Best of Utica Rome

Culturefest: A Festival of Nations is coming to the Stanley Theater only a mere week away on April 13th. We're going to highlight the individual significance of each culture represented through all of your senses, sight, touch, smell, taste and feel! $10 will buy you this sensory overload and you can get tickets by clicking the button below. With all of these different nationalities in one spot, it got me thinking... How should we greet each other?

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Maybe it's the fact that the Utica-Rome Topix anonymous gossiping pages are the most active one in the nation, or maybe it's this nasty weather we're always plagued with, but after a Gallup 'wellbeing' poll, the Business Insider has ranked the Utica-Rome metro area the 11th most miserable city in the nation! Well, look at the bright side... We're not the worst. Yet.

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It's not the time to freak out over gift shopping. That freak out time is coming up shortly. Need some help this holiday season? Well we have your back. Here's Christmas gifts that are unique to Utica, Rome, and Central New York

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No, they're not crop circles, but as we get ready for the 2012 Halloween season right around the corner, we thought we'd round up all of the goodies that you can go to and maybe even take the little tykes to for a season of fall fun and scares!

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While researching for this series it became quite difficult to narrow down just 10 stories because the legacy that surrounds us is actually much richer than just a couple handfuls of successful athletes or inspiring events.

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Talk about a come-from-behind unlikely hero story! Just picture the Sand Lot and that just about describes both the players and the condition of the ballpark in which they played. But the history that would happen that year still echoes today.

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I'd be remiss during this series if I didn't cover someone from the sport that everybody seems to play whether pro or otherwise... Yup, I'm talking about golf. Unlike other sports where you retire in your 30's or younger, you can play all the way until the day you drop in this one and it's cross-generational so people of all ages can go out and have a good time whether they're good at it or not. But, let's talk about who's good though... The undisputed quintessential golf king from our area has to be Wayne Levi.

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Rather than going out to clubs or staying home, everyone used to go to the Clinton Arena for hockey on Saturday nights, well at least for 2300+ people! Were you one of em? Although it's great to see some good ball, or in this case 'puck', the team to root for was the Clinton Comets, and it wasn't just because they were the home team. It was because they were good, CRAZY good!

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This Utica native started making waves baseball-wise when he won All-American Honors as a New Hartford Spartan, and you guessed it that got the attention of the powers that be and the rest is history, but let's take a peek at that history!

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"In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days..." Nope, this isn't about the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Instead, this pigskin prince by the same name was born in Queens, raised in Utica and spent most of his days on the gridiron.

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I started collecting baseball cards as a boy and kept getting a card by this Mark Lemke guy whenever I eagerly opened pack after pack of '89 Donruss... Little did I know at the time that he was a hometown boy and it figures that I caught him at the end of his career already, but here's the skinny on this Utica native!

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Given that the football season is almost in full-swing, it brings to mind the rich sports heritage that we have here in the Mohawk Valley and beyond, and not just locally but also in what we've provided to the national sports community as well, from lending our athletes to erecting a plethora of sports hall of fames within driving distance.

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