rochester

when you live there, you criticize it
when you leave, you defend it
rochester – in other words, home.
rochester is a city with great potential. it is so poorly governedthat this potential may be behind it.
rochester started as a farming town but became a metropolis when the erie c-n-l came through. it then was famous for twentieth century companies like eastman kodak, bausch and lomb, birdseye, and xerox. rochester even had a subway. predictably, it was destroyed after only thirty years of operation.

if there was a wrong turn to make in city planning and particularly in public transportation, rochester made it. it is a textbook example of what went wrong with american cities when the ‘convenience’ of the car was considered to be paramount.

all the big companies in rochester but birdseye are currently in retreat, with m-ssive layoffs. the largest employer currently are the university of rochester.
there are five colleges in the city limits.

the eastman school of music is one of the great conservatory schools in the country. the eastman theatre and rochester philharmonic orchestra are justly famous.

pros: there are two waterfalls in the downtown area (hidden by ghastly buildings) and some very nice parks along the river alternating with ghastly areas of urban blight
the george eastman house is a world cl-ss museum of photography that is well worth the visit. there are also some excellent smaller museums including the strong museum of play that has to be seen to be believed.
history: susan b. anthony house, frederick dougl-ss sites. rochester was the last stop on the underground railroad and has many homes still standing with secret rooms.

rochester is near the superbly beautiful finger lakes and just by lake ontario, where there is a nice little park and one of the world’s most beautiful surviving carousels.
climate is pretty bad in winter, good all the rest of the year. it is much cooler there in summer than on most of the east coast.

river, c-n-l, and lake all in the city limits (the first two severely underutilized, the last polluted)
some lovely neighbourhoods including park avenue, corn hill, and the up and coming southwedge are pleasant places in which to live and they are affordable.
rochester is one of the ‘greenest’ cities in the area, with numerous organic and farmers’ markets and strong gr-ssroots support for green initiatives.
two landmark parks designed by central park designer frederick law olmstead.

east avene, with beautifully restored and preserved mansions and even an early prairie house by frank lloyd wright, is a showplace.

housing is cheaper here than in most other locations. a good house in a safe neighbourhood can be purchased for well under $100,000.00 and apartment rents are reasonable. heating bills may be horrid; none of the old houses are insulated.

cons: aforementioned horrible political management. the last mayor spent forty million dollars on a useless ferryboat to toronto and never tried to publicize any of the good features of rochester to the canadians so that they would come here. those that did want to come did not find any sort of cheap accomodation or bed and breakfasts for short trips, so they just didn’t take the boat. the boat has now been sold, wasting a great deal of taxpayer money.
the downtown area was destroyed in the sixties when robert moses rammed a ‘ring road’ right through the rit campus and business district. the road is hideous and underutilized, but it effectively treebarked the downtown businesses, which then were replaced by big box stores in the suburbs. way to go, bob. parts of the downtown area are isolated by pockets of concrete and traffic, and very little of this area is accessible on foot or by bicycle.

the current administration has the ridiculous notion of having the italian government buy the horrible, decaying midtown centre in an attempt to revitalize the poorly designed, underutilized structure. tearing it down and building a garden would make more sense.

rochester has the dubious distinction of being the first city to go up in flames during a race riot in the long hot summer. for rochester, this summer was in 1964. the riots started over a bungled arrest. the aftermath was a general exodus from the city including the relocation of the rochester inst-tute of technology from downtown to the boring and stripmalled ‘suburb’ of henrietta.

many of the pleasant neighbourhoods have freeways jammed rudely through them. fortunately corn hill was saved (at least fifty per cent) from the wrecking ball, but there was much that was lost forever.
rochester’s nickname is snootytown. despite this, the local ‘delicacy’ is something called a garbage plate. which looks as good as it sounds.
a city that deserves a better reputaion that it has with some people. america’s first boomtown. for whatever reason, people like to hate on rochester. yes, they get a lot of snow durring winter. but the summers, falls, and late springs are beautiful. has some of the nicest people you will ever meet. lot’s of history in the older nieghborhoods, corn hill being the most famous, with the corn hill arts festival. it ended today, after bringing almost 300,000 people from around the world. the genesee river is very dirty. overall a good place to live, rated among the top ten most liveavle areas of the united states, greater rochester has one of the lowest crimerates in the nation, it is only certain parts of the inner city, like any city, that there is a lot of crime. as someone else said, greece is one of the top five safest places in the us. why do so many people dislike rochester? it really is a nice place if you’d just give it a chance.
i live just outside the rochester city limits, in greece, new york… the historic maplewood neighborhood in the city of rochester is very nice and it is right by my house.
for all you people who rated it good, you must be from pittsford or the east end. 80% of the city is ruled by guns, gangs, and drugs. the only place in the city where there is money is in east end. people will walk infront of cars even if you beep at them. there are lots of abandoned houses.

there is a nice public market and lots of golf courses. the suburbs are nice, especially pittsford. the economy is screwed, my family used to make 100k but now settles for 50k as dupont laid off most of its workforce. kodak is going downhill. the saving point is rit and u or r.
i went to rochester to buy a gun.
a upstate ny city in which the main attraction are the filthy panhandlers downtown!
believe me….you want to avoid that “attraction” in downtown rochester!
a city in upstate ny with a population of 220,000 metro pop. 1.1 million. has really bad winters, but perfect summers and falls. the downtown area is improving itself in great strides, and the suburban areas have been ranked some of the best areas to live for years. (greece is 5th safest city in america, brighton has one of the best school districts, rochester region the most educated medium sized city in america) so suck it. all of the people on here who are bashing rochester need to get a life. they are most likely from buffalo, which is jealous of rochester because the buffalo area is losing population, and the rochester area is gaining population. rochester has kodak, xerox, baush&lomb, wegmans, chase-pitkin, all headquartered here, and the university of rochester is a leader in the fields of engineering, medicine, and dentistry. buffalo had the steel industry and buffalo wings, and that is it. they need to stop bashing rochester and focus on improving their area.
rochester is better than buffalo, get over it.
the real life version of liberty city in the grand theft auto series. lots of celebrities homegrown, lots of crime, lots of corruption, too many cops around – and plenty of disrespectful pedestrians!

don’t forget the failed fast-ferry system that also occurred in liberty city stories! d-mn, man!
man, i just dropped by rochester – and talk about livin’ gta for real!

←