a.k.a. V.J.

A few days ago, I became a resident of the Sunnybrook Meadows neighborhood in Fulton. I didn’t actually move. They just put a sign up on the corner branding the neighborhood as such.

I use the term “branding” quite deliberately. Apparently, when this neighborhood was built back in the 1950s and 1960s, it was marketed as the Sunnybrook Meadows development. The name didn’t really stick. My family has owned the house I live in since 1970, and when I was growing up, nobody ever called it that. If I had told someone here in town that I lived in Sunnybrook Meadows, I’m sure it would have been met with a confused shrug. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood and was reading some old archived local newspapers that I came across some old real estate listings that used the name.

I can understand why it didn’t catch on, seeing as how it doesn’t really accurately describe the geography. The meadows part is apt, but we’re no more sunny than any other corner of gloomy Central New York, and if there was ever a brook around here, it has long since dried up. That said, I like the name just fine, and I am a fan of efforts to increase the sense of community identity in this town.

I am biased, but I think this is a nice little neighborhood. The housing stock consists pretty much exclusively of modest-sized Cape Cods, ranches, and split-levels, evoking a specific period of post-World War II America. It’s well-preserved as neighborhoods in Fulton go. During my childhood in this neighborhood, the residents were teachers, store managers, factory supervisors, police officers, salespeople, and skilled blue-collar workers. The local economy has changed a lot since then, and the tax-base of our city has been badly eroded, but the 2023 version of Sunnybrook Meadows has retained that original lower-middle-class vibe.

In short, this neighborhood is a place I’m happy to have called home over the years, and happy that I can now call it by a proper name (as opposed to my old standby of saying, “I live on the stretch between Curtis Street and Patrick Circle.”) Count me as a proud Sunnybrook Meadowsian.