Over the past year I’ve been itching to move downtown (“Oh, you live really downtown” is the common response upon mentioning my address). This past spring I finally ripped the bandaid and moved out of my mom’s house. In the month between choosing where to live and moving in, I scoped out my new neighborhood nearly every day. It was always obvious that surface parking lots dominated the usable land in the St. Joseph’s Park neighborhood, or as I like to call it, St. Joseph’s Parking Lot. What shocked me was one particular lot that never saw a car. Morning, noon, and night I drove by the lot on the Northwest corner of the intersection at Franklin & Pleasant Streets . Every time there sat only a rusty chain and two cones across the entrance…
The image above was created by Tristan O’Tierney last October in the Rochester Subway. Tristan attached a common kitchen whisk to some string, put some fine grade steel wool inside the whisk, lit the wool on fire, and then swung the whisk around for a 30 second exposure. The result is perhaps the most beautiful version of spin art we’ve ever seen.
From local development, to just plain news of the weird, here are your RocLinks for this past week…
Well, it’s time to celebrate. Rochester has just won the 2014 Streetsblog USA Parking Madness tournament . To outsiders, Rochester is a Cinderella story (who in the world would have picked us to beat out Detroit in the second round?). But anyone who reads this blog is probably not surprised. We’ve been fighting the parking madness mindset on these pages for years. It’s just that now, the national blogosphere knows about Rochester’s dirty little parking problems. Our asphalt is hanging out there for the world to see.
How embarrassing. Right? Some people have asked, “Why would we want to win such a negative contest? Doesn’t this paint Rochester in a bad light?” Now the man who nominated Rochester, Matthew Denker, explains why he did…
It’s March madness, PARKING madness, or just plain MADNESS indeed. We’ve discussed Rochester’s parking problem at length here on RocSubway. Now, all of our hard work— demolishing our city and building parking lots—is paying off. Rochester has worked its way into Streetsblog’s nationwide Parking Madness tournament . Which of these 16 cities has the absolute worst urban parking crater? Readers from around the country will decide.
Take a look at what our downtown has become over the years. From a densely packed and vibrant town square, to the giant parking crater we have today.
Last week we annihilated Miami to earn a spot in the “elite eight.” In this latest round Rochester closed a sizable gap against Detroit, and it now looks like we may beat the Motor City. But there are still a few hours left, so vote now . And tell your buddies… We’re #1!
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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.
RochesterSubway.com exists to help spark
public dialogue around how we can better connect the neighborhoods of Rochester
NY, surrounding communities, and their cultural offerings. Rochester’s
future is written in her past. Let's rediscover it.
![An empty parking lot in downtown Rochester at Franklin & Pleasant Streets. [PHOTO: Young Urban Preservationists]](https://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/parking-day-2015-02.jpg)
. Every time there sat only a rusty chain and two cones across the entrance…![Tristan O'Tierney creates a fiery version of spin art in the Rochester Subway. [PHOTO: Tristan O'Tierney, Flickr]](http://rochestersubway.com/images/photos/rochester-subway-sparks-tristanotierney.jpg)
![Rochester faces off against Detroit today in Streetsblog's Parking Madness tourney. [IMAGE: usa.streetsblog.org]](https://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/parking_madness_2014_11.jpg)
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