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If you happened to pass by Main Street on Friday afternoon you would have seen crowds of downtown workers staring up at the sky. That’s because more than 70 members of the local business community were dangling from the First Federal Building as part of a fundraiser organized by the Seneca Waterways Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Participants each raised $1,000 to earn themselves the opportunity to rappel down the exterior of the 21-story, “flying saucer” capped building at 28 East Main Street. Proceeds will be used to support urban programs of the Boy Scouts.

On this fine-weather afternoon I was taking in some lunch and observing all the activity from the comfort of terra firma when I had an all too frequent thought… “Dammit, I wish had my camera.” I was never a Boy Scout myself or I would’ve been more prepared. Luckily, I bumped into Paul Baker who was taking photos of his friend as she lowered herself from the top of the glass tower (shown here). He kindly agreed to let me share his photos with you all on his flickr stream . Thanks Paul!

The fundraiser was organized by Over the Edge , a Nova Scotia-based company that provided on-site professional staff and worked closely with the building’s owner to ensure insurance and safety concerns are met. Although the company boasts on their web site of their strong safety record and claims they’ve had “zero incidents”, all participants have to sign a waiver. Yah, no thank you.

Tags: Boy Scouts of America, Del Newquist, downtown Rochester, First Federal Plaza, flying saucer building, fundraiser, Main Street, New York, Over the Edge, Paul Baker, Rochester, Rochester NY, Seneca Waterways Council

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Events, Rochester News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.