Buffalo’s Billion

Our Governor here, Andrew Cuomo, has just announced that the State of New York will be forking over $1 billion to the city of  Buffalo, to aid a city in crisis.

Yup – a cool billion.

As you can imagine, the howls of disbelief and anger in Rochester and Syracuse are deafening. These three cities, the Moe, Larry and Curly of upstate New York urbanism, are nearly identical in rates of poverty, crime, joblessness, screwed up downtowns, massive sprawl, infrastructure no one can pay for, municipal budget deficits, crummy schools, and any other metric you might imagine to measure cities in crisis.

All three cities are a mess, with huge challenges ahead. All three cities have a rich and deep store of narratives, and all three were once gorgeous, vital, robust, bustling, and unique. All three cities have systematically choked themselves with inner loops and outer loops and loop-de-loops, sending  jobs and institutions and families out of town, and fast. All of which got me to thinking.

Maybe the fact that our city didn’t get the dough is actually a blessing. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure out just exactly what we would do with that kind of money, so next year, or the year after, when we here might win the Governor’s massive lotto game, we can get started right away. Let’s think about this for a minute.

(Of course it could take years to get an agreement in any of the Stooge Cities as to how to spend a $1 million windfall, much less $1 billion – but onward).

Here’s what we should do (with thanks to Edward Glaeser and his wonderful, problematic book, “Triumph of the City”): City, County, and area leaders and institutions should come together to harness the extraordinary energy and innovative talents of our region – our people – and especially our young people. Doing all that they can to foster a spirit of invention and entrepreneurship, our leaders should commit to a central locale for a potent, new, and powerful economic engine: our central city. By bringing the energy of our most gifted citizens together in a dense urban setting, collaboration and the free sharing and transfer of ideas and invention will yield new jobs, real growth, and a new vitality for Rochester and its surrounds. History teaches us that innovation and invention benefit most from close quarters – cities.

Where should we create this new regional economic engine room? Well, there are a bunch of recently cleared blocks in downtown Rochester where an old enclosed shopping mall used to be. It was called Midtown Plaza, and it was at Main and Clinton – our city’s historic crossroad intersection. Now it’s big and empty, and will be for the most part for the foreseeable future. A great spot for our power center.

From the Democrat & Chronicle.

At the moment, RIT is building the Golisano Institute of Sustainability out in the suburbs on their windblown campus. Of course this kind of Center should be downtown, since no human settlement is more sustainable than a dense, walkable city. Maybe we could allocate a few dollars to move the building to Main and Clinton.

Our local Community College, Monroe Community College, is about to enlarge their downtown presence substantially – probably in former Kodak buildings over by our ball yard. So they will be downtown.

University of Rochester is spread out all over the place here. They began downtown – maybe we could lure them back with a portion of their facilities.

So we gather the best and the brightest – well at least some of them – and we get them to go to work inventing a useable future for our region. Meanwhile, we take whatever is left over in the $1b grand prize and we give it all to our urban infrastructure, social and physical. Many of my fellow Rochesterians may not agree with me, but it seems clear that the health and viability of our region is inextricably tied to the health and viability of our city.

And in late-breaking news, we learned Friday that Rochester has won a kind of booby prize in the state’s urban lotto. The Governor has awarded us $100 million so that we can improve an interchange on one of our loop-de-loop expressways. Everyone here seems to think this is a fabulous development. At the risk of being lynched, I say: NUTS!

The intersection in question, I 390 at Kendrick Road, is a southern point of access to U of R and their medical campus. Sandy Parker, of the Rochester Business Alliance says: “All of that area is extremely congested, so without this project coming into being, it would restrict further expansion of the U of R and RIT.” Take a look at this extreme congestion.

Joel Seligman, President of the U of R, declares that the project will be “transformational to the region’s economic future….” State Assemblyman  Joe Morelle says that this project will “help take us to the next level.” All of them should be ashamed. This project is a massive make-work that is a total and absolute dead end. Basta.

As it happens, I know this intersection very well. In the spring, summer, and fall, I am here multiple times a week, at many different hours of the day. This place is many things, but “extremely congested” is certainly not one of those things. This is just the kind of defective thinking that is leading us further and further from a useful urban future.

A truly ridiculous project, whose time has come and long gone, and yet cheered on by our regional and institutional leaders. Do we really still believe that road building is what we should do to preserve and protect our community? I wish I could laugh – it is laughable – but I can’t. There are 100 million better things we need to be doing here. Expressway interchanges are nowhere on that list.

Sigh.

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Much More Brewing at Rochester’s High Falls

As we continue in our efforts here to save 13 Cataract Street, things are really brewing. First, an article written by Rochester activist and urban advocate Joel Helfrich, which you can find at the always extraordinary Rochester Subway site, produced by my intrepid and tireless colleague Mike Governale. Here’s a link:

http://www.rochestersubway.com/topics/2011/12/genesee-brewery-they-paved-history-and-put-up-a-parking-lot/

If you haven’t already, you might want to take a closer look at Mike’s site to see his Photoshop magic, as he gives us a few glimpses of what’s possible at this essential location at High Falls.

And then today, in our local paper, the Democrat and Chronicle, came this piece, by Rochester historian John DeVolder:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20111210/OPINION02/112100302/Don-t-destroy-another-treasure?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s

Now we know who designed 13 Cataract, Philly brewery architect A. C. Wagner, and we hear again why we must save this building. Thanks, Mr. DeVolder.

And in very late breaking news (late this afternoon), our local community college, Monroe Community College (MCC), voted this afternoon to move the long considered expansion of their downtown campus (they moved to the suburbs decades ago) to vacant space at Kodak HQ. This is bad because they are now housed in the historic Sibley’s department store downtown, and their large presence there, near the Eastman School, would have really given a boost to that part of downtown. I pray we don’t end up having to rally to save this artifact of our downtown’s past. Our mayor wisely urged them to stay at Sibley’s, but they chose otherwise.

Sibley, Lindsay & Curr, on the left in 1948.

But the good news is that their decision will now put thousands of (beer drinking?) MCC students two blocks from the High Falls, and three blocks from 13 Cataract Street. Genesee Brewing – opportunity knocks even more loudly.

More as news develops. Onward.

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We’ll Have a Big Picture of Beer

As the fate of 13 Cataract Street is brewing, perhaps a step back to look at all of the possibilities is worth a moment. Join us for an afternoon stroll in our High Falls neighborhood.

The High Falls here, on the Genesee River. At the Falls on the left, the wonderful Gorsline Building in a much edited version, thankfully saved and reopened in 2000. It was once a much larger building, but between neglect, collapse, and fire, only the portion abutting the Falls remains. In the old days, during some spectacular weather, the building looked like this:

In the middle of the panorama, and in the distance, is Kodak Tower. Immediately right of the tower, and on the riverfront, is the RG&E Beebee Station, where the last turbine will take its last whirl in February. The station will then be shuttered pending some future redevelopment. Something will happen here.

That’s the Pont de Rennes bridge (nee Platt Street bridge) crossing the river in the middle of the view. This is the bridge that a group here wants to convert to a Rochester version of Manhattan’s High Line. They call it the GardenAerial, and you can learn more at www.gardenaerial.org.

It once looked like this in 1917 (note the Gorsline building behind the bridge next to the Falls):

And at the right in the panorama below is the Genesee Brewery, and the historic structures at the foot of the Pont de Rennes bridge. 13 Cataract Street – threatened with demolition – is the ochre colored, taller building.

Here’s a view of the brewery from the bridge.

The masonry building on the left is proposed to be the new brewery visitors center. On the right is the threatened 13 Cataract Street. Please note that the brewery folks say that they selected the building on the left  for their center because it has views of the Falls. Hmm. Stay with me on this one.

It’s hard to see 13 Cataract because of the much more recent metal buildings which surround it to the west and south, and which should be removed. But the original building is pretty spectacular, and dates from the late 1880s.

Remember what 13 Cataract looked like once upon a time. Yes, there are windows at the gable end at the right side of the building that look right out on the High Falls.

The Library image was printed backwards. Thanks to a reader, now corrected.

 

On the left of the image above is another building on the brewery campus, also designated as historic, built probably in the 1930s, and also slated for demolition. “Cataract” is carved in the limestone portion of its parapet.

So let’s recap. First there is the spectacular High Falls themselves - a place we Rochesterians take visitors for a stroll, and stroll ourselves. Then there is the High Falls district, with its offices and restaurants and residences in all the old restored mill buildings and new construction:

Just further west of the district (a couple of blocks) is Kodak HQ, and Frontier Field, home to our AAA Red Wings.

Then there is the RG&E campus, now no longer used for power generation and to be redeveloped for….?

Then there is the bridge, which may yet become Rochester’s Hanging
Gardens, with its attendant proposed trail around the gorge at the High Falls.

Then there are the precedents set by the Potosi Brewing Company in Potosi Wisconsin, the American Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland, the Pearl Brewing Company in San Antonio Texas, the Pabst Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Tivoli-Union Brewing Company in Denver, Colorado, the Brooklyn Brewing Company in Brooklyn, New York, and others. Some of these historic breweries still make beer. Some don’t. But all have been restored, and are playing important roles in each of their locales. Look them up.

So let’s not tear anything down here. Let’s figure out how to make the whole big picture work. So much energy and vision and money has been spent in this part of our town, and so much more will be spent. Tearing buildings down – especially really significant ones – is worse than a damaging, destructive waste. Demolition now robs us of our history, it’s true, but robs us of real future value as well. We are awash in the heady foam of possibility.

Perhaps we can recall the now banned watchwords of British brewer Courage and Company (the Brits banned the motto because they were worried about the implied connection between drinking beer and having courage – you decide):

I’ll have another, now, I think.

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The Streetcar City

I have been spending a fair amount of time recently trying to understand the streetcar city we once had. Say in 1929 or so.

Why, you might ask? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, the routing of the streetcars of so long ago is nearly identical to the routing of today’s bus system. This may seem counterintuitive to some who realize how much this place has changed in the last 80 years or so – sprawl has emptied the city, changed where we live and work, vaporized downtown retail and entirely changed our patterns of urban life. But the routes, right down to the route numbers for many routes, are intact. More about this later.

And then I got to wondering about how it was to move around the city in those days. In 1929 we had subway, streetcar, bus, and trackless trolley (electric buses running on power from overhead lines) in addition to interurbans and long distance passenger rail. Today we have bus. And our cars, endlessly our cars.

Anyway, I found a map of the streetcar, bus, and subway routes from about that date, and I have been puzzling over it for some time. Here’s the map:

The solid lines are streetcars, the dashed lines are buses, and the subway is a doubled line with dashes inside. There were something like 10 bus lines and about 15 or more trolley lines.

Remember this: in those days the city was nearly twice as populous in nearly half the land. There was not yet a large non-city population (regional population). Downtown was, well, downtown: bustling, filled with jobs and retail and entertainment - the destination. The map shows so many routes going there because that’s where everyone wanted, and needed, to go.

The fare was a dime – about $1.25 today – and there were transfers so that you could change streetcars, or change modes, from streetcar to bus to trackless trolley. (Today there are no transfers – it’s a buck a ride, and another buck on the bus you have to transfer to).

In fact the streetcar transfer was invented here, by a man named John H. Stedman, 1843 – 1922, in 1892. Notably, Stedman also invented the fuzzy pipe cleaner. He’s buried here in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

I digress. There were also weekly passes. For a buck, you could ride anywhere anytime, all week.

The streetcars were pretty comfy, actually. We know this because Mr. Stone photographed their interiors in 1918, as they were disinfected during the influenza epidemic. Take a look.

In the winter, the cars were heated by coal-fired stoves. During WWI coal was rationed, so the railway system positioned coal stations across the city where a conductor could get a handful of coal lumps to keep the home fires burning.
This guy looks like he is having a real ball.

Perhaps I have digressed again.

In the 20s, the streetcars ran from 6:00am to 12:00pm – 18 hours a day. But here’s where the comparison to today starts to get a bit, well, revealing.

At peak, the headway – the distance between trains – was about 5 minutes. The longest headways were in the evenings, and were about 15 minutes.

Today, the bus system runs about 20 minute headways at peak, and off-peak headways sag to about an hour or more.

And if you were inclined, there was an interurban between Rochester and Syracuse that ran every 30 minutes.

So over 80 years ago, you could move around our city almost as quickly on the streetcar/subway/trolley/bus system as in your car today. Maybe we’re not as smart as we think we are.

And you could get to Syracuse, downtown to downtown, from here as fast or faster than you can get there today, in your car. Hmmm.

Now, a short glimpse at today’s bus system. Here are a couple of images of the bus routes today. I have taken these from the RGRTA website. They offer a 14mb image of the system map that is pretty nearly impossible to use – slow to download, gigantic, and cumbersome, at best. Come on guys – the 1929 map is a snap to use.

First, the overall system:

Looks kind of familiar, yes?

And now a snapshot of the system in downtown:

So in 1929, you could get downtown (you wanted to go downtown) quickly, and transfer easily to other parts of the city.

Today you have to go downtown (you may want to go there, or you may want to go elsewhere, but you have no choice), usually pay a second fare to transfer to another bus, and go out of downtown to your destination.

Lots has changed in our region in the last 80 years. As I said at the outset, we no longer live, work, shop, or loiter in the same places we did then. But here’s the thing: it was a 20 minute city then, and it’s a 20 minute city today. Except that in those times, it was 20 minutes using transit. Today, you are in your car.

Is this progress? Maybe. Maybe not.

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Unfolding the City – Memory’s Maps

1923, Edgerton Park.

Max Frisch, Swiss novelist (and architect) once said, “Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.”

True, I think. Like maps, our lives unfold until all is revealed. And so it is with cities, as we unfold the stories of their places time after time.

I have been unfolding the stories of a particular portion of our city for quite a while. It has taken me months to put the pieces together to create an unfolded map of  just this one particular spot. The stories crisscross back and forth over a very long time in our city – 165 years to be exact. Get comfortable – this one is going to take a while.

This particular place in our city has had many names in many eras: Western House of Refuge, State Industrial School, Exposition Park, and finally Edgerton Park (named in memory of former mayor Hiram Haskell Edgerton, who has appeared in our pages previously).

Just under 40 acres, this place has been home to juvenile delinquents, trade school students after the children’s prison was reformed in the late 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Rochesterians from across the entire city and region attending the annual Exposition from 1911 until the late 1940s, Glenn Miller and his orchestra, the 1950-51 NBA Champion Rochester Royals, high schoolers (Jefferson High School is a part of this site), model train buffs, and today neighbors and all kinds of recreators. It’s an amazing, complicated place. The map across time of Edgerton Park is really a guide to the changing life of our city.

For me, it all started with this:

A parade. It’s 1908, and Mr. Stone is showing us what was called the Industrial Exposition Parade. Moving up and down Main Street are floats exhibiting all manner of Rochester businesses: milliners and tailors, shoemakers, photographic supply houses – a long list of local enterprises. The notes accompanying the photograph explain that this parade was a precursor to the annual Industrial Exposition at Edgerton Park. Hmm, I thought – what the heck was that? I was puzzled – because today, Edgerton Park looks like this:

In the distance at the right is Jefferson High, and a bit to the left is the Edgerton Park Rec Center. And then: a running track, a children’s water park, tennis and basketball courts, and a whole bunch of ball fields. Sensing a rather large gap between what I could see and what I was beginning to sense were the other lives of this place, it was clearly time to investigate. Here we go.

In 1846, the State of New York created the Western House of Refuge. When complete, it was the first reform school in the United States – home to young delinquent boys. The place opened in 1849, with 50 children. By 1875, the legislature agreed that girls could be housed here as well, and the place kept growing, with more and more buildings added to house the swelling roll of inmates.

In 1870, the place looked like this:

And in 1872, like this:

A walled prison in a bucolic, ex-urban setting.

As the 19th century came to a close, reforming the reform school became an increasingly pressing matter. Corporal punishment was banned, hard labor reduced, bars on windows removed, real schooling instituted. In fact, by the late 1880s, the Western House of Refuge was renamed. It became the State Industrial School, and inmates were now taught trades in addition to their regular classes.

In 1900, the place looked like this:

That’s the Erie Canal running diagonally at the far left. The School had a tiny railroad that carried supplies (mostly coal) from the Canal to the building that housed the boilers, the dining hall and the power house.

And as you can begin to see, the city had moved out to and now surrounded the School. Time for change. In 1902 the State purchased 1,000 acres of land in what was then the nearby but very rural Rush, New York, and the move began. By 1907, the site was abandoned. Now what?

The City of Rochester bought the place, and transformed it into Exposition Park, home to what had begun as the Industrial Exposition Parade. Voila – now I was getting somewhere.

But before Exposition Park would open, a certain canny photographer visited the place to show us what it looked like as a reform school. Here are a few of the images Mr. Stone shared with us.

This is the Main Building and the main entrance to the School, facing east and Backus Street (Backus was an early Director of the Western House of Refuge). Mr. Stone took this image from the middle of Phelps Avenue.

The portion on the left, with the arched openings, is the chapel. Remember that part of this huge rambling building – you’ll need it later.

Demolition is underway – the boiler room/power house/dining hall is biting the dust in the middle ground. In the distance is the Main Building, and again the chapel is seen on the right. You’re looking east.

And finally, this, from 1910:

Looking north, towards the School. Streetcar tracks. In both directions. Remember this – it will become very important later. Very important.

So, with demolition complete, Exposition Park could open. From the looks of the parade in 1908, I expected to find that this annual event would prove to be some kind of glorified trade show. Boy, was I wrong.

Concerts:

1911.

I think the bandstand is one of the odder structures I have seen. Here’s another view, from 1922. To the left of the bandstand is the zoo, complete with apes and bears and ostriches.

The ostriches, in 1917.

Exhibitions by the Historical Society:

1913.

Art Exhibitions:

1912.

Every manner of sports competition imaginable, but lots and lots of horse contests of various kinds:

1919.

In 1918, the place looked like this:

Here’s Mayor Edgerton opening the Expo sometime in the 19 teens:

Oh sure, the latest technologies were showcased:

Yes, that’s a lawnmower – 1920.

And as time passed, lots and lots of car exhibitions:

1924.

A couple of favorite exhibitions from this period include:

This is an exhibition of stolen autos, held in 1920.

The cars were stolen in the midwest, but shown here. Hmm.

And this one:

An exhibition of “Fruit Diseases and Injurious Insects,” 1921.

Huge crowds were the norm. Here are two views. Often these events were at the 4th of July, or revolved around patriotic events linked to World War I.

4th of July, 1917.

4th of July, 1918.

I could go on, and on, and on. Clearly this place was at the heart of city life in those days. Folks could hop on a streetcar, or later the subway, and then walk a block and join the throngs. It must have been an amazing place – a kind of annual mini-World’s Fair. The more I looked, the more astonished I became at the heady life of this place.

Here’s Edgerton Park in 1926. By then, Mayor Edgerton was gone, and the place had taken his name.

Notice that the Erie Canal is gone now, and in its place, at the far left, is the word “Transit.” This was our beloved subway.

You could get to Expo Park by subway, or by streetcar on one of at least two car lines. Kodak Park was only a few blocks south, and this part of the city was dense and bustling.

But more. After his death, a monument to Mayor Edgerton was erected, and it looked like this:

1929.

It’s on the left, in front of the peristyle where visitors bought their tickets. I have not been able to figure out what happened to the monument – it’s gone, but I don’t know where. Maybe you know.

Back to the Expo. Every year one of the most wonderful features was the baby contest.

That’s Richard Eyer and Doris Sedgwick, in 1926.

There are many images of this particular event – apparently a favorite of Mr. Stone’s. Here’s another:

Virginia Grace Coxon, in 1923.

The Expo survived the Depression, and went strong until the 1940s. But it faded after World War II, and I couldn’t figure out what happened, or why.

I knew that hockey was played in the old arena in the late 40s and 50s. I knew that the Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) won the NBA championship here in game seven of the 1950-51 season. I knew that the PAL (Police athletic League) started a fabulous model train layout in the 50s, aimed at giving children something creative to do, and which thankfully survives. But I could not figure out how the place went from being at the heart of the city to being a big neighborhood park.

Today, a few more views.

First, a view of the park in almost the same place as Mr. Stone’s image of 1910 – the middle of Phelps Avenue looking west at the chapel. Remember the chapel? Good. There it is – the Edgerton Park Rec Center.

And here, a view looking toward what was once the Erie Canal, then the
Rochester Subway, and today a berm.

And here, another view of the park today.

Today, the park is an important part of the neighborhood. A few events at the park draw folks from across the city – dances, the model trains, athletic contests, the water park, and others. And the city is conducting a few special events in this, Expo/Edgerton Park’s centennial year.

But as the city dispersed after World War II, and Kodak dwindled, and the car took over the streets, the park went from central to the life of the city to peripheral, at best.

It’s this last part that I could not figure out. What was it that pulled the plug on this place? Dances and concerts continued into the 50s. Glenn Miller – yikes. Basketball – big time. Hmm.

And then last week, the last piece of the puzzle emerged. We had lunch with some of Amy’s long time family friends, from her old neighborhood. She baby-sat for the family, and the matriarch of the family, an M.D., grew up in the Edgerton neighborhood. She remembered the Expo, and the concerts and the music. She remembered the dances especially, jitterbugging into the night.

She said: “Things were different after the War (World War II).” And then the light went on, at last.

The city pulled out the streetcars in 1941. Symptomatically, Expo Park ceased in 1947.

And the subway ceased in 1956. In 1957 the former World Champion NBA Rochester Royals moved to Cincinnati, and thence to Sacramento.

Our lives changed radically here in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, like lives in cities across the nation. Edgerton Park, so long a central part of the life of the city, was now abandoned, and marooned. The river of city life had shifted, and today the map shows only a small creek where once had been a mighty stream. Chapter closed.

Today Edgerton Park remains an important place in our city. While the neighborhood is poorer than the old days, and abandoned buildings are visible, it would be wrong to underestimate the role the place continues to play in the life of the city. But there are no more throngs, no monuments to beloved mayors, no baby contests, no exhibitions. The city does not teem to the park on the 4th of July. It’s pretty quiet now.

165 years in the life of any city is a long time. Edgerton Park has unfolded before my eyes, from prison to school to gathering place to home for great city moments, and now, simply, a park.

Perhaps we made some mistakes along the way. The future’s map is unclear. But certainly we will not go back to where we have been.

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Rochester and the “Let’s Pretend” Game, Part II – The Riverfront

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.

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Let’s Pretend

Hong Kong.

In the last few months, we have been wandering around, and wondering at, some memorable places in some amazing cities. Here are a few more highlights.

Nanjing Road, Shanghai.

Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Cochin, India.

Dubai, UAE.

Your author at lunch, in the Botanic Gardens, Wellington, NZ.

As I have been reflecting on all that we have seen, I have had an idea: I have invented a new game that should be played in our town, or perhaps in yours. It goes like this.

By decree of the Czar, our towns must now retool their economic engines. Whatever drives the economy of your city, of our city, must be changed. Here in Rochester, our economy is driven by health care, educational institutions, the optics industry, the grocery business, and innovation and skills in high-technology processes and manufacturing. But no longer.

The Czar requires that now our economy must be driven principally by tourism. Visitors – lots of them.

In my new game, your city will receive higher and higher points for generating more and more of your tax revenues from tourism. Your city will receive bonus points for each hour that a visitor stays with you.

Perhaps this game will invite us to see our cities differently. What will attract visitors? What will they come to see and do, where will they want to stroll, to linger, to shop for local authenticity, to experience unique Rochester delights? What architecture will they admire, photograph, upload to Flickr? How will they describe the rich urbanism of our place to their friends and family upon their return home? Will our history, and the quirky but extraordinary contributions to our city life by people such as the deservedly revered Albert Stone, be made vivid and accessible?

For us here to stay in this game, we have our work cut out for us. Much of what would easily attract visitors to our place is gone. And many of our best assets are under-utilized, or ignored. So we need a fix-this list, and a make-something-out-of-this list. Get rid of the huge parking lots downtown, and create great places instead. Grab onto the riverfront and make it fabulous. Make it easy for folks to get around. Finally blow up the Inner Loop and make great streets and streetscapes. The list goes on. 

Anyway, we have great stuff here, as you must in your city, and we have enormous challenges. Maybe if we put out-of-towner glasses on for a bit, we might see what we already have differently, and find it easier to fix what’s broken.

Our town – Rochester.

Want to buy a “Get-Out-of-Jail-Free” card?

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A Busman’s Holiday

Despite the bad news about cars and the cities they have ruined, we can report that we saw some amazing transit systems during our recent walkabout. Okay fellow transit nerds, herewith, three examples.

In Hong Kong, we delighted in riding the double-decker streetcars. The system, now over 100 years old, is wholly owned by a private entity: Veolia Transport. Fare is HK$1 for us gray hairs, HK$2 for others. The system has 161 cars, 30km of track and 118 stops in its entirety. Heavily used (80,000,000 riders annually), the system runs on 1.5 minute headways at peak operating hours (no, that’s not a typo – 1.5 minute headways. Practically a moving sidewalk of trams !!).

The tram looked like this not too long ago:

And today, with its new cars and wrap-around advertising, it looks like this:

This is true no-frills transport. Enter at the rear of the car, sit if you can find a seat, plug a $1 coin in the box as you leave up front. Oh, and pick up your feet – they ain’t kiddin’ about the tight schedules. Downtown stops have shelters – it rained and rained on us – but elsewhere not. There is absolutely nothing fancy about this system, but it really works.

In Singapore, we rode the subway, and we can report that while we have not ridden every subway system on the planet, this is the best we have ever seen by some distance.

During planning for this system in the 70s, a bus-only system was considered, but planners concluded that the requisite flood of additional buses would fill roadways already groaning with traffic. So in the 80s Parliament opted for a subway. Good choice, Parliament. Even as the basic system opened, Parliament understood the need to continue the expansion of the system, and this expansion continues today.

Today, the system comprises 130 kilometers of track, and carries about 2 million people a day, or 744.8 million people a year, making it the 15th busiest subway in the world (Singapore is the world’s 33rd largest city – folks there like their transit).

We can report that, as any good system must be, the MRT in Singapore is completely intuitive to use. Really clear, really simple. We found ourselves easily upgrading and exchanging our credit card-like tickets –  piece of cake.

And the system is gorgeous, spotless, quiet, and comfortable. Anybody know of a better system?

In Dubai, we rode the subway all over the place, on its runs both above and below grade.

And guess what? It is a direct and complete knock-off of one of the best systems that exists: Singapore’s.

But for the station tile patterns and a few other quite minor variations, they are interchangeable.

We rode the Dubai system one afternoon when it was absolutely packed – jammed to the limits – and it was still remarkable in every way.

How could you go and see this, without a terrific subway system?

Skiing, Mall of the Emirates. Completely goofy, but then so is Dubai.

And then we came home to our humble, mostly unusable bus system. Maybe if we built a giant indoor Hawaiian surfing park at Eastview Mall, we could get better transit….

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Wellington

As we walked the city of Wellington, New Zealand the other day, we crossed a pedestrian bridge over a main motorway. On both sides of the highway were gravestones – a cemetery. A nearby historic marker informed us that when the highway was constructed, it cut through the cemetery, necessitating the removal of thousands of graves. Here you can see the gravestones at either side of the pavement.

 

 

It makes the whole world kin….

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Choices, Consequences

In the never-ending process of building and rebuilding our cities, we make choices about what’s important - where we live, where we work, how we get from place to place. Every choice we make is accompanied by consequences, some intended, some not. And some of the nastiest consequences of our rottenest choices stay with us in our marred urban places for a very, very long time. 

Our city, Rochester, has made some really bad choices in the last half century. Every city has done similarly. Not every city has torn itself down, built an expressway moat, paved all of downtown for parking, moved every bit of retail to the suburbs (with a few notable exceptions, thankfully), and ignored its best natural assets, it’s true, but every city does have a few lulus.

Our beloved Inner Loop.

And now our city is about to spend $132,000,000 on a couple more stinkers. A bus barn downtown for our lamest kind of bus system, and a huge subsidy for about 750 jobs in a new corporate headquarters downtown. I have written about both these projects here, and so I won’t revisit those discussions again.

Instead, I want to think for a moment about what would happen if we took that money and made a few different choices.

A recent visitor to our city, urbanist and Brookings Fellow Christopher Leinberger, observed that Rochester is being “lapped” by many other cities of similar size, and many with fewer assets. We fall further behind in assuring the vitality, value, and usefulness of our city, and region, with every passing day. Our priorities are really screwed up.

And what does Mr. Leinberger say is the most powerful tool in transforming cities, and in creating new value and vitality downtown? Transit. He calls transit, and transit tools, the rudder that steers the ship that is the city, and region.

So how could the $132m be put to better use here, creating greater value and reinvigorating our urbanism? Just two examples are amazing, and instructive.

First, Cincinnati. Population of the city: 335,000. Population of the region: 2.2 million. Bigger than Rochester, but not so much bigger: about a third larger in the city, and about twice the size in the region.

Cincy is planning a streetcar for its downtown. The alignment is set for the first phase, and the cost of the 5 mile system has been pegged at around $100 million. Already developers are investing in sites and projects along the route. The system is estimated to increase property values downtown by something like $380 million, and the system is estimated to spark $1.4 billion in development once it’s up and rolling. This is a return on investment of about $14 for every dollar in. Not bad.

The second example, Portland, is the poster child for investing in change that makes radical improvements to urban value, and quality. Their streetcar system, with a cost of $149 million, has now induced over $3.5 billion dollars in economic development. So the folks in Cincy are being conservative, as they should be, but realistic about the impact that fixed guideway rail transit (streetcars) can have on their urban future.

I have been doing transportation work across my entire career: I am a fully qualified transit geek. But I am not urging our City Council and leadership (three mayors in the last month – not bad, yes?) to swap the mistakes they are about to make for streetcars because I like to play with trains.

No, I am asking our leadership to change course because I have an abiding passion for cities, this one included, and a belief that this place can be so much better if we shift our thinking, realign our priorities, and start making good choices for our future.

Will the upcoming investment here of $132 million in our two downtown projects create value for our city? Yes. I’m not sure how to calculate what will happen, but will we see over $1.8 billion in new value created, at the rate of $14 out for every $1 in, as in Cincy? No. Will we see our downtown revitalized? No. Will we be making an investment that will change the course of our city and our region? No.   

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. At the moment, it’s an oncoming train. We can change that.

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