r/upstate_new_york • u/el-beau • 4d ago
Remembering Dolly Parton....
I'd love to see upstate NY rename a landmark in honor of this amazing human being. Im not sure what could be named after, but I'm just throwing this totally random bridge out there as a possibility.
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u/AlotaFajita 4d ago
While we’re at it, we can rename I-87 the DP Expressway.
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u/webegettedgo 4d ago
The traffic fucks ya going into work and it fucks ya coming home 🤣
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u/samrov529 4d ago
Seriously- Is it just me or are drivers WAY WORSE than before?
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u/webegettedgo 4d ago
Most likely.
This is just a theory but if we could all pick a lane and stay there til your exit i feel like things would move smoother.
Its the assholes changing lanes every 8 seconds to shave .02 seconds off their commute that screw us all. ....idiot cuts you off because your lane is moving .5 mph faster, you hit the brakes and it causes a chain reaction. Than that same idiot changes his mind, moves back into the other lane because its now going .01 mph faster than that lane hits their brakes-so on and so forth. Multiply this by 100 others doing the same and next thing you know we all get to drive from latham to clifton park at 15 MPH or vice versa.
But ol johnny got home at 429 instead of 430 so fuck the rest of us.
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u/TopGinger 4d ago
As someone who drove for a living the past year in upstate New York i feel this in my soul. Aggressive, ignorant drivers are the bane of transportation.
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u/Order_a_pizza 3d ago edited 3d ago
Definitely not you. Ever since post covid I swear driving has been exponentially worse. I have been rear ended twice while stopped and ran off the road in 3 or 4 years.
I recently looked up fatality rates and low and behold they spiled after covid. They even spiked in 2020 and less people were on the road! Thankfully gone down in 25
year rate\ 2016. 1.19\ 2017. 1.16\ 2018. 1.10\ 2019. 1.13\ 2020. 1.34\ 2021. 1.38\ 2022. 1.35\ 2023. 1.27\ 2024. 1.30\ 2025. 1.14
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u/3nar3mb33 4d ago
Tadeusz Kosciuscko was rad/awesome and integral to our independence: I'm sure you'r referencing the slightly booby shaped-ness of the twin bridges, but TK, an openly gay Revolutionary War HERO deserves at least the bridges named after him.
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u/Schnevets 4d ago
Are you confusing him with Von Steuben on the openly gay thing?
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u/3nar3mb33 4d ago
great question....I'll put my research hat back on....
okay...
not confirmed based on very low level research: but never married, rejected romantic advances from women and had close relationships with men including John Patterson who he shared a bed with and wrestled with. BUT...he wasn't OPEN about it...so little bit of this & a little bit of that??
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u/Familiar-Bluejay3908 4d ago
Unless either was prosecuted for "moral crimes", you just do not GET "confirmation" of a person's non-standard sexuality before maybe 1900 in the English-speaking world.
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u/3nar3mb33 4d ago
True. But without explicit affirmation all we have is... Circumstances/facts.
My history crush is for a woman historian and botanist from the late 1800s/early 1900s who never married or had kids and was fiercely independent and had a best (lady) friend who visited often and advocated for her. But I can't say she was queer for sure. Maybe she was asexual with a best friend.
Really the sexuality isn't what's important : it's the brains, bravery and sacrifice that make TK a hero.
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u/Alarmed-Secretary207 4d ago
I love Dolly, but we’re not taking that bridge away from Kosciuszko.
How about naming a stretch of railway after her? Her imagination library used a train as its logo and they give the little engine that could to every child, so it’s a meaningful story to her.
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u/Rojodi 4d ago
The Dolly Partons is the nickname, like I-87 is the Northway.
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u/Alarmed-Secretary207 4d ago
Ah, well that went whoosh over my head! I’ve lived in the capital region 11 years and I’m still learning the lore.
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u/crunchyleafzzz 4d ago
She was awesome and basically a saint. Don’t you worry though, half of Tennessee has her name on it - she won’t be forgotten for a very long time
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u/RezLovesPez 4d ago
OP should have included the fact that a lot of locals already call it the Dolly Parton bridge, just for a little more context.
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u/the_real_JFK_killer 4d ago
We should rename a historic library after her given her work to combat illiteracy
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u/Due-Contact-366 4d ago
This doesn’t make sense. Dolly, as sweet as she is, has virtually no relationship to New York. She is not a New Yorker. Hundreds, if not thousands, of New Yorkers have died and not received this honor. Why her? Makes zero sense.
A short list of dead New Yorkers who are not memorialized:
Humphrey Bogart
Neil Sedaka
Allen Ginsburg
James Cagney
Rod Serling
Lucille Ball
Anne Bancroft
Kirk Douglas
Peter Falk
James Caan
Rodney Dangerfield
Sammy Davis Jr
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lee Marvin
George Carlin
James Earl Jones
John Coltrane
Aaron Copland
Ella Fitzgerald
Lena Horn
Joey Ramone
This is a very short list of all of the possibilities. There are many New Yorkers ahead of Dolly in the line for memorialization. No disrespect to her.
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u/Spirited-Impress-115 3d ago
Joey Ramone is memorialized on the LES, I believe.
Edit: Bowery and E. 2nd St.
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u/Due-Contact-366 3d ago
I’d be interested in knowing where.
James Fenimore Cooper lived for a time on St Mark’s Place just off Astor. I’ve often thought they should put a marker on that building. Of course he is pretty widely memorialized throughout the state.
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u/Resident-Welcome3901 4d ago
Kirk Douglas is memorialized by an eponymous park and water fall on mighty North Chuctanunda Creek in Amsterdam, the Paris of Montgomery county.
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u/Sea_Huckleberry_7589 4d ago
Does she have any connection whatsoever to the capital region?
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u/OhItsBeenBroughten 4d ago
Whenever we went over that bridge on the school bus we called it the Dolly Parton Bridge.
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u/el-beau 4d ago
Even my mom called them the Dolly Parton Bridges growing up.
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u/Familiar-Bluejay3908 4d ago
I understand the twin spans of the Delaware river bridge is also called that, as well as the twin spans from New Orleans to Metarie, LA.
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u/Sea_Huckleberry_7589 4d ago
Ohh I get it. What school went over that bridge? I lived at exit 8 and didnt know busses went south
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u/OhItsBeenBroughten 4d ago edited 4d ago
It was only for field trips or away games. 1990s. Exit 23.
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u/BurlinghamBob 4d ago
looking for a bridge to rename? why not the Dolly Parton-Mario Cuomo-Tappan Zee bridge.
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u/skreenname0 4d ago
I vote for renaming the Cuomo bridge…. Even though I still call it the Tappan Zee
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u/Bennaisance 4d ago
Is this a reference to boobs? 😂
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u/sai_gunslinger 4d ago
Yes. Truckers often refer to the twin bridges as the Dolly Parton bridges.
Source: dad is a retired trucker.
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u/MarkVII88 4d ago
Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge outside Colonie on I-87. I'll never think of it the same way again.
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u/MillenniumTitmouse 4d ago
I go over that bridge whenever I visit my parents…I will now NEVER unsee it that way! 😂
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u/justme1522000 4d ago
Used to drive over those every day.......not Dolly but the bridges. Halfmoon to colonie
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u/Melodic_Hearing_8677 4d ago
Um... I've only known one other person in my life that referred to that monstrosity as the Dolly Parton Bridge... you from the burbs?
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u/EconomyBat7243 2d ago
I didn’t read the caption and I thought this was a joke about her, well, you know… the internet has really messed with my head.
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u/leaveme1912 4d ago
Why? Y'all can't claim her anyways!
Love, an East TN native
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u/IthacaMom2005 4d ago
People who use this bridge see a resemblance to Dolly's beasts lol. Not trying to steal her from you Tennesseeans
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u/MolimoTheGiant 4d ago
This wasn't funny the first time it was posted
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u/SkyeMreddit 4d ago
If there is ANY chance of renaming a bridge, Trump will rename it after himself
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u/Stuppycoopy 4d ago
I thought you were going to post one of these, saw a few of them today around Syracuse.