Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town
What happens to a company town when its major company opts to neglect the town? Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town shows what went right and what went wrong when General Electric moved most of its businesses out of Schenectady, New York. Once known as “The City that Lights and Hauls the World” because of its electrical and railroad industries, the Electric City enjoyed decades of dizzying, enviable success. Like other river towns upstate, it was a 20th-century, economic powerhouse that fueled the wealth and reputation of the Empire State.
But between 1960 and 2000, this company town would lose 30,000 residents, a third of its population, mainly through aggressive layoffs by GE. Schenectady, like so many other cities in post-industrial America, faced overwhelming forces that pushed it toward imminent ruin: flight to the suburbs; a diminished tax base; a corrupt police department; relentless political warfare; gang and drug problems in decaying neighborhoods; a burgeoning surplus of zombie houses; and mounting deficits. In spite of it all, though, Schenectady’s business leaders and arts lovers, politicians and volunteers, non-profit organizations and philanthropic foundations, neighborhood associations and volunteers, all found innovative ways to rebuild their city, and this riveting book chronicles those efforts.
With historic photos, deeply-researched details of the city’s successes and failures, and thought-provoking portraits of some of its most dynamic citizens, Metrofix is an inspirational story that shows how an acclaimed theater, (Proctor’s), a business-led, volunteer revitalization organization, (Schenectady 2000), a unique public authority, (Metroplex), and hundreds of dedicated citizens pulled their city back from the brink of disaster and did, in fact, change their world.
PRAISE FOR METROFIX
“In William Patrick’s meticulously-researched and delightfully-written telling, the story of Schenectady is the story of much of America – a company town at the core of an innovative industry, growth followed by deindustrialization and urban decline, a hard-fought comeback fueled by immigration and local initiative.”
—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
“Late in Metrofix, we are introduced to the term "Schenectady rising," and the reader feels the deep satisfaction of understanding the two words that capture all that we have witnessed in this fine tale. William B. Patrick brings the skills of a dogged reporter, the eye of a poet, and a writer's love of language to the task of illuminating the Electric City, and by the end of the book we are cheering for all the remarkable characters chronicled on these pages -- and especially for the people whose hard work is bringing back a great city.”
—Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life
“My dad took a job as the manager of the General Electric Athletic Association, so from 1950 to 1963 – until I went off to college in Kentucky – Schenectady is where I grew up. What a place to be raised in. Everyone worked. Everyone played. Everyone seemed to have fun. Everyone believed in America. A blue collar city where people took a lot of pride in being part of its growth, Schenectady and the people I met there made me. William B. Patrick’s deep dive into this great city’s past, with the very up-close and personal transformation to today, is an incredible piece of work that will humble anyone who reads this story. It is fascinating.”
— Pat Riley, President of the Miami Heat
“A single word in the subtitle of Bill Patrick’s riveting new book, Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town, captures the work’s fierce spirit: combative. Like a battered prize-fighter, the central character in this story – the hard-luck city of Schenectady –keeps getting knocked down but manages, again and again, to pick itself up and fight on. The story of Schenectady is the story of America, where a gritty, creative, resilient group of people overcome obstacle after obstacle on their mission to save the place they love. The narrative reads like a compelling novel, filled with plot twists, quirky but engaging characters, and prose that pushes us on to find out how a place can survive against all odds. People not just from Schenectady but from every down-and-out mill town across America will want to get their hands on this book and read this gripping story of a city and its never-say-die citizens.”
—Michael C. White, author of Soul Catcher and Beautiful Assassin
“Generations from now, the citizens of Schenectady will thank William B. Patrick for his commitment and skill in putting down onto the page the glory and heartache of their city like no other writer has ever done. In Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town, Patrick has produced the one indispensable volume on this authentic American city. Patrick lives in Schenectady, and he has an affinity for the place, but this is no gauzy love letter like so many nostalgic reminiscences that came before it. This is a deeply reported urban history in the vein of Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford, but it never becomes academic or pedantic. In lively prose, Patrick deconstructs “the city that lights and hauls the world” from its heyday as a manufacturing titan for the General Electric Co. and the American Locomotive Company to its long spiral into urban blight and decay. He documents the recent rebirth of downtown, fueled by large investments from Metroplex; the allure of Broadway shows and the performing arts at Proctors; aided by assorted visionaries and civic leaders. Patrick is at once clear-eyed, critical and generous in his assessment. Patrick has published poetry, fiction, screenplays and dramas and he brings to bear his multitudinous talents in this potent narrative.”
—Paul Grondahl, Director of the NYS Writers Institute at the University at Albany, journalist and author
“Communities are made of stories, and the heart of every story is the people. Bill Patrick understands storytelling, and he understands Schenectady. Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town is a meticulously-researched, compelling story of urban decline, renewal, and rebirth. An essential book for anyone interested in the lifecycle of city centers and how urban planning can succeed.”
—Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
“In Metrofix, William B. Patrick performs an extraordinary feat of literary alchemy, transforming material that seems like dull base metal – the history of Schenectady, an industrial city in upstate New York – into pure gold. In Patrick’s hands, the elements meld into a brilliant amalgam of urban history, politics, dizzying turns of fortune, and cautionary tales. The book chronicles the stories of hundreds of fascinating people. Here, you’ll meet Schenectadians – famous, infamous, and unheralded – all essential to the life of the city. There is a vast cast of fully-realized characters here: social workers, teachers, engineers, artists, a terrorist, librarians, police officers, impresarios, drug dealers, politicians, immigrants, developers, charlatans, restaurant owners, college students, architects, high school kids, and many more. The penultimate chapter is a stunning presentation of dramatic monologues based on interviews with people who served the city, in a variety of ways, during the Covid-19 crisis. To create work this comprehensive and humane, a writer has to be not only a meticulous researcher, tireless interviewer, and obsessive collector of facts, but also a poet and damn fine storyteller. William B. Patrick is all of these things and more. In Metrofix, he takes the history of one small city and enlivens it, creating an entertaining, exhilarating, and enlightening reading experience.”
—Hollis Seamon, author of Somebody Up There Hates You and Corporeality
“Henry David Thoreau wrote, in Walden, about the existence of an imagined instrument called the realometer, capable of measuring the extent of reality inherent in one’s perceptions. William B. Patrick possesses such an instrument, and in Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town, he plumbs the economic, political, and historic realities of Schenectady, New York. But Patrick offers not only the panoramic story of the rise and fall and resurrection of a representative American city, but also a rich and diverse gallery of characters drawn from life, each of them dreaming, planning, scheming, working, helping to shape the future of the city they love. Nobody knows the Capital Region of New York better than its native son, William B. Patrick, author of Saving Troy. Now, in Metrofix, Patrick has given us a portrait of a great American city, and honored the struggles of the people who made it so.”
—Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House