Mayor Lovely Warren recently announced a new effort to promote homeownership in the city of Rochester. She wants to expand the homeownership tax breaks that the city currently offers in downtown Rochester to all city neighborhoods.
The city of Rochester is gearing up for a few major construction projects that are all looking to change its current landscape and affordability. One program that will shift the housing market in Rochester is the Mission-Based Affordable Housing Partnership.
People of color in central New York aren’t getting a fair number of jobs in the construction industry, a local study finds. According to a new study by the Urban Jobs Task Force and the Legal Services of Central New York, there’s a major racial disparity in the New York construction industry despite people of color making up a quarter of the state population.
Hard to believe it’s been almost an entire year, but we’re back (expect future RocLinks on Saturdays), and it’s time to roll! From local development to just plain news of the weird, here are your RocLinks for this past week…
RocSubway is excited to share with you some exclusive pictures of an exciting downtown development. 210 South Avenue is currently being transformed into future commercial and residential space in the heart of downtown Rochester. The building currently known as the Merkel Donohue building—and its connected buildings—will be transformed into a mix of commercial & residential space and will go by the name of Woodbury Place…
The area around University of Rochester—both east and west of the river—has seen an explosion of new construction. RocSubway contributor Jimmy Combs ventured out this weekend to get a snapshot of the progress of three of these developments; College Town, The Flats at Brooks Crossing, and the new Golisano Children’s Hospital. All are due to open by 2015…
The latest Midtown renderings from Buckingham Properties are a promising sign of things to come. Still, it’s difficult to ignore this 18-story skeleton which has been looming over Rochester’s streets since 2011. When most people look up at this hulking mass of steel and concrete they see a blemish on the Rochester skyline. But for one urban explorer, this is a photo op.
The same anonymous photographer who took us inside Terrence Tower and the Sykes Datatronics building, climbed to the tippy top of midtown last week. He submitted this collection of photos and the following narrative…
In 2012 we were surprised to learn that RGRTA had dug up the foundation of the RKO Palace Theater while excavating for the new transit terminal. This week, Jim Memmott reported on some more fantastic treasures that were unearthed at the same site. Some time last year seven heavy stones (some weighing a ton) were pulled up from depths of up to 30 feet below street level. Each stone bore a symbol of the Freemasons…
For the past few weeks workers have been attacking a 100 ton hunk of slag that was discovered at the Port of Rochester last spring. Yesterday I noticed the giant plume of smoke from the O’rorke Bridge and made my way down to the scene of this epic battle. When the dust settles, who will remain standing? Man? Or The Slag?
David DiPonzio, a firefighter with the Lake Shore Fire District in Greece, sent me these photos (taken by friend Fred Amato) of a strange-looking crater in the middle of the parking lot at Ontario Beach Park. An asteroid? Uh, not quite. This may be the most interesting archeological find since RGRTA dug up the RKO Palace. That big rock you see in the center of the crater is actually a giant hunk of slag – left over from the iron or steel mill that once operated here…
The photo above was taken in January, 2011. Late last year we looked at the plans for the new public spaces at Midtown Plaza. Work on the site is now progressing quickly – and those plan drawings are becoming reality. The old Midtown buildings are gone. The new Windstream building is mostly complete. And this week, the first street curbs have been installed giving shape to the new Cortland Street. Here’s a birds-eye view of the past 30 months progress…
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After the Erie Canal was rerouted south of downtown Rochester, the Rochester
Industrial & Rapid Transit Railway (the subway) was built in
its place as a link between the five different railroads and interurban trolley
lines that served the Rochester area. As the industrial landscape of Rochester
changed, and highways replaced the railroads, the Rochester subway gradually
became a relic of a bygone era. In 1956 the subway was abandoned and much of
its route was converted into Interstate 490 built to connect Rochester
with the New York State Thruway (I-90). Read more about the history of the Rochester Subway.
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