From the analysis of historical geodetic data, Zoback et al. (1985) (hereinafter referred to as ZPK) found evidence of significant horizontal crustal deformation for the 1862-1973 interval in southeastern New York and western Connecticut. I have reviewed pertinent geodetic data in this region, including the 30 observed angular changes used by ZPK plus over 3000 additional geodetic measurements. Using the same analysis technique (extended Frank) that ZPK employed and using the same data set, I corroborate their results; that is, a maximum right-lateral shear strain rate (&ggr;˚) of 0.18 μrad/yr with a 1-sigma error estimate of 0.05 or 0.07 μrad/yr depending on whether or not the uncertainty is to reflect data misfit to the assumed model. This maximum shear rate occurs across a vertical plane striking N3¿E¿7¿ or ¿10¿. Analysis of the larger data set, however, which required the use of an alternative technique (simultaneous reduction), produced a &ggr;˚ estimate of 0.032¿0.018 μrad/yr across a vertical plane striking N3¿W¿17¿. This latter &ggr;˚ estimate is statistically indistinguishable from zero at the 95% confidence level, whereas the former estimate is statistically nonzero at this confidence level. To investigate the apparent contradiction between these two results, several experiments were performed. These experiments uncovered no problem with the software used. The experiments, however, do indicate that two of the 30 observed angular changes used by ZPK are of questionable quality. Moreover, if one of these two observed changes is excluded and the other is replaced by a change observed for the same angle over a different time period, then the resulting 29-observation data set yields a &ggr;˚ estimate that is statistically indistinguishable from zero at the 95% confidence level (0.122¿0.057 μrad/yr). Finally, the experiments provide tenuous evidence that part of the difference between results could also be due to spatial variation in the deformation.