RochesterSubway.com : Inside RG&E Beebee Power Plant – Just Before (and during) Demolition

Inside RG&E Beebee Power Plant – Just Before (and during) Demolition

August 30th, 2016

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RG&E’s Beebee power plant was one of the most formidable structures in Rochester. For half a century, this cluster of buildings covered an 8 acre site along the floor of the High Falls gorge – climbing up the west rock wall and looming hundreds of feet in the air over Platt Street and the neighborhood below…

A plaque affixed to the Platt Street bridge overlooking High Falls and the power station reads:

“In 1889 Rochester was the third city in the country to have a steam heating system, ending much of the smoke nuisance downtown. Citizen’s Light and Power Co.’s combined steam and hydroelectric power plant was established in 1892 on Brown’s Race and Mill Street. In 1904 Citizen’s merged with RG&E.

As the many mills and machine shops fell into disuse in the 1900s, RG&E gradually acquired this land and expanded its operations, making use of the water from Brown’s Race as well as from the Genesee River.

The Beebee Station, named for RG&E chairman Alexander Beebee, was formally dedicated in 1959.”

Now a relic of our city’s twentieth century industrial complex—and a reminder of the energy and infrastructure required to run it—the giant facility has sat dormant since the late 1990s.

While RG&E briefly entertained the idea of selling the property to developers, the power company would eventually announce plans for Beebee’s elimination.

This summer while demolition crews were working to dismantle the behemoth, my camera was clicking away inside.

Most people were still asleep in their homes as I crept into the darkness. The place was startlingly different than any other building I had ever seen. Each section was a large shell, filled with five or six levels of catwalks twisting and turning around a maze of machinery.

The building must have been added to in stages. Floors didn’t always line up to the next section and odd corridors filled the spaces in between. It was darker than dark and windows didn’t offer much help. I had no idea how to get around. The sound of birds early in the morning echoed inside the empty rooms.

I remember standing in what I thought was a pretty large generation room, only to walk across a narrow catwalk to find myself inside an even larger one. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the enormity of the space filled me with awe. I was staring into the middle of a 6-story steel cavern.

I made my way down the first stairway I could find until I reached the bottom-most level (inline with the floor of the river gorge).

Large generating machines stood silent as a grey light started pouring in from the rainy morning. I had never been in such a structure. I tried to imagine what it must have felt like when all of the machines were humming, and the large megawatt gauge on the wall was moving.

That was all for that trip, I needed to leave before the morning crew arrived. When I returned days later I went to see that space again, only to find as I crossed the catwalk and made the turn, that the door I needed to open was gone. In its place, a sharp 5-story drop. This entire section of the building was gone.

I made my way, with a dim flashlight, to the other main generating room, most likely added around the 1950s or around there. The buildings weren’t actually connected, just a covered catwalk out and around provided access to this newer section.

The catwalks continued like in the other parts of the building. Stretching high above and down below into the darkness. I finally came across another opening and headed down the metal stairs to the main level to get a photo of today’s sunrise being filtered through the hazy translucent glass.

I came across an old main control panel, since disconnected and moved for the demolition. This was where so many people had stood watch, monitoring the station, providing the city with electricity and keeping workers safe. Demolition of this section would start the next day.

My last visit came on a warm clear morning. I found myself in a part of the plant I knew quite well. There were still corners I hadn’t seen before. Knowing this would probably be my last trip before demolition came for the rest of the building, I tried to see as much as I could. I stumbled across an old locker room that was tucked away in one of the basements. Bars were across the windows, now with vegetation creeping in.

I decided to try one other room before calling it a day. It was secluded from the rest, and the only entrance required you to walk outside on a balcony built into the edge of the gorge. It looked as though this was a storage room, or archive room. The shelves were mostly empty minus a few books, and a file cabinet full of microfilm, documenting data from the 70s up until the plant’s closure.

One item stood out to me…

A handwritten record book for different parts of the plant showing daily electrical outputs and efficiencies to various parts of the city.

It was amazing to see this simply left behind. I assume that anything of necessity was taken, but why this book was left I’ll never know.

The rest of the room was filled with broken glass, computer monitors, and old manuals to equipment that was long gone.

I left that day knowing I had covered most of the structure, and that soon the whole thing would be gone and something else created in its place.

Watching from the Pont de Rennes, passerbys could see all the twisted metal and catwalks they wanted. Bricks lay in piles, and the spaces they once formed now are only a memory.

By the time of this posting, all of this will be history in every sense of the word. Demolition and clean up will be completed in the coming weeks and new grass will be growing here next spring.

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

• • •

Tags: abandoned, abandoned places, abandoned power plant, demolition, High Falls, infrastructure, power plant, RG&E Beebee Station, Rochester, Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E), rochester images, Rochester NY, rochester photos, urban exploration

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2016 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Architecture, Reader Submitted Stories, Rochester History, Rochester Images, Transit + Infrastructure, Urban Exploration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

27 Responses to “Inside RG&E Beebee Power Plant – Just Before (and during) Demolition”

Matt S says:

August 31, 2016 at 8:02 am

Anyone know what the plan is for the property after demolition?
Kathleen Kochem says:

August 31, 2016 at 8:57 am

That was a gorgeous set of photos!! You did a wonderful job on the whole composition! I can only say THANK YOU!!!!
RochesterSubway.com says:

August 31, 2016 at 9:23 am

Matt, all RG&E has said is that they’ll be planting grass. This page on their site says the land will remain closed to the public.
Chaz Antonelli says:

August 31, 2016 at 9:45 am

Fantastic photos! Thanks for preserving what was left of Beebee Station before they tore it down.
Ben says:

August 31, 2016 at 10:15 am

What is the chance the city ever gets hold of some/all of the land down there? This is where all the “build a park” people need to be aiming their efforts, not parcels in the middle of downtown.
RochesterSubway.com says:

August 31, 2016 at 11:36 am

Ben, agreed. Greentopia has been working to make improvements to this area as a public green space for several years now. I bet they have their eye on this new area. Who knows if RG&E will be selling it, though. From their website, “The electrical substation (Station 137), the hydroelectric generating facility (Station 2) and several other utility support facilities will remain and continue to function on the site after the project is complete.”
Ted says:

August 31, 2016 at 12:51 pm

Is this a brownfield site? Maybe RG&E can’t sell it until it’s cleaned-up.
Cathy says:

August 31, 2016 at 1:33 pm

Amazing photos. Thanks for sharing a look at part of our city’s history that is now gone.
Howard Shea says:

August 31, 2016 at 2:27 pm

I worked at Russell Station but spent some time at Beebee. Sorry to see them both go. Enjoyed the Beebee Pictures and the Russell ones ,too.
dan says:

August 31, 2016 at 2:47 pm

looks like a map straight out of my favorite video game of all time, SOCOM. Frost Fire and Chain Reaction. Would have been a cool place to play paintball if you could afford the liability insurance.
Kathleen Gilbert says:

August 31, 2016 at 11:00 pm

Amazing photos. Thank you so much for saving history in photos. A true masterpiece of art both the station and all your hard work work capturing such an amazing building.
Tom says:

September 1, 2016 at 12:32 pm

I still work with the company, i know every picture you posted is in the plant, started there 1982, it was an incredible place to work. the old house turbine room is where some of your pictures are from which you called the Steel Cavern is turbines that are in that picture from the 20’s and 30’s. Beebee was an engineering marvel. it is with great sadness to see her come down. I knew that plant inside and out.
Patricia Shaw Zapf says:

September 1, 2016 at 2:23 pm

Dad would sometimes take me through Sta 3 to see “how electricity was made”. Little did I know then that RGE would continue to be such a big part of my adult life, too…

Thanks for sharing!
Lisa Kleman says:

September 2, 2016 at 9:08 am

This was a wonderful photo narrative – thank you so very much! And the comments from people who worked in and/or remember this worksite are precious. Would love to read more of them with even more detail, to document for interested future people’s this part of history.
Scott K says:

September 3, 2016 at 1:31 pm

My machine design professor got us a tour in there a few years before the plant closed. The Old House was the creepiest, looking like something out of an old science fiction movie, with all of the large gauges, dark, dusty corners, and almost no lights. Moving through there was an adventure in itself. Especially on our return trip. We made our way through the dark, and took a rickety old elevator in the Old House back up to street level. It was tiny, with room for only 3 at a time, IIRC, and shook and rattled so much we wondered if we were going to make it up. The other end of the plant was completely different, everything spotlessly clean and brightly lit, “almost”, but not quite, boring by comparison. The operating turbines and ball mills wwere something to see, along with all of those spidery catwalks around everyting. (And those that looked up at the right time got an unexpected show due to one classmate’s mistaken decision on what to wear on the tour, oops!)
Alltogether an experiencce I’m glad to have had, especially “legally”.
Chris says:

September 4, 2016 at 4:34 pm

Thanks for the inside pictures of Beebee Station. While I was on the Genesse Brew House roof deck, they dropped a big section of the boiler building. There was quite a rumble and a lot of dust. I haven’t been able to find any inside pictures of Russell station but I was able to get some outside pictures of the demo before they moved the fence line out close to Beach Ave.
Chris Stone says:

September 7, 2016 at 12:39 pm

Great photos, thanks for the exploration and documentation.

The oldest parts of the facility have been there for well over a century, it was just given the name “Beebee” in 1959.

It’s a shame that RG&E chose to demolish and not save and/or repurpose the 6 story steel cavern and other interesting spaces.
Bo says:

September 7, 2016 at 1:06 pm

What a shame those record books from 1924 weren’t saved for their historical perspective.
josh says:

September 10, 2016 at 8:22 am

Very cool. Reminds me of some buildings at Kodak Park from the inside. I would love to go back to some of those.
Andy Garber says:

September 21, 2016 at 8:40 am

Beautiful shots.
Hope we see some cool salvage of some of the instruments from inside so we have something to remember this facility by.
Greg says:

September 27, 2016 at 10:06 pm

Thank you for the outstanding pictures Of Sta#3 and Beebee Station.I worked there for over 20 years and am sad to see it being torn down. The history of that statio, in both machinery and men, was unique and phenomenal. If anyone is interested in any history of the place, feel free to contact me at [email protected]. There are a thousand stories to be told.
Greg says:

September 27, 2016 at 10:10 pm

(A repost from 2014) Having worked at Beebee Station for 20 years, it is sad to see it go. People that are not aware of the history of this site would be surprised at the number of new technologies that were pioneered there. It once was the largest power plant east of the Mississippi. It once powered the Rochester subway system, made coke and an artificial gas substitute for natural gas. It originally was 50 cycles and later converted to 60. Extremely reliable, it supplied steam to downtown and was capable of generating 150 Megawatts or more. with the addition of Unit 12 in the 1950’s that number approached 200. Some of the turbo-generators go back to 1902, some other equipment even older. The first commercial Hydrogen cooled generator was used there.In it’s entire history it probably was only off-line 3 times, which is a stellar record. Pollution controls were installed there long before they were required (1930’s) Regardless of what it looks like now, it has been a marvelous piece of machinery that served Rochester well. Anyone interested in finding out more it’s history and the history of the dedicated men that worked there. Feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I will share what I know.
Greg says:

October 23, 2016 at 2:17 pm

This is what one city decided to do with part of a retired power plant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4
Joel Helfrich says:

November 12, 2016 at 1:40 pm

Thank you for the essay.

Seeing the photographs just makes it clear that there is no good reason why this story could not have had a different ending. Strategic demolition coupled with creative adaptive reuse could have won the day. It is another sad moment for the built environment in this city.
Andy says:

June 27, 2017 at 12:07 am

Hello. I’ve noticed that this was the last post about urban exploration on here. As of June 27, 2017, it’s been almost a year since anything was posted about this topic. I was hoping to learn about more abandoned places in this area that haven’t been knocked down or boarded up as of now but nothing has been posted about it. I’m just wondering why. Please reply! Thanks!!
Parker says:

August 9, 2017 at 11:53 pm

It’s a shame to see such an awesome place with cool history get torn down, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to get to the top roof when it was still up. My sister and I got in by easily sliding a piece of wood out of the door window and crawling through (I thought it was going to be harder to get in). We didn’t spend much time there but the view at the top was spectacular and all the stairs on the inside that lead to the roof were cool.

But great photos man! I sadly never got to take any photos on the inside or on the roof.
Andrew McKay says:

February 2, 2023 at 8:32 pm

My dad was a lab chemist with rge, and was called many times to check out gas leaks at that station. I would go with, but I vaguely remember being in that vast building. Thinking this is a pretty cool thing, thanks Dad! God Rest his soul

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Inside RG&E Beebee Power Plant – Just Before (and during) Demolition

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