Rochester in New York Should Be on Everyone’s Travel List
Rochester, New York, is a history hub, horticultural centre, and foodie haven. It’s having a much deserved, overdue moment, and it’s time you discovered it for yourself.
Start downtown, and enjoy unobstructed views of the towering 96-foot-tall High Falls while having a bite and pint at Genesee Brew House, the oldest brewery in the state. Nearby, Rochester’s Public Market, one of the oldest and largest in the country, is a great place to stroll and nibble, thanks to over 300 vendors offering everything from baked goods to ethnic delicacies year-round. While the likes of Lento, led by James Beard semifinalist Art Rogers, and Redd have catapulted Rochester into the national spotlight, classics such as Abbott’s Frozen Custard, Zweigle’s red and white hots, and Nick Tahou’s Garbage Plate are bucket-list eats. Garbage Plate, considered Rochester’s signature dish, is a melange of meat, home fries, baked beans and/or macaroni salad topped with a spicy meat sauce.
A boom town in the 19th century, Rochester was the largest flour-producing city in the United States, earning the nickname Flour City. By midcentury, it evolved into a nursery hub, nicknamed Today, phenomenal florals are found at the vintage 1867 Ellwanger Garden featuring more than 25 beds of perennials, Lamberton Conservatory, home to desert plants and exotic blooms, and Maplewood Rose Garden with over 250 cultivars on display. Every May for 125 years, enthusiasts have flocked to Rochester’s 10-day Lilac Festival, the largest collection of lilacs in North America with more than 1,800 bushes and over 500 varieties.
In the late 19th century, George Eastman founded Eastman Kodak, and along with Henry Strong developed the now nostalgic Kodak. Today, the George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum, with nearly 5,000,000 artifacts. Nearby, The Strong National Museum of Play is a massive, immersive, interactive, and entertaining cathedral housing the world’s largest collection of historical materials related to play, as well as a National Toy Hall of Fame and World Video Game Hall of Fame. Young or old, this place will keep you entertained for hours.
The National Susan B. Anthony Museum honours the women’s rights icon and even hosts an annual 19th Amendment party, celebrating the right to vote. Around the corner in historic Susan B. Anthony Square, a bronze sculpture titled Let’s Have Tea immortalizes the friendship between Anthony and fellow civil rights champion and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Visitors are encouraged to embark on a self-guided walking tour that highlights significant locations of the statesman’s life and work around the city and gaze upon the eight-foot-tall bronze statue of “Rochester’s Son” in Highland Park, believed to be the first public statue erected in honour of an African American in the United States.
