Is Westchester County New York considered Upstate?

Answer 1

Is Westchester upstate? It depends on where you currently live. I was born and raised in Mt Vernon which, aside from Yonkers, is the first city in Westchester up from the Bronx. In fact if Westchester is upstate then so is one of the 5 borrows of NYC - The Bronx. But I digress. Having been born in Westchester I have never been able to consider it as "upstate". Just looking at a map anyone can see that. However my wife is from Queens, NY and her entire family considered me an upstater! How can that be? Well for them, traveling from Queens to Long Island was no big deal no matter how far down the Island they had to go but the ½ hour ride to Mt Vernon was a cause for concern - after all, it was for them, upstate. It seems the reasoning was that they had to cross a bridge. For them that was the deciding factor. So, if you are from 4 of the 5 borrows of NYC or if you are from Long Island then crossing the Throgs Neck or the Whitestone bridges then you are heading into the upstate. If you are from the rest of the world, then it's just the lower end of New York, (but then we Westchesterites consider Long Islanders as from Another Country anyway).