The Massena plant has had an up-and-down history of employment. When it first opened in 1959, there were 100 employees. It reached a high of nearly 1,600 in 1979, then dropped to about 125 in 1990 before the plant began the lost-foam casting process that gradually brought employment back up over 500.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. John McHugh wrote letters to GM urging the company to keep the plant open.

Massena Town Supervisor Gary Edwards said the closing will be felt across a wide section of northern New York.

"They say for every job we have at these plants, it creates another eight jobs. So I'd say the ripple effect would be felt by just about everybody from the car dealers to the people that work in the flower shops," Edwards told Watertown television station, WWTI.

A key to recovery will be retaining the 12 megawatts of cheap hydroelectricity currently allocated to the GM facility, Edwards said.

"That could be our only salvation on trying to bring something new back into the area," Edwards said. "The North Country is very resilient and if we all work together and work hard at it, we'll rebound from this and hopefully down the road we'll be better for it."