, or Meriden, or wherever. That's just in my business, specifiaclly. A guy I work with lives in Canterbury (near Rhode Island) and commutes to Hartford, and another lives in Granby. Even more live right over the border in Agawam or whatever the hell is above Granby. We also have a few guys coming from Waterbury and Watertown. I myself finally got transfered back up to Hartford after 3 horrible years commuting to Bridgeport everyday.

I also know people that work in concrete and construction, and they too travel all over to work and play. My wife works in Wallingford, my sister lives in Wallingford, and her husband works in Cromwell. All these places and people are overlapping, and constantly traveling between one area and another is not rare. Hence my position that we should all be one metro.

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what 4 mile backup into new haven? on 91 or 95? there's no backup going out of new haven on 95, so if you live in new haven, you can drive to bridgeport without hitting that traffic. that's what i'm talking about. i lived on 95, i hit a little traffic between branford and new haven and then nothing until i got to bridgeport.

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I'm part of that 99.9% that doesn't care and is failing to see what the point is on this topic.

The point is that when businesses, or airlines, or sports teams look to relocate, they look at Census figures to determine how viable a region/city is for their needs. We are simply stating that there is much greater population in the Hartford area than meets the eye on paper and that we feel this has impeded our effords to market our region. That's it.

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The point is that when businesses, or airlines, or sports teams look to relocate, they look at Census figures to determine how viable a region/city is for their needs. We are simply stating that there is much greater population in the Hartford area than meets the eye on paper and that we feel this has impeded our effords to market our region. That's it.

You are reading into this way too much. Who cares?

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The point is that when businesses, or airlines, or sports teams look to relocate, they look at Census figures to determine how viable a region/city is for their needs.

All those entities are part of the 0.1% of people who understand census figures. You don't think that the NHL thinks the Hartford Metro ends and the state line and doesn't give any thought to Springfield simply because it's not part of the government definition of the metropolitan area do you?

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You are reading into this way too much. Who cares?

Obviously not you, but some people do.

All those entities are part of the 0.1% of people who understand census figures. You don't think that the NHL thinks the Hartford Metro ends and the state line and doesn't give any thought to Springfield simply because it's not part of the government definition of the metropolitan area do you?

No I do not think that, but I know that the metro population will be brought up in any discussions to bring anything new here. That includes NHL, NBA, ect. I know that the good people at the NHL are smart enought to realize that Hartford does not exists in a vaccum, but being a solidly mid-sized metro, when we could be considered a fairly large one is still a drawback in my opinion.

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PP Mall was built because 8 million people live within a 1 hour drive.(50 miles) They didn't look at metro statistics or how many people that live in the metro area. They wanted to know how many people live within a reasonable distance and would potentially shop there.

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A few points: Cotuit, you are wrong. I'm almost 36 years old, and I will admit I am more sedentary than I used to be, I just have an affinity for tattoos.

Can you not see how anomalous you are in that? Most people settle down and don't do a whole lot, or can't because they have kids needing to get to soccer practice, and that soccer practice is not taking place in another metropolitan area.

I work for AT&T (formerly SNET and SBC), and we have large amounts of people all over the state. Our headquarters in CT is New Haven, but we have large amounts of people all over, in Meriden and Hartford in particular...

Everyone has anecdotal evidence of people who cross metro lines to live and work. I have co-workers from New York City, Greater Boston, Eastern CT, and Cape Cod. That does not mean all those areas are suddenly inside the Providence Metro. As for people travelling to one city or another for meetings... There are people all over the country that travel to New York once or twice a week, that doesn't mean anything. It's where you live and your primary work location that determine your commuting patterns. If you live in Hartford, and your office is in Hartford, but you travel all over southern New England in the course of your work, as far as the Feds are concerned, you work in Hartford and your travels into other metro areas mean nothing.

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The point is that when businesses, or airlines, or sports teams look to relocate, they look at Census figures to determine how viable a region/city is for their needs. We are simply stating that there is much greater population in the Hartford area than meets the eye on paper and that we feel this has impeded our effords to market our region. That's it.

i have to agree with jerry... you're reading too much into it.

airlines know that bradley is the only international airport in CT. they also know that a good portion of CT lives close enough to NYC that they'd prefer those airports over bradley, same thing for those that live close enough to warwick and teh RI border.

as cotuit said, sports teams don't overlook hartford because of the government determined metro area boundaries. they overlook hartford because the market is saturated with new york and boston teams already.

businesses are the only ones that it might matter to (population that would commute). but businesses who are relocating their current staff might not care so much about that as they would about cost of living. businesses also look at more than just that, they look at taxes and tax breaks and stuff.

honestly, the only group the boundaries matter to is the government. crime stats, population, demographics, etc.

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