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1. RochesterSubway.com says:

   August 24, 2015 at 8:22 am

   Here’s a more recent aerial photo of the terminal (after several additions) from 1984. The view is from Brooks Avenue looking south toward Scottsville Road. Click for a larger view…

   

   [Posted with permission from the photographer, James C. Kruggel]
2. Carl says:

   August 24, 2015 at 1:55 pm

   I remember the murals pretty well and always enjoyed looking at them when I visited the airport as a child. They were definitely a lot cheerier than the depressing stuff that’s in the airport now.

3. Matthew McDermott says:

   August 24, 2015 at 3:38 pm

   Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to add about the murals. However, the aerial shot in the comments section shows several airplanes from Empire Airlines, a Utica-based airline that my father flew for. They were very active in the 70’s and 80’s until they were purchased by Piedmont in 1985.

4. Bob Luckey says:

   August 24, 2015 at 8:15 pm

   The 1990’s were marked by a transformation of drab-looking upstate NY airports into modern state-of-the-art gateways. Rochester-Monroe County Airport became Greater Rochester International; Greater Buffalo International became Buffalo-Niagara
   International; Albany County Airport became Albany International; and then there was Syracuse-Hancock International.

5. James C. Kruggel says:

   August 26, 2015 at 11:50 am

   Thank you, Mike, for offering this terrific posting. I remember the old airport terminal and the mural well. As a young child, I would stand in front of the vast window before the restaurant and look at Mohawk Airlines planes with the gold Native American head logo on the tail. My parents would take me to Horizons for dinner. It was a few steps up from floor level, so it helped your view.

   I have scanned that very same brochure the librarians found for you at the Rochester Public Library! It’s a local-history treasure. Unfortunately, I never took a photo-essay of the old terminal when I was visiting it in high school all the time in the 1980’s, to collect timetables. The photo you posted is the only really good photo I took. I have all the postcards you have posted, plus some others.

   It’s good that Monroe County put the old Midtown Plaza clock in the new terminal, along with the mini control-tower that used to stand just northwest of the old terminal by the fence. These touches of history connect our beautiful and functional new terminal to the old, and to Rochester’s past.

6. RochesterSubway.com says:

   August 26, 2015 at 2:40 pm

   And thank YOU Jim, for sharing your memories and you great photo with us here!

7. Chris Stone says:

   August 27, 2015 at 9:23 am

   It’s a bit ambitious to call your airport “international” when you only qualify on a technicality: a few flights a day hopping across the lake to Toronto.

8. Matthew McDermott says:

   August 27, 2015 at 12:34 pm

   @Chris Stone – sadly, we don’t have 747’s departing for Heathrow on the hour. That said, we do have customs and immigration facilities to handle cross border flights and that’s what defines an international airport. Scheduled service to Toronto is one piece but there’s also a reasonable amount of general aviation requiring customs.

9. Chris Stone says:

   August 27, 2015 at 3:48 pm

   That’s fine. Calling it an “international airport” just seems to me to be an illusion of grandeur. Albany’s even worse: there’s no scheduled international flights there.

   I don’t see anything wrong with being a “regional airport”: small, low-key, no hassle.

10. Ben G. says:

    August 30, 2015 at 12:54 am

    A guest speaker at an urban planning class I took at UB had a very interesting idea regarding the airports for Rochester and Buffalo. He was an advocate for increased regionalization between our two cities and recommended building a large airport in Batavia. The current airports in the respective cities would act as park-and-ride hubs for a high speed rail line taking passengers to the larger combined airport.
    I’ve always been intrigued by this concept. The high speed rail line could be used for general inter-city travel in addition to serving air travel customers. Imagine being able to enjoy a Sabres game or a show at Shea’s (or likewise, a concert at Eastman theater or a Rhinos game for Buffalo residents) and hopping on a bullet train that gets you home in half the time (and without the hassle) of driving.
    The speaker made the point that, through further and more comprehensive regionalization, the two cities would raise their national profiles and be viewed as one large region with over 2 million residents as opposed to two separate mid-sized metro areas.
    A bit unrelated to the topic but the conversation on what constitutes an “international” airport brought that class to mind. Food for thought at least…

11. Dana Miller says:

    August 31, 2015 at 10:38 am

    Great story about the airport and the mural. As young teens we used to ride our bikes from the 19th Ward to the airport, and then just walk around inside to see the planes and passengers. Never had any concern about security, or anything.

    Really had to believe given where we are now.

12. Matthew McDermott says:

    August 31, 2015 at 9:25 pm

    @Ben G – a regional Batavia airport with rail connections is an interesting idea conceptually (there is an airport there now, by the way) and thinking more regionally between BFLO and ROC has some value. Making our region more like Dallas/Ft. Worth or Minneapolis/St. Paul gives us a scale that we don’t currently have as individual cities. The flip side of that is that it seems to encourage lower density sprawl between the two metros in the absence of a big population boom. As it is, you could almost double the present population within the City of Rochester to equal it’s peak in the 1940s. I don’t have similar statistics for Buffalo but I would imagine it’s largely the same.

    @Chris Stone – Perhaps the international moniker is a bit too aspirational. I’m all for the convenience a smaller airport represents. Ask anyone living in North Jersey what time they’re going to leave for Newark Airport and I bet it’s pretty early. I think there are other airports with lofty aspirations though:

    Columbus, OH: Port Columbus International Airport
    Portland, ME: Portland JetPort
    Wichita, KS: Mid-Continent Airport

    Don’t get me started on misleading names like Rockford Chicago International Airport which is 85 miles west of Chicago.

13. Jeff Brooks G. says:

    February 27, 2017 at 12:24 am

    This is fantastic! Thank you so much. I vividly remember the ticket counter mural. The Rochester Monroe County Airport was magical. I regret not photographing the interior and exterior of this beloved structure back in its glory days. Captivated by the Monroe County Airport—for me as a kid it was Shangri-La—I looked forward to going there any chance I could get with my family. The Monroe County Airport was where my family and I embarked for spectacular journeys to such exotic destinations as the Bahamas and Europe. Or for domestic hops to Boston (via Mohawk Airlines BAC One-Elevens) visiting relatives, or a longer excursion to Los Angeles on an American Airlines Boeing 707.

    Our airport was a fun place to be even if you were staying home in Rochester. The Café Avion was an upscale restaurant with delicious fare—you had to dress nicely—which offered a splendid view of the planes being serviced for flight and taxiing to the gate or to the runways. I recall my brother wandering over to the restaurant’s bar to watch Joe Namath on television quarterbacking for the New York Jets (on another occasion, I distinctly can see quarterback Jim Plunkett wearing the then red home jerseys of the New England Patriots).

    After Sunday dinner at the Café Avion, we all had a splendid time outside at the end of the runways, eyeing airliners as they swung around lining their sights to land, then screaming (jets) or rumbling (turboprops) overhead. In those days before exhaust restrictions and technological improvements, you could see the soot on the white tails of the United 727s. Many of us actually miss the earth-shaking thunderous roar of nascent jets as they raced down the runway, leaving a shroud of smoke on the ground and climbing into the sky with a long black smoke trail before vanishing.

    I remember seeing the legendary soccer great Pelé browsing at the Monroe County Airport gift shop, the place where I often purchased aviation-oriented models and books. I remember seeing former Monroe County Republican Committee Chairman Richard Rosenbaum walking proudly and laughing, briefcase in hand, with a colleague as they were about to board a plane.

    The concourse, that led to the main terminal, had a pretty turquoise tile wall which bolstered the mood of even the crankiest customer. The United Airlines ticket counter was off to the side, away from the other two airlines (American and Mohawk) on the west-end of the terminal. There was a certain coziness about it over there. Before the overwhelming security of nowadays, you could walk about the windowed corridors and closely observe the guy semaphoring aircraft.

    Those were good times. I joined family and friends at Rochester’s Monroe County Airport. It was more than a cherished airport… it was home.

14. Stephen C. Insalaco Jr. says:

    July 3, 2017 at 8:26 pm

    This is a fantastic web site. I remember the old Rochester Monroe County airport. I remember standing inside the terminal building looking outside through those large windows at the aircraft. I specifically remember standing next to the break wall inside the terminal building, shown in one of the photo. I also remember taking a field trip to the airport in the 2nd-grade, and being seated on the inside of a twin-engine convair airliner. That single event alone, made me fall in love with airplanes. Now I’m a pilot and an airplane owner.
    Stephen Insalaco
    J-Six Ranch, Arizona

15. Stephen C. Insalaco Jr. says:

    July 3, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    And oh yes, I remember the American Airlines Boeing 707 in the Astrojet colors, and the Allegany BAC 111s, and the unique sound that they made in the air.
    Stephen Insalaco

16. Rick Iekel says:

    July 29, 2019 at 8:13 am

    What a great discussion. I worked for 27 years at ROC, first as UAL agent and then as asst airport manager and airport manager. I, too, have many memories of the old terminal. The mural was fascinating, people regularly came to the airport just to see the planes (a lost feature with today’s security issues). Who knows, I may have been the person who gave the tour some of you speak of. Regarding the regional airport idea, in the early 1970’s the State of New York held hearings and advocated for a regional airport in Batavia. My understand is that BUF and ROC just couldn’t agree and Batavia didn’t want either of us. (…a humorous analysis of my own). Thanks to Mike Governale for this website.

17. Lela Cocoros says:

    March 10, 2020 at 5:05 pm

    Thank you for this. I spent my early childhood in Rochester in the early to mid 1960s. My dad was a salesman for printing presses and used to travel a lot up and down the northeast corridor. My mom and I would often meet him at the Monroe County Airport. I remember the big windows and the planes coming so close to the building. I also remember the restaurant – we’re Greek-American, so every time my dad brought us in there, the accordion player would start up with “Never on Sunday.” To a 3/4/5 year old, it was heaven.

18. Robert Allen says:

    March 7, 2021 at 12:05 am

    I grew up in Roch and spent many days at the airport with my dad who worked at Kodak. I remember he took me there when American airlines had their DC-10 service in the early 70s and I took a Polaroid photo of the plane. What great memories. My dad also has old 16mm movies of a DC-8 taking off. Wow, they sure did spew dark black exhaust when thundering down the runway. Now days, I enjoy photographing planes. Check out my site at http://www.RobertAllen-Photography.com

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