Just heard of a band that seems was started locally. The Sunstreak sounds a bit like The Fray. Their new music video is awesome and it’s shot right from the top of the High Falls parking garage. Give it a listen/look.
http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/4a03824e5c4d1c5d/4a0ddbb7f8444e57/4a03824e5c4d1c5d/ca9799b0
Preferred Care is putting on what they call Nature Nights every Tuesday at 6pm from May 26th through August 25th. These nights include biking, (canoe) paddling, hiking and walking in the different areas Rochester has to offer.
Tuesday Rachel and I, along with my mother and several other of their coworkers, participated in a 10 (ish) mile bike ride along the Genesee River. We started at the Seneca Park Zoo parking lot. From there we crossed a walking/riding bridge to the other side of the Genesee. We rode along Lake ave for a short distance and then through Turning Point Park. From there we rode on to Ontario Beach Park. We took a short break at abbots and then headed back along the same route. Some people got a longer break than others, due to a lost rider… but that’s a story for another day.
I intended to record video of the whole thing. However; the battery in my camera died after crossing the bridge so this is all I got:
The pace was very leisurely (a bit slow for my taste) but it was a great ride with a great group. Everyone was very friendly and we’ll probably participate again.
Enjoy some of the scenery the Genesee Riverway Trail has to offer below. Please note, these were shot with my iPhone so the quality is a little… well the quality is little.
I made two discoveries today. Well really, my friend Mike made one discovery yesterday (which I realized today) and I made another one today. I’m going to use my discovery today to illustrate Mike’s from Yesterday. If you’re less inclined to a little geekery skip to the map below.
GPS Tracking isn’t all that new, there are many devices to do this, and every mobile GPS unit that I know has the ability. The iPhone doesn’t, or at least not natively. Mike and I were exploring an area of Rochester today which I’d never heard of or seen before today. Because of this I thought it would be neat to track where we were and how far we went etc. Also because I tend to take a lot of photos I figured I could use the GPS tracking information to geo-tag my pictures.
My criteria for GPS tracking was that it could use my iPhone, that it was free, and that it could track my coordinates over time. This isn’t a lot, I know, I was trying to be flexible. I did a little searching in the iTunes app store and came up with InstaMapper.
InstaMapper fit the bill perfectly. Not only is instamapper free, but it pushes the data direct to a website (which requiers an account that is also free) allowing you to export it in any format you wish. It also interfaces directly with Google Maps letting you see all your waypoint data on a very nice Google Maps interface.
Overall I’m impressed. My only complaint is that the the waypoint data is not cached locally to send later if you don’t have a connection. While this isn’t a problem around Rochester, this will be a problem if I were to try to use this application in a more rural area such as the Adirondacks. Of course, there is another downfall to the iPhone app version, and that is the app has to be running in the foreground for your waypoints to get tracked. This is a limitation of the iPhone however; and in my opinion can’t detract from the value of the application itself. The app is available for iPhone, Blackberry, Android & Motorola iDEN(whatever that is) at this point.
The following is the GPS waypoint map created and embedded using InstaMapper’s tools of our trek today.
GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com
http://www.instamapper.com/trk?key=17792608895854370827&width=500&height=350&type=roadmap
This is all in a park called Turning Point Park. It’s quite nice and apparently they’ve spent a large chunk of change in the past few years putting in the 4,000ft boardwalk. I’m awefully happy with whoever spent all the effort to push for the new boardwalk, it made the entire experience vary enjoyable and the park would be all but useless without it.
I will be visiting again.
I’ve been down in the Rochester Subway before and I find it very interesting. I’ve also been taking the bus for almost 2 years and I find the public transportation system in Rochester severely lacking. It’s sad that the subway was shut down instead of being expanded and becoming useful.
The following trailer is for a documentary (titled “End of the Line”) on the Rochester subway. There’s some interesting stuff about it in the trailer and I imagine there’s even more in the actual documentary. I’m going to look into finding a copy I can watch at my library but if you’re interested you can get a copy from Animatus Studio.
Apparently there’s a new ad campaign for Rochester. I’m a fan. The city of Rochester seems to be doing a lot of things right lately, and making a lot of improvements.
They’ve also started placing signs around town marking major land marks and important buildings in Rochester. The signs also have an easy to understand system for navigating. It splits the city into 4 quadrants each a different color. The signs in the different quadrants match the color of the quadrant the sign is in. It’s not much but it’s the little things that matter the most.
We don’t eat at the mall very often but whenever we do I eat at the Famous Wok. It’s nothing fancy, just your typical mall cafeteria style food joint. However, they have the best sesame chicken around and I don’t think they have a place anywhere else in Rochester. Tonight I learned their sweet BBQ pork is just as good.
A while ago I heard about plans to revitalize Broad street in downtown Rochester by converting it back into the Canal. This is what the aqueduct bridge was originally. When I first heard of the plan, I thought it was neat but didn’t think it would ever work. The biggest hurdle I can see to overcome is the traffic situation. Broad street is a main roadway and carries a lot of traffic.
I just found out that the plans didn’t die. In fact it seems like there are many proposals and that something may actually happen, although what exactly happens to broad st is still up in the air. It will be very interesting to see what happens. There’s a whole website dedicated to The Broad Street Corridor Renovations. The proposals are really quite interesting so take a look.
I love local history. I work in an old company in an old building with a lot of history in an old City. Recently they sent out some information about the different stages the area the building is in has gone through along with pictures from the Rochester Public Library and the Rochester City Hall Photo Lab of the area. Since it’s public information I thought I should share it.
In this view from 1855, the new aqueduct runs past the ruins of the first one. In 1845 Josiah Bissell built a house using much of the sandstone from the first aqueduct, cleaning up the river for the city in the bargain.
Josiah Bissell’s house, built from the red sandstone blocks of the ruined first aqueduct. See it today at 660 East Ave. at the corner of and Upton Park. It has since been expanded and is now the Rochester Methodist Home.
Rochester in the late 1880s, looking straight toward the future Aqueduct campus site. The Erie Canal and new aqueduct flow beyond the pedestrian lift bridges where Exchange St. now crosses Broad St. Old City Hall is at far left, looking much the same as it does today.
The Butts Building, newly built in 1895 with the familiar wedge shape. Six stories tall, two windows wide on the west side; six windows wide over the river. The new aqueduct and canal flow past at the first floor.
The same view in 1971. The Aqueduct Bldg. sports a new front entrance facing Broad St. at the second floor street level. Bldgs. 2 to 4 are complete. Bldg. 1 gained a seventh floor in 1951.
1897 photo of the busy aqueduct crossing the Genesee River. At left is the Kimball Tobacco Company, with the original location of the Mercury statue just visible above the smokestack. At right is the six-story Butts Building, shown here as the home of the Utz & Dunn shoe factory.
Sometime around moving day, circa 1901. Bldg. 1 with the names of Utz & Dunn and other former tenants scrubbed off. Names of the Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Co., Burke & White Bookbinders and E.R. Andrews Printing Co. will soon be painted on.
The Aqueduct Building in 1906. Note that Bldg. 1 has no seventh floor yet. Bldg. 2 will soon replace the four low buildings next door. McCauley-Fien Milling Co. has the white sign further downriver. At far right, four-story buildings line the Main Street bridge, hanging over the river. The original Democrat & Chronicle building is next to them on the riverbank.
In 1917, two years prior to the transition from canal to Broad St., Bldg. 1 is still six stories tall, but Bldg. 2 has arrived with seven floors. Today’s Bldgs. 3 and 4 don’t yet exist. Cluett, Peabody & Co., makers of Arrow shirts and collars, occupies the old Kimball Tobacco Company.
1925 photo: Looking east, construction of the subway in front of the Aqueduct Building. The Broad St. bridge temporarily serves as a parking lot. Note the long pedestrian ramp exiting the subway between the street and “our” sidewalk. Also, note the man walking down the stairs into the subway at the corner of Broad and Exchange streets.
The same view in 1927. Note the completed pedestrian ramp and subway stairs from the earlier photo. In the distance, Broad St. ended at South Ave. and the Osburn House hotel. The Rundel Library didn’t start construction until 1933. Standing on the future site of the LCP parking lot, the large “Bee Hive Building,” or RG&E power station No. 25, dwarfs the Herald Bldg. (B5) next to it.
Present-day view of the river and aqueduct buildings, looking towards the Main St. bridge. Aqueduct Park graces downtown Rochester and the statue of Mercury once again stands tall on the Rochester skyline.
Until a recent trip to the Memorial Art Gallery – to take advantage of Free Museum Day – I had no idea that the Main Street Bridge in Rochester NY was originally covered in structures much like the original London Bridge. There’s an excellent history recap of Main St available on the RocWiki if you’d like even more of a history lesson. An archaic style of bridge like that somehow makes me think Rochester hasn’t always been as behind on the times as it is now. After all, they had the good sense to remove it. A small digital copy of a painting of the Bridge can be seen below or see the full version at the Memorial Art Gallery.
Rochester Main Street Bridge – Colin Campbell Cooper
It’s always impressive to go and view Artwork in your local city. Even a small city such as Rochester houses some famous Artwork by names you’ll recognize.
This next painting is one of my favorites at the Gallery from an Artist I’d previously not heard of.
Wegmans just opened a new store in Henrietta NY replacing one of their oldest remaining stores. My Mother-in-Law Karen is the Floral manager and has worked at the Henrietta store for over 30 years. naturally the local news wanted to know what she had to say about the new store.
For those of you who don’t know what wegmans is it’s a grocery store. It’s a grocery store that people will drive hours to get to. It’s a grocery store that’s privately owned. It’s a grocery store that college kids hang out in at 4am. It’s a grocery store that’s a small European market in one building. I could go on, because I have worked there just like most Rochestarians. In fact I met my wife there. It’s a community staple.
So you can see that it actually is a big deal when they open a new store in the area and close an old one.
RIP Store #21.
Randy Aldrich 