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Well, you have a lot of signal around you. I think you'll be easily able to pick up a lot of channels.
As for antennas, if you have anything now, even an old set of rabbit ears, you can plug it in and play with it. You could even build one if you like. You buddies Leaf can about be replicated with some aluminum foil taped to cardboard; it's not much more than that really. And it's certainly nothing magic about it. It's a basic double bowtie design, which you can google to see various versions. That design doesn't excel at tuning VHF, so those VHF channels you have (look under column Real - Ch.'s 4, 7, 8 & 2) might be hit or miss. You'll want something that does VHF & UHF. I'm partial to the RCA ANT-751. It's got enough range on it to pull those NY stations. It's not large, so it's easy to mount on a pole, roof, side of the house or even in an attic. It may even pull in some other stations around you as well.
How many TV's are you going to feed? If it's a lot, you may need to add a preamp, but don't bother with that for now. You can add one later after you've had a chance to determine if and what you might need.
As for cutting the cord, it can be done. You can build a nice OTA system using the savings from $100/mth. OTA DVR's are available too, so you can record TV like w/the cable systems. And they pay for themselves rather quickly. We gave up pay TV long ago and I thought I'd miss some channels, but I don't. Granted, there's content on cable/sat that's not OTA. If you really want it, there's other ways to obtain it. So many shows are available on DVD - full seasons, commercial free too! Again, when you are pocketing $100/mth, those become pretty cheap. Sell the boxset when you're done and you cut those costs even more. Sports is the tough one - some cannot go without the live action like ESPN.
Good luck!
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