Lights out in the Electric City

Schenectady, NY - the Electric City. Even when I was a teenager I thought the nickname was supposed to be ironic because a city with less electricity I couldn't imagine. In fact, if not for the fact that Amtrak ran a train from Schenectady to New York called the Electric City Express, it's likely that I'd have just believed that the nickname Electric City was only a local affectation.

Yet, Schenectady is (was, more appropriately) the Electric City. It was headquarters to General Electric, which was founded there by Thomas Edison in 1892. I used to go into Schenectady regularly 25 years ago when I was in high school. The city seemed dead to me, but the huge buildings that housed all of the GE plants were obvious signs of long gone better days. A few aging buildings still buzzed with activity, but I remember at the time thinking who would ever want to work there.

It seems that today Schenectady is even deader now than when I was in school. US News & World Report features Schenectady in its article about aging industrial cities in upstate New York.

Once known as "the city that lights and hauls the world," Schenectady has become a dim bulb and the first stop in a long, bleak road that runs through much of upstate New York, a countryside pockmarked with a series of eerie industrial relics and shuttered mill towns.

Not a very bright picture for the Electric City.