The Main Street Bridge over the Genesee, 1922.
The “Let’s Pretend” Czar has been reading our blog, and based on suggestions from our other readers, has made a decree about one aspect of our urbanism that Rochester should now focus attention on – our riverfront. Great waterfronts have proven to be major economic factors in many cities: the Czar is resolute in his belief that ours is an asset in need of attention.
Rochester is a river city – the Genesee runs through it on its way to Lake Ontario. The city began at the High Falls,
where Ebenezer “Indian” Allen built a flour mill in 1789. Not long after, the Erie Canal arrived, and the two formed important economic engines for our early city.
As in most river cities, the river spent most of its life as a highway for commerce, and a sewer. No longer. Now we here, like Cincinnati, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Singapore, Shanghai, Portland, Providence, and a nearly endless number of other cities, have the opportunity to capitalize on the waterfront, converting a mostly forgotten asset into something wonderful, something memorable, something valuable.
A Rochester icon – Main Street Bridge, by Colin Campbell Cooper, 1908. The bridge was destroyed in 1969 – it blocked the views of the river….
And today, from the same spot:
Here’s another view of the old bridge, from a series of nine murals that used to hang in the Cafe Deluxe, a downtown eatery that closed in 1927.
Main Street Bridge, by Edward Selmar Siebert, painted sometime in the 19-teens.
Call me daft, and many have lately, but the buildings on the bridge were pretty wonderful, I think. Bridges with structures atop them are memorable in at least two other cities: the Ponte Vecchio, in Florence, and the Pulteney in Bath.
The Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy.
The Pulteney Bridge, Bath, England.
Anyway, as in many cities, we have wasted money and time and energy wrecking, or simply ignoring, the river. Now it’s time to make amends.
So. Here we go. The Genesee and the city from the south, in 1930.
And today.
There is a walkway and bike path on the east bank leading towards downtown, but it never quite gets there. On the west bank is a relatively new development called Corn Hill Landing (thank you, Roger), with apartments and shops and a nice walk along the river. Not long, but nice.
The arched bridge in the distance, carrying I-490, is fairly new, and has become a local icon. It’s the Frederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Bridge.
If you turned around from where Mr. Stone made his 1930 panorama and looked south, this would be your view up the Genesee (the river flows north).
And here’s a view looking south from the Court Street bridge. Please note that a percentage, albeit a very small percentage, of our local power is generated here (about 3 megawatts).
Downtown, the river is a mixed bag as well. Here’s a view looking north from the Main Street bridge.
Walkway on the west, no walkway on the east, but at least some greenery next to the hotel’s driveway.
Two blocks north of the photograph above is the High Falls (8.5 megawatts), which descends into a gorge and then flows seven or eight miles north past the Lower Falls (45 megawatts) into Lake Ontario. With the High Falls at your back, here is a view as the river heads to the Lake.
So there you have it. A look at the river south, through, and north of downtown. Access is discontinuous, patchy in places, non-existent in other spots, with plenty of bridges and falls as obstacles. Now what? Let’s compare and contrast.
Downtown we need to reclaim the river as an important feature of the public and civic realm, as has been done in other places.
Wacker Drive, Chicago. Full disclosure – I had a hand in this one. Chicago has a huge number of bridges, but it now has a continuous riverwalk on at least one bank. There are small plazas, memorials, statues, and places to sit and gather along the length of the river downtown.
Or here, in Milwaukee, years in the making (I worked a bit on this in Milwaukee’s Third Ward in the 1980s).
Or here, in Providence.
It would be great to see this many folks enjoying the Genesee in our downtown.
The Czar suggests that so many cities have reclaimed their waterfronts, and so now we must do the same. The river will now become a lively, continuous, attractive, bustling aspect of our city, allowing us to traverse the distance from the University of Rochester to the Lake, and through downtown, in one lovely, long experience.
If we were really ambitious, we could try to compete with some of the category-killers, or at least steal a lesson or two. Take a look.
BPC – photo by Wayne Chasan for EE&K.
Battery Park City waterfront, in New York, designed by EE&K.
Or this:
The Bund, in Shanghai.
Or this:
The poster child for urban river reclamation – San Antonio. A great model for creating intimate places downtown.
Or this:
Paris and the Seine. Photo by Beth Whitman.
I know, I know, that’s Paris, and we’re not. But there are lessons to be learned anyway, about establishing continuity – even under bridges and around obstacles.
We have our work in front of us, and our marching orders from the Czar. Waterfronts in many cities are major generators of economic, cultural and social value. Lots of folks here have spent time and energy working to improve the Genesee riverfront. Some work has been completed, but much work remains, especially downtown. Let’s get this done, people.
Fantastic!! The Czar is right! The possibilities for the Genesee River are endless, especially considering it’s much more diverse in structure then most cities. We could even incorporate ideas from all of those cities at different parts of the river. For example;
Just south of 490 is navigable, and I can envision a Battery Park type design for this area to about Ford Street.
Past Ford Street to the U of R, maybe areas like the River Walk in San Antonio.
490 to the falls could be designed similar to Chicago or Paris. Install water fountains or even similar to one design I saw, a screen of water where movies or other visual items are projected.
And how many of these cities have falls as spectacular as ours? On the land at the base of the falls, a park or maybe a couple of restaurants with summer outdoor dining with a fantastic view of the falls blending in with the skyline. Install a cable car for access.
At the mouth of the river at the lake, make one side similar to the historic riverside in Savannah Georgia (a walkable street with the river on one side and storefronts on the other).
And I am glad you mentioned power generation. Verdant power has developed technology that generates electricity from tidal movements. In a two year experiment on the Hudson River, six turbines were able to generate 70 megawatt hours of electricity. Their website claims it is adaptable to unidirectional flow rivers. Imagine increasing the energy created by the Genesee by at least 3x’s with technology that would be hidden and durable!
Howard, as I have stated before, I would love to get together some Saturday, walk the river and explore ideas. Long live the Czar!!!
Wow, I had no idea that the Main Street Bridge once had buildings! Thanks for sharing those images.
I frequently wish for a continuous (& well-designed) river walk–especially after visiting Vancouver (technically not a river, but they have an amazing coastal multi-use path around the city).
I have been bantering a theory that we have too much waterfront. Looking at just the rivers, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has around 12 miles of riverbank and about 600,000 people, so spread out along the banks, that’s 1 person every 1.2 inches; Providence, Rhode Island is closer with probably 6 miles of riverfront and 170,000 people or 1 person every 2.2 inches. But Rochester is about 20 miles of riverbank in city limits and 200,000 people or 1 person every 6 inches.
My point is we don’t have the population to pack the riverfront all the way, so we should probably focus on developing more like 20% of it as well as Milwaukee and let the rest be less utilized.
I visited Corn Hill landing over the winter for the first time and thought it was definitely a step in the right direction, but like you said pretty small. There needs to be some connection to downtown (maybe there is?), and ideally all the way to the lake. With varying states of development. No need to develop the whole riverfront. Just make is accessible and a place people want to come down and enjoy, bring out of town guests, live next to.
I remember asking some Rochester natives about the lower falls and half didn’t even know they existed. I haven’t been to High Falls in a while, but when I moved away they had basically just started redeveloping that area, and from the sounds of things it didn’t really work out. How about developing the pedestrian bridge that overlooks high falls with buildings (restaurants/shops) that are a homage to the buildings that were once on the Main Street bridge? That would be iconic and a destination, and something where you could spend more than 5 minutes looking at the falls and then leave.
Finally I didn’t realize your crendentials! I’m just an ordinary citizen who wants to see the area live up to its potential.
I’ve been to both Chicago and Milwaukee and wondered why Rochester couldn’t do the same kind of thing to their waterfront. And living in Pittsburgh for the last 12 years I’d like to give their riverfront a shout out.
http://www.hellopittsburgh.com/media/articles/large/5007_image2_large.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5r2TwBldrdM/TAwd7IoUQlI/AAAAAAAAASg/u20J8LLTHX8/s1600/Kayak+Pittsburgh+2010+008.jpg
http://www.pgh-sea.com/images/riverwalk26.jpg
Paul, a few of us have been talking about a river design meet up. Stay tuned – we’ll see what happens. And yes, the East River power generating experiment is a useful lesson, and a great idea that may have a real and useful life soon.
Rachel, I have been absolutely crazy about the Main Street bridge buildings since I first saw Cooper’s painting at the Memorial Art Gallery, years and years ago. Great, great stuff. And then there’s Albert Stone’s amazing photos, too.
Vancouver has a fabulous waterfront – thanks for adding it to our list. I note that Sydney, too, has some terrific watefront.
And Jason, I don’t think we need to have a Milwaukee or Providence or San Antonio level of development for 20 miles. Instead, I think we need to focus our attention on the river downtown – about 2 miles. The balance of the river should have some nodes of development, but otherwise just paths and benches and public access along its entire length.
I like your theory, but would advocate some changes to your math. I think you should multiply river length x 2, because a river has two banks. Try this, as an example, for Milwaukee: 12 miles x 2 banks x 5,280 feet in a mile x 12 inches per foot divided by 600,000 people = 2.5 inches per person.
Using your approach in downtown Rochester, that would mean 2 miles of river downtown x 5,280 = 10,560 feet of riverfront x two banks = 21,120 feet times 12 inches per foot divided by 210,000 people = 1.2 inches per person. Not too bad. Half of Milwaukee.
Then we take the other 18 miles, with continuous access north and south of the city (some of this is already constructed, more is planned for and will happen if we keep at it) and have the County do the work. We must remember that Monroe county encompasses not only the suburbs, but the city as well. So they should participate.
This would mean that we take 18 miles x 5,280 feet = 95,040 feet x 2 banks = 190,080 feet of riverfront x 12 inches per foot, divided by 732,000 people (not counting the city folks – we have downtown to take care of) and that = just over 3 inches per person. Not too bad, considering that this portion of the river will be lightly developed.
Sounds doable to me.
Bill, as I said moments ago, and as you said, we do not need a high pitch of development along the entire length of the river. We need to focus on downtown.
But we all do need to recognize that we have a river, and that our river is a fabulous resource for: power, economics, aesthetics, cultural events, lolling near, riding along, fishing in and paddling on. Let’s get out there!
And thanks for adding Pittsburgh to the list. The work of Michael Van Valkenburgh in that city in particular is quite notable.
Re: Jason O: Excellent points. Not only do we have the river, but as a region we are blessed with an extraordinary abundance of waterfront (big lake, little lakes, bay, canal, river). As Howard as rightly pointed out, we need to focus on a few key nodes, with downtown probably being the biggest key.
Re: Paul M: The current planning for the Charlotte/port area includes an extension of River Street that will be as you describe: dense mixed use on one side with the river (actually a newly constructed marina connected to the river) on the other side.
Re: San Antonio: a lovely place but probably not exactly a useful precedent for river development. The small scale of the water in San Antonio allows for a much more intimate scale than the Genesee (and the flood control mandates of the Army Corps) would necessarily allow.
Re: High Falls: land at the base is contaminated and there’s no easy answer (i.e. funding) to remediate it. And the area, although its turned out to be successful for offices and residences, still seems to struggle a bit to support the restaurants that are already there. See my thoughts on High Falls priorities below.
Re: Genesee between Main and Andrews. The east bank has a walkway but a scrubby weedy no-mans-land between the hotel drop-off lane and the water. Such a poor design and wasted opportunity. Here’s a “waterfront” hotel with on-site dining and no opportunity to actually sit by the water. The west bank is equally poorly designed. The waterfront promenade is isolated and feels like an unsafe place to be. Again, adjacent to another “waterfront” hotel, but so clumsily designed with the underground parking garage that little of the hotel’s activity spills out to or enlivens the public space.
Let’s pick off some (relatively) low-hanging fruit to focus on. I suggest:
- east bank: improvement and activiation of no-mans land in front of the Radisson
- west bank: connection between existing Aqueduct Park (a lovely space) and the public walkway south of Broad Street. Admittedly, this is a pretty big lift, requiring the consent of Thompson Reuters to hang something off the side of their building and figuring out a way to get people through the aqueduct space under Broad Street.
- east bank: get funding for a connection (preliminary plans already exist) from the end of the existing riverway trail near South and Woodbury to Court Street, west of Dinosaur BBQ. The promenade would go out over the river on existing stone piers behind Dinosaur and connect to the public sidewalk on the Court Street bridge.
- east bank: give High Falls Brewery whatever they need to restore the old Victorian brewery buildings and get an outdoor beer garden open. I’ve heard rumors that such a plan has been talked about, but let’s help them out. This would give people a reason to walk all the way across the pedestrian bridge (oh, and while we’re at it, can we restore the name back to the Platt Street Bridge? “Pont de Rennes” is so silly and affected and bears no relationship to the authentic history of the High Falls area) to the east bank, instead of what we all do now: walk halfway across to look at the falls and then turn around and walk back.
While I like where this is going, at the end of the day, it’s not just about leveraging the crap out of the Genesee River, but of leveraging all of the bodies of water around the city. So much of the area surrounding the existing Barge Canal can be better utilized, and the areas up near the lake, both in Charlotte and on the Irondequoit side of the river and the areas near Irondequoit Bay, including near Seabreeze could be better utilized to benefit both the local public and the tourist population. A good trail system running down the Lake Ontario Parkway, around Ontario Beach Park, across the O’Rourke Bridge, through Durand Eastman Park, to Seabreeze could serve as an asset for the region.
That falls has be be worth something. I can’t think of another major city with a waterfall in the middle of downtown. It is a no brainer to make this the centerpiece of something great. Then again this is NYS and in NYS state the city of Niagara Falls has been unable to capitalize on the Niagara Falls.
Problem is the city tried to leverage it a decade or so ago as the centerpiece of their tourist district, renovating (with huge public subsidy) many of the old mill buildings to serve as bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues, and with a laser light show and fireworks in the gorge on the weekends. The failure of this area as an entertainment center is a sore point for the people of the region, even though efforts are underway to make the neighborhood more of a 24/7 area, with new residential buildings and the reuse of a number of the restaurant spaces as office spaces.
The problem with the silver bullet approach is that we thing one singular large scale monolithic effort or project is the answer. In Buffalo in the 1930′s the city cleared its rotting canal district and built an arena with Work Progress money. they never did anything else except build parking lots around it. Today they tor down that arena and are now building back a replica of the canal town that was there – A few blocks away real canal era buildings still exist but they sit rotting at the hands of poor ownership – no effort from the city to leverage these into a more holistic project. We don’t think about cities as organic entities which need constant nurishment and care. We have been brain washed by the mall culture where on developer/one architect/one project and maybe one big subsidy should change everything. We need hundreds of brains and many years to make great places. The problem with high falls is that no one is Nurishing it.
With Jason H.’s suggestions, and Roger’s and Paul’s and others, I think we have a good start. I will see about arranging a get-together in the next few weeks – some key players are travelling next week, so it may take a bit. Stay tuned all.
David and Chris, and others, a note. I agree that silver bullets in urban redevelopment are a fool’s errand. They just don’t happen, Bilbao nothwithstanding (even that was years in the making). And yes, Chris, the failures at High Falls are a good example.
But the point of this game, and of any exercise in taking care of our cities and their places and assets, is in the end about building a sense of stewardship for, and ownership of, the places where we live. Nurturing and rebuilding our cities is not somebody else’s (the city’s, the county’s, the mayor’s) job. It is a responsibility and a requirement for all of us.
If we are to have a resilient and robust urban future, then our downtowns and our neighborhoods have to be more than something we motor past. Drive-by urbanism has ruined our urban places. Now it’s time to walk in, linger in, rediscover, revalue, and restore our urban places.
What did the street side of that Rochester Ponte Vecchio look like?
Like a normal, commercial Main Street, lined with buildings on both sides. When you were on the street, you wouldn’t even know you were on a bridge.
David, Jason is exactly correct. Take a look at the latest post, which I will put up in the next hour or so.
can you give me any info about the painting by siebert? where you found the image and what organization possesses the original?
Anthony, yes I have some information about the painting and the painter.
First, the image of the painting is mine. I took the picture last September, when the World Canal Conference was here in Rochester. The mural had been resurrected after years of storage, folded, in an attic. In bad shape, but now, we hope, slated for restoration.
The mural is in the hands of the Rochester Historical Society. But in the run-up to the conference, the City issued a press release that described the fact that the murals had once hung in the Cafe DeLuxe.
Between what I learned from the City, what I learned at the Conference, and what I learned in doing research with the Historical Society, I was able to piece the story together.
Siebert (1856-1944) was a very well known artist, and once I had his name, I could discover much more than is in this post.
Hope this helps.