Ithaca, New York With Kurt Becker
[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Where Do Gays Retire Podcast, where we help you in the LGBTQ plus community find a safe and affordable retirement place. Join Mark Goldstein as he interviews others who live in gay friendly places around the globe. Learn about the climate, cost of living, health care, crime and safety, and more.
[00:00:22] Intro: Now, here's your host, Mark Goldstein.
[00:00:31] Mark Goldstein: Have you ever wondered what it's like to retire in Ithaca, New York? Yes, I said Ithaca, New York. We're going to find out today with our guest, Kurt Becker. And meet Kurt Becker, a seasoned public health professional with a rich journey of dedication and impact. Originally from Ithaca, New York, Kurt earned dual degrees in broadcasting and developmental psychology from [00:01:00] Tompkins Cortland Community College.
[00:01:02] Mark Goldstein: After Cruces, New Mexico, We just did a podcast on that one. Yeah, I saw that. He finished courses at New Mexico State University and graduated from SUNY Cortland in 1994 with a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology. Kurt's commitment to community health began in Las Cruces, where he served as a health educator for families and youth.
[00:01:26] Mark Goldstein: Notably, he initiated an LGBTQ and youth group, The Next Rainbow Generation, orchestrating remarkable initiatives, such as raising funds to showcase the largest ever NAMES Project AIDS memorial quilt in southern New Mexico, spanning over 15, 000 square feet. My goodness. Wow. Yeah, that was it. That was a project.
[00:01:50] Mark Goldstein: Wow. Additionally, Kurt and his youth pioneered Not Your Mom's Prom, one of the area's first alternative [00:02:00] proms. In 1999, Kurt's journey led him to Austin, Texas, where he assumed the role of city's coordinator for Ryan White Funds, overseeing the distribution of over 4 million annually. In 2006, He became the immunization manager for the city of Austin in Travis County, successfully securing a 12 million grant to provide easy and free access to vaccines for at risk adults.
[00:02:31] Mark Goldstein: Wow, that's, that's a big job. In 2021, Kurt retired from the city of Austin and returned to his roots in Ithaca, New York, with his husband of 15 years, Jose. And we
[00:02:45] Kurt Becker: just celebrated our anniversary. I have to. I have to give that plug
[00:02:50] Mark Goldstein: in there. Happy Anniversary to you and Jose. Nestled on 1. 5 Green Acres.
[00:02:57] Mark Goldstein: Green Acres is the place to be. [00:03:00] Farm living is the life for me. They share their home with their two dogs, Molly and Heidi. Welcome, Kurt. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming. It's
[00:03:11] Kurt Becker: a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting
[00:03:14] Mark Goldstein: me. Of course. And Kurt, tell the audience, give us a little back, I told a little story.
[00:03:20] Mark Goldstein: Tell us your story. You said you moved from Austin, first Las Cruces to Austin, and then Austin back, back home to Ithaca.
[00:03:31] Kurt Becker: Yeah, that's quite a route. I started in going to school in Ithaca, which I think folks here never thought I would leave Ithaca. I was a homebody. I really loved this place.
[00:03:46] Kurt Becker: But I think when you're in your twenties or late twenties You always think the place you live, may not have all the opportunities that you want. And so, I set sail [00:04:00] with my first partner out to Las Cruces. And as mentioned, I finished school at New Mexico State University. And got my first job.
[00:04:11] Kurt Becker: As a health educator, really focused in on HIV and AIDS prevention and STD prevention. But then that blossomed into a broader health education initiative. And we had money from the New Mexico Department of Health. And we started a youth group. And when we did the prom that you mentioned, Not Your Mom's Prom I'm a big, I'm really in favor of not.
[00:04:39] Kurt Becker: inventing new ideas. And so I stole that idea from Ithaca. That's okay. Nothing wrong with that. We had a not your mom's prom in Ithaca and I think 92 and it was so fun and it was such a great. Just a great outlet for people that didn't [00:05:00] get to go to their high school prom. And I thought we could do that in Las Cruces.
[00:05:06] Kurt Becker: There was no gay bar. I don't think there is still in Las Cruces. And so we just made a space. And the community was really open to it and welcoming. And it just blossomed. And kids just came out from all the local high schools to help out. And it was a beautiful it's weird because I still think of them as kids, but they're turning 40.
[00:05:34] Kurt Becker: Yeah. I really, I really don't
[00:05:36] Mark Goldstein: like that. I know. To me they're
[00:05:38] Kurt Becker: kids too. But that's the way it is. I'm honored that I get to speak to them all still they're spread out, all over doing great things and what a great experience that was. And then I moved to Austin with a different partner.
[00:05:56] Kurt Becker: I'm just Floating on the wings of my exes [00:06:00] moved to Austin. That was a difficult, difficult job and a very difficult move because I went from a very fun, but meaningful work to a very serious work with the mayor's office in the city of Austin. And making sure we were spending Ryan White dollars properly.
[00:06:21] Kurt Becker: I did that for six years, learned a great deal. And then moved over to immunizations, which I have to say after working in HIV AIDS, I thought that would probably be the most politically sensitive area I would ever work in, and immunizations would be boring and It turned out to be quite the opposite.
[00:06:44] Kurt Becker: People were very sensitive and it's become a bit of a third rail now in, in our world vaccinations. I don't know why, but it has. So, and I did that for 16 or 17 years and then [00:07:00] retired just about two years ago. I stayed a little, stayed a little longer through this last. Through the COVID response, but yeah, I think I retired in, in March two years ago.
[00:07:12] Kurt Becker: So, yeah. That's
[00:07:14] Mark Goldstein: my journey. So, you said, you said Texas, Austin wasn't the place to retire, right? And you.
[00:07:21] Kurt Becker: I think it is for some folks, and I wanted to say this is all so very personal for folks, isn't it? Sure. It's just, you have to really weigh your own wants and. Make your own list of things that you want to, where you want to feel safe and feel happy.
[00:07:39] Kurt Becker: And it's really different for everybody. It is. Austin is a great place, but I was terribly homesick and I had been homesick for decades and people were so tired of me talking about Ithaca, Ithaca is gorgeous. And [00:08:00] Cortlandt apples and Purity ice cream. So they were just, Enough already.
[00:08:05] Mark Goldstein: Enough already.
[00:08:07] Mark Goldstein: Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo. Yeah. That's pretty funny. So, you made the journey and you're back in Ithaca. So, now you're, you're home, you're happy. You're in a, in a LGBTQ friendly place. So tell us, let's start off with geographics. Where is Ithaca for the audience that doesn't, have never heard of Ithaca, New York?
[00:08:37] Mark Goldstein: Where is it located within New York state?
[00:08:41] Kurt Becker: It's centrally isolated, as we like to say, in, in the Finger Lakes. It's at the south end of Cayuga Lake. And then there's I should know this, probably a dozen Finger Lakes in upstate New York. And it's, it's an absolutely beautiful place.[00:09:00] It should be on everybody's bucket list to come up here.
[00:09:03] Kurt Becker: But we're a little North of Binghamton we're probably 60 to 70 miles south of Syracuse. So there's no interstate running through Ithaca. The nearest, major interstate is Route 81 that runs through Cortland. And so we're kind of It's a small college town I think it surprises a lot of people that even though it is rural, it's very progressive because of Ithaca College, of course, and because of Cornell.
[00:09:37] Kurt Becker: So those two, a lot of folks like to say they're from a college town, but truly when the students leave Ithaca in the summer, the city shrinks by half. I bet. So, yeah, but it's beautiful. It's absolutely
[00:09:52] Mark Goldstein: beautiful. It's pleasant. Yeah,
[00:09:54] Kurt Becker: it really is. It's just,
[00:09:56] Mark Goldstein: it's absolutely lovely. So tell us about the climate.
[00:09:59] Mark Goldstein: Mm hmm. [00:10:00] Tell us about how the summers are, what the averages are, the winters. Well, hot and humid or
[00:10:06] Kurt Becker: What a weird year. Yeah. We're having. Yes. Yesterday, in the last few days, it was 60 and sunny in February in upstate New York, and that is just Unheard of. But it's really hard. to complain about it. It's really nice.
[00:10:28] Kurt Becker: But typically this has been a light winter. The last two or three winters have been not as cold, not as brutal, except for they did have a really terrible storm in Buffalo. You may remember last year, but other than that, it's, it's been a pretty mild winter. I don't. I don't think that's typical, but it may be typical as we go forward.
[00:10:50] Kurt Becker: I did just see in the news that they've changed the topographical, the climate maps. So we're not in, we're in a warmer zone now [00:11:00] than we used to be. Wow. And that's happening, I think, everywhere. So, who knows? The, the climate in Austin was 105. Well over a hundred for a couple of months. I know.
[00:11:17] Mark Goldstein: You're in Phoenix, Tucson, Phoenix. You're in Phoenix. Yep. And so yeah, we get a hundred and ten I think we had over a hundred days of a hundred and ten and over this past summer and It goes up to 120, which is hot.
[00:11:33] Kurt Becker: Bless your heart. I Can't do it. No, I I You know, I get out in that Sun. Yeah, it's brutal And so, you know you weigh things, you know Are you out in the summer when it's that hot out and are you out?
[00:11:49] Kurt Becker: In the winter. And so there, there are things you can do in both situations to enjoy the outdoors, but it's just it was harder for me to enjoy, 100 degrees plus. [00:12:00] Whereas here we can go skiing or go sledding in the yard, which we've done a few times now, and that was great fun. And the winters are beautiful also, out where we are when the snow is on the trees, and it's just really lovely.
[00:12:17] Kurt Becker: We're outside of Ithaca, probably about 10 miles, and so it's very rural, really tall pine trees. It's just beautiful. So you have to take the good with the bad. And
[00:12:30] Mark Goldstein: you don't get, do you get the really bad weather from lake effect snow, or no, because you're not
[00:12:38] Kurt Becker: really? Some parts do. So if you're closer to Syracuse, they get, they're, they get hammered.
[00:12:45] Kurt Becker: Yeah, they get hammered. The Finger Lakes being smaller do have lake effect. influences, but it's not as dramatic as the Great Lakes, right? But we do see it. And so, but it's [00:13:00] very spotty. It really, you can drive, 10 miles and they won't have half as much snow as we have out here where we are. So it's just how lucky you are if you like
[00:13:13] Mark Goldstein: snow or not.
[00:13:13] Mark Goldstein: Right, right. Exactly. Okay summer months, is it really, it's not that hot?
[00:13:21] Kurt Becker: Well, I'm coming from Austin, so I remembered it before I left. And it was, it's humid. But people here, when it was 85 this summer, they were just really upset about it. And I thought it was just fine. Right. I thought it was lovely.
[00:13:39] Kurt Becker: Right,
[00:13:39] Mark Goldstein: 85 to me is beautiful.
[00:13:41] Kurt Becker: Right. It doesn't even, even with the humidity, it didn't bother me. I hear you. So, it's what you get acclimated to. I think people here think 85 is dreadful. But for folks from the South, if they were to come up here. They would
[00:13:56] Mark Goldstein: think it's just
[00:13:57] Kurt Becker: chilly. It's lovely. [00:14:00]
[00:14:02] Mark Goldstein: Okay. So does Ithaca have like an LGBTQ or gay neighborhood or gayborhood, so to speak?
[00:14:12] Mark Goldstein: Does it have gay bars?
[00:14:16] Kurt Becker: The gay bar that existed for decades closed, I think about 10 years ago, it was called the common ground. And probably many of the listeners and viewers, if they've ever been to Ithaca. They've been there, know it, didn't know it Well, they've been there. It was a rural, gay bar.
[00:14:35] Kurt Becker: Very different than any of the gay bars I've ever been to. Very community centric. They were really the, the place where picnics got planned and e events, people came together. For really the social aspect of it it was different. It just felt different from the bars [00:15:00] in the big cities.
[00:15:01] Kurt Becker: That, of course, has closed. And I think as a function of technology the world we live in today is a little different. Also, though, I will say That Ithaca is a very accepting and liberal and progressive, so we've really sort of woven into the fabric of the town and the community and it's almost, you feel very comfortable, you don't feel that weirdness when you have to say, this is my husband when you're out in public.
[00:15:34] Kurt Becker: You just say it and people don't bat an eye. That's good. It's just very normal, and even on the outskirts where it does get a little bit more conservative, as soon as you get ten miles outside of Ithaca it gets more conservative, but it's been really friendly. Everybody has been very welcoming it's been, it's been really nice but as far as the gay and lesbian community [00:16:00] goes I probably am not as keyed in yet as maybe we will be eventually.
[00:16:07] Kurt Becker: I know there's events. I know there's things organized on Facebook that I see beyond Ithaca, though, I really want people to understand that there's a lot of small towns, very lovely New England looking places, also small towns that are, have really small towns that changed tremendously over these decades.
[00:16:30] Kurt Becker: There's a small city outside of Ithaca called Corning, which you may have heard of, where they made Corning glass. And they have the Corning Museum of glass. And they have a feminist bookstore downtown on their main street. And they have, it's just lovely. And it's just very welcoming. And it's been a really good experience.
[00:16:54] Kurt Becker: I think. It would be nice to [00:17:00] have a gay bar or some sort of centric building where people could go, but it's also nice just being a part of everything.
[00:17:14] Mark Goldstein: No, I totally, I totally understand that. And I, and I'm glad you brought that up because for me, And, we're both married, right? So we're not really looking for anything, but we want a community place where we can gather amongst ourselves and feel very, very safe.
[00:17:40] Mark Goldstein: Because I'll tell you the truth, I mean, I don't, and, and this goes for single people too. Like who wants to, if I was single. And I was actually looking for somebody. I would want to be comfortable in my own environment. I wouldn't want to go into a mixed bar. How do I know [00:18:00] that that person is gay? But that's what, I feel like we, we all need that, that community building. It's unfortunate that some of the technology apps have replaced bars, gay bars,
[00:18:16] Kurt Becker: right? Right. Well, there's a practicality to it also, isn't there? Like when you're in a gay bar and a lesbian bar, you don't have to be worried about if you want to approach someone, if you're single or, you I mean, if you're married, right, whatever your situation is, if you want to approach someone, you don't want to be guessing, right?
[00:18:38] Mark Goldstein: Are they straight
[00:18:38] Kurt Becker: or? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's that part of it too. And, maybe the apps have their place that, but they also may be doing. A little bit of harm and that it pushes us maybe to an invisible cyberspace and we're not out being seen
[00:18:59] Mark Goldstein: as much [00:19:00] meeting one another. And I
[00:19:01] Kurt Becker: think out in the real world, and I think there's some impact to that.
[00:19:05] Mark Goldstein: You're right, because I believe, we need community. We need community. And as we age and get older, it's, it becomes even more important because, we want to be friends with, I'm not saying a hundred people, but a few good, we're having a few good friends that if we need something if we need to.
[00:19:29] Mark Goldstein: If we're, we need a surgery or something that somebody could take us, if we can't drive and some, because we don't, we don't have family really,
[00:19:39] Kurt Becker: right? We've, we figure it out that, that those relationships we've reconnected with friends that we had, 30 years ago and it's wonderful.
[00:19:48] Kurt Becker: And it's also just nice to sit around with other people, our age. Talk about the medications and their side effects, like
[00:19:57] Mark Goldstein: We all wind up talking about that. [00:20:00] Seriously. Oh, yeah. I take this and that. Oh, and that affects that. What does a glutton do? Oh, I don't like it. Oh, I can't take it because I take I bruise like some of fruit.
[00:20:08] Mark Goldstein: Right. I can't take it because I take a baby aspirin every day. Ha ha ha. So, I get it. I get it. But we, we don't, as we age, if it comes down to going into a nursing home, I'm not going into a nursing home that That's, homophobic or I have to go back into the closet because of who I am.
[00:20:32] Mark Goldstein: I want to be, I am who I am and that's a song, but but I want to stay who I am.
[00:20:39] Kurt Becker: Yeah. But it is a lifelong struggle, isn't it? We, we, we try to find those, safety places, those safe zones, but it's even here the neighbor across the street has You know, a confederate flag, and then down the street you see another one, but [00:21:00] In the town, we have rainbow flags out on the front porches and there's quite a few of them actually when we were driving around I would see, and this is a town of like two or three thousand people, so it's a small rural town, and to see that many Supportive flags out on their front porches.
[00:21:20] Kurt Becker: And one is right next to the school. And I was like, oh, jeez. There you go. Yeah. So it's a mix. You just, you have to have a little bit of bravery too, I
[00:21:30] Mark Goldstein: guess. Yeah. Is, is there like a central part of Ithaca? Like a downtown sort of where people could walk? Is there like restaurants
[00:21:39] Kurt Becker: and oh, yeah, there's a lovely area.
[00:21:41] Kurt Becker: It's called the commons. It's a little bit controversial because they did what a lot of cities did in the seventies, which was removed a main street and made it an open mall sort of park. So it's walkable, but it's debatable whether it really brought people to downtown or not, or if it actually hurt.[00:22:00]
[00:22:01] Kurt Becker: But it's, yeah, there's, but Ithaca, I have to be very honest, is also struggling with some of the things that we see.
[00:22:14] Kurt Becker: In a failing capitalist society, that's probably not the right way to say that. Oh, there's a homeless issue here, but there's homelessness everywhere. And everybody's struggling with it. There was a lot of it in Austin. I felt like maybe in the South, because the, the climate was a little bit more temperate that people would, it was a little easier in that respect.
[00:22:41] Kurt Becker: And it's harder up here. Yeah, because it's so cold in the winter. Yeah, but the homeless population has grown in the last 30 years without question. We have some of the same challenges that other cities are having. That said there's still If you were to walk down on the commons of [00:23:00] Ithaca, it feels a little bit a microcosm of maybe San Francisco a long time ago.
[00:23:08] Kurt Becker: There's just such a huge variety of Of folks doing all sorts of different things, some that might seem odd or eccentric. And then, it's just, you get, that's
[00:23:24] Mark Goldstein: a cool, that's a cool, it's a cool place. I like that kind of odd, eccentric, stuff
[00:23:31] Kurt Becker: in Austin, they would say. Keep Austin weird, right?
[00:23:35] Kurt Becker: They thought
[00:23:36] Mark Goldstein: they were there. That was that. I was like, it's
[00:23:38] Kurt Becker: not weird. Weird. You've walked or lived on the commons in Ithaca. This is nothing, but it's fine. It gives the whole city a flavor. People really care about the community too. And, and voices get loud and people are very involved.
[00:23:56] Kurt Becker: They always have been. And I, that's one of the things I absolutely love. [00:24:00] About Ithaca is just how much people care about their quality of life and their neighbors. There's just a sense of that. I
[00:24:10] Mark Goldstein: believe they I contacted the Gage, I think they have a Gage Chamber of Commerce, right? Mm hmm. Yeah, because I did make contact there as well.
[00:24:21] Mark Goldstein: So, it's pretty progressive to have a gay Chamber of Commerce in a, in a rural, city like that.
[00:24:31] Kurt Becker: Yeah, I mean, credit to higher education and, and having those resources has been a blessing. It's an interesting relationship. It's sort of a, oh, the relationship between the city of Ithaca and Cornell University is always sort of a give and take.
[00:24:52] Kurt Becker: The Lately, the controversy is that Cornell isn't paying their fair share of taxes to the city [00:25:00] and but what they bring to the city is It's priceless in many ways.
[00:25:07] Mark Goldstein: Okay. So, is it easy, Kurt, to meet others in the LGBTQ community and make friends in Ithaca or is it a little bit difficult?
[00:25:23] Kurt Becker: I think boy, that answer is probably a big it depends. For us. It hasn't been difficult. We are avid, obsessive volleyball players. And so we've sort of tried to make friends through that venue. And we've met some gay and lesbian people. I think I want to lean on the side that it is a little difficult.
[00:25:52] Kurt Becker: Because what kind of hinting back to what we talked about earlier, which is when you become integrated into [00:26:00] the fabric, which is a good thing. It's also more difficult to sort of find people, but I think you can if you really want to. Using Facebook or whatever social media, yeah, media that you want, you, you can find folks.
[00:26:17] Kurt Becker: I do think it's a little bit difficult and it can feel a little artificial to go about things that way. Whereas if you have a bar or a restaurant or something of that. Nature just naturally a coffee shop brings people together in a in a more natural way. So I think it I think it's a difficult thing to do, regardless.
[00:26:41] Kurt Becker: I don't know if Ithaca would be that much different than any other city or place with regard to
[00:26:48] Mark Goldstein: that. Maybe because it's smaller population.
[00:26:52] Kurt Becker: Yeah, but also it's a, it's such a college town and it's so youth centric. Yeah. That, that can be a [00:27:00] little tricky for older gay and lesbian transgender people.
[00:27:04] Kurt Becker: I have a, I call him my gay dad, and he was sort of my, the person I looked to when I was young, and he lives in Cambridge, England now, and is struggling with health issues, and he left Ithaca, retired from Cornell, I think, when he was in his 60s, and he spoke of that, and his friends would speak to that, that there was, that's everywhere though, right, this youth centric, and, I don't know what age.
[00:27:38] Kurt Becker: You slowly become more and more visible.
[00:27:40] Mark Goldstein: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it.
[00:27:43] Kurt Becker: That's not entirely bad either. Sometimes I like it. Yeah. I don't like the drama and I don't have the energy for all of 20s and 30s. But yeah, I think it's It does pose its challenges. [00:28:00] Okay.
[00:28:02] Mark Goldstein: All right. Tell us a little bit about the local economy.
[00:28:06] Mark Goldstein: What do you think what can you buy a house for in Ithaca? Two bedroom, maybe two baths. What do rentals usually go for? What, what's the cost of utilities and is, are groceries less or more than the average? If you know that and yeah, give us an example.
[00:28:31] Kurt Becker: So housing, well, as far as let's back up, go to the economy real quick.
[00:28:35] Kurt Becker: It's this economy in Ithaca, Tompkins County is. focused around higher education primarily. And then I would say there are a few manufacturing. Smaller jobs than government health care. We have two somewhat significant health care hospital districts that sort of fight it out with each [00:29:00] other. They employ a lot of folks and they're growing.
[00:29:03] Kurt Becker: So the health care industry is pretty good. Higher ed is, is good. Manufacturing is Not that great. Obviously, that's been a thing of the past for a while. There's a lot of cottage industry wineries Breweries little restaurants, which we which we love so there's a lot of that People just kind of doing things on their own.
[00:29:31] Kurt Becker: I'm not sure how successful that is as far as making a affordable living at it, but there is quite a bit of it up here and it's, it's nice. I love to see it. Housing is pretty expensive. I would say this is another centric Ithaca thing. As soon as you move away from Ithaca. It becomes more and more affordable.
[00:29:56] Kurt Becker: So if you're willing to live [00:30:00] 10 to 20 miles away from Ithaca, then you can find a fairly good house I would say three, two bedrooms in Ithaca are probably around the 300, 000 mark for something pretty good. Not needing a lot of work. If you go out you can find things for 250. If you go out a little further and you're willing to make some trade offs, you can find things for Wow.
[00:30:35] Kurt Becker: If you go to Cortland, which is a city about 20 miles outside which is where University of SUNY Cortland is housing is even less expensive, but then property taxes are more. So, I was just looking at this thing on threads about states with no income tax, and would you want to live in any of them?
[00:30:59] Kurt Becker: [00:31:00] Most of them are red states, except for Washington.
[00:31:03] Mark Goldstein: Yep, I've been to one. I've lived in one, Florida.
[00:31:07] Kurt Becker: Yeah, so, what do you gain, what do you lose? We went from no state tax to New York, which is, has pretty significant state tax. Although ours was a wash between a return and what we had to, Oh, so it was, it wasn't a big deal.
[00:31:24] Kurt Becker: But property taxes here are a little lower. Insurance is a little lower. You don't pay 30 to ride on a a highway for 10 miles like you do in Texas. I swear to God, you go and, yeah, the tolls in Austin are insane. And, here you can go from one side of the state to the other. So, the schools here are better.
[00:31:49] Kurt Becker: So, yeah, you pay more in taxes, but your kids aren't going to school in a double wide. Right. It wasn't ever intended to be a long [00:32:00] term, building there's, I think the universities here are slightly better, although that's arguable, but there tends to be more community college, it's smaller.
[00:32:14] Kurt Becker: So you get that more one to one connection with your professors and teachers and things like that. So I think it's all a trade off overall for us. It's been a wash. The roads are a little better in Texas because they don't have winters. As, so housing is probably a little cheaper overall than, especially Austin has gotten
[00:32:39] Mark Goldstein: crazy.
[00:32:40] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, it's pretty affordable.
[00:32:43] Kurt Becker: Yeah, rent is awful. Rent is probably more expensive in Ithaca than in Austin. Wow. So, you're gonna pay Easy 1, 500 a month for a one bedroom apartment in and around [00:33:00] the Ithaca area. Easy. That would actually be not a bad price. And I know this because we're, we're trying to rescue a friend from Texas who wants to come up here with us.
[00:33:13] Kurt Becker: And I'm, I've been actively looking for apartments. And so apartments are not affordable. We're, we're scrounging to find a place.
[00:33:25] Mark Goldstein: I like that you're rescuing
[00:33:26] Kurt Becker: somebody. We're trying, and anybody else, if you need to feel like you need to be rescued from the, from Texas, reach out, we will, we will try to connect you.
[00:33:35] Kurt Becker: But yeah, overall, you, you kind of, you just decide what are, what's important for you, where, what do you want your government to be? What do you want your community to be? What, what do you value? I, I couldn't take it anymore. I just. I literally just couldn't stand it, although I'm sure there's people just like me that can't stand it, but have to because that's their job and their [00:34:00] family is there and it makes it sound very easy.
[00:34:02] Kurt Becker: I retired, but if you have a family and you have a job, you can't just pick up, pick up and leave, right? You can't. But that
[00:34:10] Mark Goldstein: was my situation in New York city for many years. So, I, I lived in New York city. I lived in Brooklyn. I worked down on wall street all my life. It got to a point where I just didn't want the stress and the rat race and I said, and even looking for another job was difficult because then you're kind of used to making a wage.
[00:34:35] Mark Goldstein: And then what am I going to do? And then, then you just have to make a decision. Is it going to be a health issue down the road, if you stay under that stress or can you move somewhere that's less expensive and survive? So that's what, that's what we did. Yeah.
[00:34:58] Kurt Becker: You, you just have to decide, [00:35:00] what, what in time, where do you want to spend your time?
[00:35:03] Kurt Becker: Time is the most valuable. Yeah. It's the most valuable commodity that we have. Right. And so, it's so precious, and you don't really feel it entirely as if Until you get older and it goes so fast and it goes so fast. All right. I will say that time has sped up since we've been here. It's insane. It's like Groundhog Day.
[00:35:30] Kurt Becker: It's just like, yeah. It just goes so quickly. It's been almost a year. I think it's been 10 months since we've moved back. Well, for me yeah. And it's just gone by so
[00:35:41] Mark Goldstein: quickly. Yeah. Same, same with us. I mean, first we moved out of New York area to Florida and that was four years. We, we stayed in Florida and then we sold there and came to Phoenix and it's already almost six years.
[00:35:56] Mark Goldstein: So it's like it's nuts. It's like it [00:36:00] is it is. So how about utilities?
[00:36:04] Kurt Becker: Utility cost are about gas electric about the same we have Electric and and after we're done today here with you. I have to go stack wood Because that's how we also heat our house. Okay from wood. So we had to buy, I think we bought 10 or 11 cords of wood, which is four by eight.
[00:36:28] Kurt Becker: And that costs 1, 000. And so if we wanted to heat our house with just wood, we could it would have been 1, 000 for the whole winter, which is. Not typically six months to oh, yeah. Yeah, so
[00:36:46] Mark Goldstein: we're like the opposite with the summer We're like six months of
[00:36:50] Kurt Becker: summer. Yes, and then in the summer it goes down to nothing Yeah, like the same a hundred dollars less than a hundred dollars for utilities.
[00:36:59] Kurt Becker: [00:37:00] Same thing here. Yeah water I don't think is too much. Although we have a well which I'm adjusting to lots of things to adjust to when you move out to Green Acres,
[00:37:09] Mark Goldstein: that's the place to be. Farm living is the life for me. How about the arts and culture scene? Is there any arts and culture, the, to speak
[00:37:21] Kurt Becker: of?
[00:37:21] Kurt Becker: It's so great. It's so wonderful. I, we probably don't get, the big names, the big concerts, that you see in the big metropolitan areas, I am very okay with that. So that's a personal thing. I love going to lawn concerts. Whether it's classical music or jazz or I love that kind of stuff and that is everywhere.
[00:37:49] Kurt Becker: Every little town, in the summer has something going on. And then there's Cornell, there's Ithaca College, there's SUNY Cortland. They all have their [00:38:00] own arts. What do I want to center? Yeah, they have art centers, but they do performing arts. Cornell does, and Ithaca, of course, is renowned for that.
[00:38:10] Kurt Becker: So you can see some really great. Great things there. But then there's museums. There's, there's museums in Corning. There's the Harriet Tubman Museum in Auburn. There's lots of museums that throw back to the 1800s in a little town nearby called Moravia where they have these big, beautiful, old three story brick mansions.
[00:38:36] Kurt Becker: That you can buy for a bargain. Wow. I mean, if you're wanting to retire, if you want to get from California and you want to go somewhere and live large, that's what a couple has just done. A gay couple just bought a big, beautiful mansion. In, in Moravia, New York. And it's absolutely stunning. And What are you doing in all that space?[00:39:00]
[00:39:00] Kurt Becker: I, well, This, this, one of, this, one of these guys was a sculptor. He was a, so he has his sculptures all over. And I, they have, they throw parties, and this, this is crazy. Moravia's like a thousand people. But you would have thought you were in A very upscale, metropolitan affluent, just a variety of people.
[00:39:30] Kurt Becker: It was like Schitt's Creek, but on steroids. Yes. It was just, it was just so lovely. You, you meet the mayor and then you meet the person who owns the liquor store, who's the mayor's wife. And it's that kind of a thing. And they. They're not harboring any prejudice against gay people.
[00:39:57] Kurt Becker: And it's, it's really feels nice. [00:40:00] What did you ask me though? I got way off track, didn't I?
[00:40:02] Mark Goldstein: Oh, we were on arts and
[00:40:04] Kurt Becker: culture. Yeah. So, oh, and I want to put a plug in for this place because they welcomed me home in the way that I could never have imagined, which is the. Homer and just outside of Cortland, New York, there's a little town called Homer.
[00:40:21] Kurt Becker: And when I was moving home and I, we'd made the decision, we had the house on the market and we were going, I had found out that Amy Rae from the Indigo Girls was playing in Homer, New York at this old church that they had renovated into a performing arts center. And I was like, that can't be, that has to be a misprint.
[00:40:42] Kurt Becker: There's no way. But sure enough. Amy Rae and her band played in Homer on the weekend we drove into town, and I bought 15 tickets and took all my friends and family there, sat in the first and second row, and she [00:41:00] played my request, and it was just So, that's very tailored to me. Yeah. Syracuse is not far.
[00:41:11] Kurt Becker: Rochester is not far. New York City is not far. It's a six hour drive. So if you get that itch and you really want to go visit Broadway.
[00:41:22] Mark Goldstein: You can. You can. Awesome.
[00:41:26] Kurt Becker: Thanks for letting me tell
[00:41:27] Mark Goldstein: that. Yeah, of course. Of course. Of course. I'm sorry. No, no, no, don't be. So how about, are you a foodie? Do you like to go to restaurants?
[00:41:39] Kurt Becker: So, that's another great question, which I think is really dependent on things you decide when you retire, if you're going to save money and eat at home, or if you've got the budget to go out and eat. I would describe Ithaca as having a handful of really [00:42:00] great restaurants, but it's not overflowing with them.
[00:42:04] Kurt Becker: There's the Moosewood Restaurant, which is world renowned for their vegan and vegetarian options. That place is packed all the time. Excellent food, excellent service, right downtown, you can sit outside, it's really lovely. There's places down on the commons, which I referred to earlier, sort of the main street, that have, they have good restaurants.
[00:42:26] Kurt Becker: But then what I think people love, which I love, as I referred to earlier, there's lots of little smaller restaurants that do a great job that are outside in Trumansburg, in Groton, in Lansing. Lansing has the Salt Point restaurant, which has a big outside eating area, wonderful pizza, very welcoming. Has the gay pride flag on their door.
[00:42:57] Kurt Becker: You see that a lot. The food is [00:43:00] good. Lots of wineries. Oh, Ithaca Beer. You gotta try Ithaca Beer, people. There's Ithaca Beer, there's Ithaca Root Beer. And if you come to Ithaca, which you absolutely should do, you can go to Ithaca Beer, sit outside, wonderful, wonderful food smaller dishes, delicious but I wouldn't say it's like a Mecca.
[00:43:25] Mark Goldstein: Wouldn't say that it's just a smaller scale for a smaller town. So yeah, and I'm sure since it's a School town you're gonna have your fast food places and your your pubs your pubs Yeah, yes.
[00:43:43] Kurt Becker: Yes.
[00:43:44] Mark Goldstein: Yes. Yeah Okay. All right. So is there any public transportation? There is. There is? Oh, I'm surprised. Oh,
[00:43:57] Kurt Becker: yeah. No, it's called the TCAT.[00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Kurt Becker: Tompkins County Area Transit. I hope I got that right. So, Ithaca is located within Tompkins County. So Ithaca's 30, 000 people. The town is probably 50, kind of surrounds the city. Tompkins County's probably 100, 000, thereabouts. And there's a bus system that goes around the whole county, so it not only serves Ithaca, but it serves all of the towns outside.
[00:44:27] Kurt Becker: I remember it as a kid going to school. I went to the community college, which was in outside of it, excuse me, outside of Ithaca, probably about 12 miles or so. And it worked great. It was, had a lot of scheduled pickups. I love that it went out into the local communities. So some of these towns are, kind of far away relative.
[00:44:54] Kurt Becker: You could fit all of Tompkins County in the city of Austin. So, it's, [00:45:00] everything is relative, but I remember one year they wanted to have, they were trying to publicize their services. So they had. Classical music concerts on the buses. So you would get on the bus and there would be three or four, playing the cello and you would just ride around.
[00:45:20] Kurt Becker: That's funny. You'd be like, what's going on? Yeah, so it's good. There's no subway. There's no, What's the
[00:45:26] Mark Goldstein: closest airport? Is it Syracuse?
[00:45:29] Kurt Becker: No, it's Ithaca. So Ithaca has its own international airport, and it's just so beautiful. It's not very big. Wow, but
[00:45:36] Mark Goldstein: It goes international? Well, not really. It's called that.
[00:45:43] Mark Goldstein: It's just like Watertown. Watertown International Airport.
[00:45:47] Kurt Becker: Well, I think for a while they were going maybe into Canada. Okay. But maybe I don't think that. I think covid really stopped things. So they fly to New York. New Jersey. They were [00:46:00] flying to Detroit. There's questions that will come back. And one other place.
[00:46:04] Kurt Becker: But Delta flies in American United. And sometimes it's not that much more expensive, but primarily people use Syracuse. But then there's Elmira, which isn't that far away. But the Ithaca airport is so lovely. And it's small. So you just get in and out through security in like 20 minutes. So oftentimes, if we think it's 50 difference, we'll just Stay in Ithaca because it's, it's easier and it's brand new.
[00:46:35] Kurt Becker: It's a brand new airport.
[00:46:37] Mark Goldstein: Cool. It's lovely. Good. Good Tell us a little bit about crime. Is there any crime? I mean with the homeless population? Yeah,
[00:46:45] Kurt Becker: there is. Yeah There is and it's it's a little unsettling. I was trying to find some statistics, I don't think it's Unusually high I think it's probably [00:47:00] On average lower than most places, but I think for Ithaca and from what I remember, it's higher than what I, what I used to remember.
[00:47:10] Kurt Becker: Yeah. That's every place. Yeah. I think it's every place
[00:47:14] Mark Goldstein: I think because I'm sure there's a growth since the time you left and the time you came back. So I, I'm sure crime has, increased as well. So yeah, but like petty crime or a violent crime,
[00:47:30] Kurt Becker: do you know, I think I don't think there's a whole lot of violent crime.
[00:47:35] Kurt Becker: I think it's I would have to look it up. I, it's probably not a great question for me to answer because I'm not in the city. I do follow on Facebook, a couple of pages that that monitor it. And it does seem like it's, it's pretty active. But most of it is just car chases [00:48:00] DWIs a lot of substance abuse issues drug related but not very many like murders or, or rape or things of that nature there, but, but it does happen.
[00:48:14] Kurt Becker: Okay.
[00:48:16] Mark Goldstein: Tell us a little bit about healthcare. Where's the nearest hospital to you? How long does it take you to get there?
[00:48:24] Kurt Becker: So the hospital. There's two competing hospital districts. One is called Cayuga Medical, and the other one is called Guthrie. Guthrie, I think, is out of Sare, Pennsylvania. And Cougar started here in Ithaca.
[00:48:41] Kurt Becker: Guthrie has probably got a bigger name, a bigger footprint in the area. And so there are clinics that are sort of popping up all over. They repurposed the mall, which like many malls was, dying. And they've repurposed it into kind of a [00:49:00] health care center, which was great. It just, I think it's just opening in fact this week.
[00:49:06] Kurt Becker: Some things are, I only have to compare to what I experienced in New Mexico and what I experienced in Austin. So and I'll tell your listeners and people watching, I am HIV positive. And so I've had to have a little bit of a different maybe a, make a deeper dive when I was moving somewhere to make sure that I could find a doctor that.
[00:49:29] Kurt Becker: was not just comfortable, but knowledgeable. And I miss that in Austin. I will say that I had the best doctor Gary Wernz from a red river family practice. And if you're in that area, boy, that is the place to be because they really know. And he, that doctor, he has been around for decades at the very beginning.
[00:49:53] Kurt Becker: And so I had great advice from him and he could predict [00:50:00] things, and he would say, you need to be watching for this and be careful of that. And this is what these medicines will do. And I have, I think a young friendly doctor here in Ithaca who. is eager and very smart, I'm sure. But I miss that knowledge, knowledge of from experience and just from all of the other clients that they've had.
[00:50:29] Kurt Becker: You benefit from that. Yeah. And, but I will say that because I think it's a smaller healthcare system, and that's kind of my background I recognize that they're a little bit more nimble. I'm surprised that the electronic health record system up here is better. The, the communication between the doctors, between the different specialists is better.
[00:50:53] Kurt Becker: They use Epic and they use, they, they use big time electronic medical [00:51:00] systems, which kind of surprised me a little bit. I was expecting more of a Green Acres approach to healthcare, but in that respect, it's been really good. But they don't, and I would say that's something to really invest your time into if you're.
[00:51:17] Kurt Becker: Gay or lesbian, transgender, and if you have a chronic disease, especially HIV, yeah, spend your time looking before you go. Get in the chat rooms, get on social media, talk to friends, talk to family, find out everything you can because that has been probably my biggest challenge is getting that set up. Yeah, that expertise.
[00:51:47] Kurt Becker: Yeah, and there are things gay men need to be paying attention to that not everybody needs to be paying attention, right? and so You might find that in a bigger city. So I'm thinking do I go to Syracuse? Do I go to Rochester? [00:52:00] So that's a trade off part of the reason I'm here in Ithaca is because I was homesick and I love it because I will Make do or find a way but not everybody should have to do that, right?
[00:52:15] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, health care is very important How long does it take to see a doctor if you make an appointment is it very long depends
[00:52:23] Kurt Becker: on the type of doctor? I went to the dermatologist And it was, they were like, well, we don't have anything until June. I was like, what are you talking about? But then yes, he said, but I can put you on the cancellation list.
[00:52:36] Kurt Becker: And then I did that. And then she, they saw me the next day. But so that experience wasn't good. Other than that, it's pretty typical. I would say a week to two weeks, maybe three. Um, pretty, pretty typical. That's what it is here. And pretty good. Yeah. Not not bad.
[00:52:58] Mark Goldstein: All right. And how [00:53:00] close is the hospital? Is it
[00:53:03] Kurt Becker: well, the hospital is on the other side of the lake.
[00:53:07] Kurt Becker: So there's this lake divides everything up. And so if you're on the wrong side of the lake, you have to go around it. You have to go around it. But you know, it's probably a 40 minute 30 minute drive to that Ithaca hospital, but to the Cortland hospital. Which is owned by the other healthcare system.
[00:53:34] Kurt Becker: It's probably 20 to 25 minutes. So, mm,
[00:53:39] Mark Goldstein: it just, it's not bad. I think my rule of thumb is 45 minutes around there. That would be my,
[00:53:47] Kurt Becker: yeah. Yeah. And that
[00:53:48] Mark Goldstein: definitely is. Yeah. That's within. Yes. Okay. Do you wish something, do you wish you had something in Ithaca that you had [00:54:00] elsewhere, such as in Austin or Las Cruces?
[00:54:06] Kurt Becker: I wish, I wish Jose would answer that because I, I so appreciate how much he has supported me in my. to home. But I know I think when you live in a bigger metropolitan area, especially one that's growing like Austin you have more choices, you have, when we're Bought a house there.
[00:54:29] Kurt Becker: It was a new build. And so it was very, it was very nice and new, and it had all these features. And when you move to the Northeast It's
[00:54:40] Mark Goldstein: older.
[00:54:44] Kurt Becker: It creaks. But, you tell yourself, well that's charming. And that may be true to some extent. I think the trade offs have been worth it. Employment market isn't as rich here.
[00:54:58] Kurt Becker: So the pay also, [00:55:00] we should have talked about that. Maybe that Jose has had a little bit more of a struggle looking for something that pays like what they would pay in Austin. That has been a challenge as well. So that part of the economy. I'm hoping it will pick up. I know Syracuse just got a big grant to build microchips and they're giving like billions of dollars.
[00:55:24] Kurt Becker: So we expect Syracuse to take off and some of the surrounding areas are seeing some impact. But that part is a little bit of a struggle. I don't know exactly how people afford to live well, unless you work at Cornell. Or, you're a professor.
[00:55:41] Mark Goldstein: It's, it's tough. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, that's what my husband says in upstate New York.
[00:55:48] Mark Goldstein: He comes from Watertown. Yeah. And he said, well, you're either a doctor or you're an educator.
[00:55:56] Kurt Becker: So Yeah. Or you're working two or three jobs to try [00:56:00] to put it together. Yeah. Yeah. Got
[00:56:03] Mark Goldstein: it. So, are there any cons living there? Besides the, hard to get job or?
[00:56:12] Kurt Becker: I think maybe this is a struggle everywhere, but it's one that just sticks at me, which is, seeing the, seeing the Trump flags and the hateful flags and things, things like that out in the rural areas is alarming it's threatening, it's scary. I try to balance it with the other good people, but I don't remember ever seeing, but I mean, I guess maybe gay and lesbian people and transgender people weren't as out.
[00:56:49] Kurt Becker: And so they're pushing back on us and that's a little unnerving to be out in a rural area, but I love being. [00:57:00] Next to a creek or in the woods or smelling the fresh air and mowing the lawn and all of those things. Letting the dogs go out and run in the yard.
[00:57:09] Mark Goldstein: You have to weigh your priorities.
[00:57:10] Kurt Becker: You do. And you're going to let people bully you into not being where you want to be. Yeah,
[00:57:16] Mark Goldstein: that's not a good thing either. That's
[00:57:19] Kurt Becker: a challenge, but that's
[00:57:20] Mark Goldstein: everywhere. Yep. And that's like, you just have to vote. Yep. That's what you have to do. Yes. It's very important finding community and, and get rid of that hate.
[00:57:36] Mark Goldstein: But okay. So, in wrapping up, what would you say to our audience if they're thinking about relocating to Ithaca, Green Acres?
[00:57:49] Kurt Becker: Well, apart from Ithaca, I would say, which is very specific for me because of where I grew [00:58:00] up. So, if you're looking for to recapture that feeling of nostalgia, which I think a lot of folks are, A sense of home.
[00:58:09] Kurt Becker: You just have to make a list of things, what you, spend some time really examining what's important for you and where, where those feelings come from and, and what you want to do. And all the other things we've talked about, healthcare and the economy, how affordable is it, cost of living, all of those things, you really have to spend time deciding if you can be happy there 75 percent of the time.
[00:58:41] Kurt Becker: Can you escape and go somewhere? Twenty five percent. Yeah. Or, take some trips. Or, do what you need to do. You just have to figure out, we, we talked before. And, I wanted to return home, but I don't know if that was a strong feeling for you. It's not for [00:59:00] everybody. Right.
[00:59:00] Kurt Becker: People have no interest in going back. As
[00:59:04] Mark Goldstein: much as I love New York City I think it And the bagels. And the bagel. I miss the bagels. I miss all of the stuff. The delis and Yeah. Broadway. I, I, there's nothing like it. And Yeah. There's nothing that could compare. Do I miss it? Yes. Would I move back there?
[00:59:26] Mark Goldstein: Probably not because first of all, the, the affordability is not just something that I could do. So besides that I could always visit. So yes, yeah, we move on.
[00:59:42] Kurt Becker: We do in every way, whether we make a circle or a line. Yeah, we figured it out.
[00:59:48] Mark Goldstein: Any final wise words to our audience before we wrap
[00:59:53] Kurt Becker: up?
[00:59:54] Kurt Becker: No, just do your, do your research and know yourself. Do
[00:59:58] Mark Goldstein: your due diligence. [01:00:00] Yeah. Before you move to Greenacres or anywhere else for that.
[01:00:03] Kurt Becker: Yeah. And Mark, thank you. Thank you for doing this because it's so important for all of us, not only to get that community, but to. It's a service that I didn't realize, so I'm taking up time, but I want to say thank you because I went on the page and I saw how many followers there were.
[01:00:24] Kurt Becker: I'm so glad I found you. I'm seeing people that have retired in Mexico, and I'm very interested in that now because Jose would love to retire in Mexico But I'm having the same worries That I'm seeing in the comments. And so, what you're doing is so great. It's just wonderful that we can talk this way with each other and explore the world.
[01:00:50] Kurt Becker: And find a safe place to feel at home.
[01:00:52] Mark Goldstein: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I do it for the community. I love doing it. So, it's just [01:01:00] my, my way, my little piece, to give back. What, what everyone has given me. And it's really great and yeah, so it's thank you and I've met so many wonderful people such as yourself and, I started, I've also met some people in person after a while meeting them.
[01:01:21] Mark Goldstein: In fact, like my moderator, who's in where to gaze retire, he's been my moderator for four or more years. Never met him in person this year. Just a couple months ago. We met. Oh, that's great. Palm Springs. So it was really cool. That is
[01:01:36] Kurt Becker: great. Yeah. Well, I hope we can meet someday in person and go have coffee.
[01:01:40] Kurt Becker: That would be wonderful. And a bagel.
[01:01:41] Mark Goldstein: I hope so too. Yes. A bagel with a schmear. Yes. You can't forget that schmear from New York. All right, Kurt. Well, thank you. And thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. And we will talk soon. Okay. Very good. Thank you. [01:02:00] Bye. Bye bye.
[01:02:02] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Where Do Gays Retire podcast.
[01:02:06] Outro: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our podcast and consider making a donation by clicking the coffee cup on any page at www. wheredogaysretire. com. Each cup of coffee that you buy costs 5 and goes towards helping us continue the podcast. Thank you for your continued support.