Rochester – Day 1

Michael and I decided to do a getaway to Rochester for his birthday. I had been to Rochester twice before, with Patti in 2013 and 2014, but Michael had never been there. I didn’t have particularly strong memories of the city. The ones I had included an impression of a city in decline caused by its large homegrown companies, such as Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, and Xerox, declining or leaving. There were a few painted bike lanes. There were a lot of boarded up buildings downtown. The city was hard to navigate as a pedestrian or cyclist due to the fact that neighbourhoods had been destroyed to build a a highway in a trench. My strongest memories were of the area around the Eastman Museum, a beautiful area of large homes and tree lined streets, and of Pittsford, a small town in greater Rochester on the Erie canal. Those visits were just before I started blogging. One of the reasons I started blogging was to improve my memory of my travels, or failing that, provide me with something to go back to review. The second trip was after I started recording my bike rides. I did have geotagging on my pictures from both trips so I can see where the pictures were taken and how things have changed.

I reviewed my pictures from those trips and searched my email to find out where we stayed. The first year we stayed downtown at the Hyatt, and the second year we stayed at the Best Western in the south part of the city, near the Erie Canal Trailway, for the ride we planned to Pittsford. One of the reasons I was interested in revisiting the city was because I had read about the partial removal of the Inner Loop Expressway. We decided to stay at the Hyatt downtown because of the proximity to the newly revitalized area.

We dropped Alun in Hamilton on the way. Then stopped at the Niagara Falls outlet mall for the first time. We had a quick walk around the mall, which has outdoor corridors, but it started to rain heavily, so we grabbed lunch, used the bathrooms, and continued on our way. It’s a 270 km drive from our home, but there’s always uncertainty about how much time it will take to cross the border. Michael travels on a British passport so he is required to fill out an ESTA (electronic system for travel authorization) every time he goes to the US. When he arrives at the border, he enters the United States under the visa waiver program, which means that he gets sent to secondary to purchase the waiver, which lasts for 90 days. And because I was travelling with him, they took my passport as well, and we both had to go to secondary. Between the lines to get to the booth, and the purchase of the waiver we were at the border for 70 minutes. When I asked why they were taking my passport and making me go into the building with him, the answer was, “to prevent people wandering around in the parking lot and having picnics“. Once he had paid for his waiver, they returned both passports without making any further inquiries to me. After recently travelling in Europe, and crossing international borders with no controls, the whole process seemed onerous.

We arrived at the hotel just after four and checked into our room on the 21st floor, although it was called the 22nd because they didn’t have a 13th floor.

We unpacked and then explored the hotel which had a nice outdoor patio on the fourth floor. Our view was in the opposite direction and more interesting than when Patti and I stayed there.

We explored the neighbourhood by foot. The Xerox campus takes up an entire city block and is a very distinctive building build in the brutalist architectural style. It was built in 1967 and was, at the time, the tallest building made of poured in place exposed aggregate concrete. It is the tallest building in Rochester. Xerox has sold the building and moved all of its employees to Webster, New York. It is now known as Innovation Square. It has been retrofitted with housing,commercial, and college student living space. The auditorium has reopened as a performing arts center.

We looked around the lobby, and the exterior of the complex. I found it all quite appealing, especially where the pyramid of columns were half in and half outside the lobby.

We next made our way to the Strong National Museum of Play. The museum was started by Margaret Woodbury Strong, who was a prolific collector of every day objects, but especially dolls and toys. She bequeath her estate to start the museum,and it opened in 1982 in downtown Rochester. In the 1990s, the museum significantly increased programming for families which led to increased attendance. There have been several expansions over the years including the one in 2018 which included a parking garage with a playful design, and outdoor board game inspired playground. Not having any children with us we didn’t actually go into the museum, but from what we saw it looked like a wonderful place for families.

The inner loop east transformation project filled in a 1.1 km long section of highway creating 6 acres for redevelopment. The Strong was able to expand the museum, and a mixed use rental neighbourhood, with some affordable housing, and complete streets with cycling and pedestrian infrastructure at grade, was created on the reclaimed land.

In the same block as our hotel is The Metropolitan. It was formally known as the Chase tower, and before that Lincoln First Bank. It is the third tallest skyscraper in Rochester with 27 floors and was built in 1973. It is unique for its vertical fins that curve out at the bottom. It was also known for its fast elevators. The upper floors of the building have been converted to apartments, and a new entranceway was completed since I was last there. The fins were originally made with marble panel coverings, but became damaged and were replaced with painted aluminum panels. A lot of former office space has been converted to residential in Rochester.

We decided to have dinner at Native Rodchester. The location was appealing with large doors, open to a patio, and the menu was also interesting.

After dinner, we continued to walk around and explored a newly updated plaza next to the Rochester public library. Unfortunately the library was already closed so we planned to return on Friday.

The Genesee river runs through Rochester and has several large waterfalls within the city. The Erie Canal, which runs from Buffalo to Albany, and connects with some other canal systems, runs through the southern part of Rochester, rerouted there in 1918.

The earlier route of the Erie Canal ran through downtown Rochester. A remnant of it is still visible under the Broad Street bridge (on the left in the image above). It was a stone aqueduct constructed about 1840 which carried the canal over the Genesee River. In 1927 a roadbed was added to accommodate motor vehicle traffic. The disused aqueduct was also used to carry part of the defunct Rochester subway.

The Rochester industrial Rapid Transit Railway was 11 km long and ran from 1927 to 1956. It was constructed in the bed of the old Erie canal which allowed it to be grade separated for its entire length. 3 km of the route through the downtown area were constructed in a cut and covered tunnel that became Broad Street, and were the only underground portion of the subway. The subway was abandoned in 1956 and parts were used for expressway construction, while the rest was abandoned and filled in over the years. A section under Broad Street can still be seen.

There is a plan, called ROC the Riverway, which will remove the vehicle deck of the Broad Street bridge, to open up the former aqueduct and subway bed,to create public space, and enable the completion of the Genesee Riverway Trail through downtown.

This picture shows Broad Street and the aqueduct reflected in the Blue Cross Arena.

The Times Square building, an art deco skyscraper, is the eighth tallest building in Rochester with 14 floors. It was formerly the Genesee Valley Trust Building. The “Wings of Progress“ sculpture (made from aluminum – each wing is 13m high, and weighs 5400kg) on the top of the building is one of the most distinctive features of the Rochester skyline.

There is a mural entitled “Stories of Strength” in honour of domestic violence survivors by Sarah Rutherford, on the side of the building.

These streets are being reconstructed as complete streets with bike lanes and bus lanes.

Quite a few of the buildings in downtown Rochester are connected by bridges over the road. Our hotel is in the background in this image, and the buildings in the block including the Hyatt are connected to a large parking garage, which is also connected to the convention centre by a bridge, and the Hilton.

This is the view from our hotel room. The very large pink building at bottom left is a completely abandoned hotel awaiting redevelopment.