Sunday, February 9, 2014

Cuba in the Snow

 Well it has been a bizarre winter....


 All right, I mean Cuba, New York, a pretty little town some 20 minutes from us along the motorway, famous for its lake and Cheese Shoppe. Above is the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, one I thoroughly recommend because, a) there's very little yacking in the pews as you come in, b) they have proper hymns with proper tunes and best of all, c) no one asks you to stand up and introduce yourself, hugs you, or tries to hold your hand. This is highly unusual in American churches and for me, pure bliss.


Cuba is full of sweet, old Western New York houses, some in better repair than others.


The beautiful place below sold last year for - guess how much?


165,000 dollars. That's a hundred grand to you and me. You couldn't get a broom cupboard in London for that. And it was in good nick too. But there's a reason. I did a little research and discovered that the property tax on it was over 12,000 dollars a year. The same goes for a big old farmhouse with a gigantic barn and a couple of hundred acres around the corner from us. It's been on the market for years. It's the ridiculously high taxes in this non-affluent area that put buyers off. Which explains why so many people and businesses want to leave New York state. And so much for trying to regenerate Western NY.


Still, in more prosperous times, Cuba, like its namesake, must have been a swanky place to live.

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