I’ve never been a real type A sort of a person or not much at least. I do get impatient and maybe think dark thoughts when I get stuck up behind someone doing one of those interminable lottery transactions that involve quick picks or box bets and feeding endless op scans through some stupid machine and, of course, handing a big pile of money across the counter. And all I want to do is just buy my snack. Alas, so maybe an type A minus but just sometimes. And so, in an effort to reform myself, and taking things a little more Bob Marley style, I have been embarking on some small and pointless adventures of late given my retired person status.
And then there I was standing on the platform of the Buffalo Amtrak with my little folding bike and a rucksack, waiting on the morning train to Rochester. The train I was riding was the Empire Service that runs from Niagara Falls down to New York City. Up until 1971, Penn Central ran this line, but subsequently sold all the assets and equipment to Amtrak. The train used to end at Grand Central, but other trains left from Penn, so passengers had to take a shuttle. In the 1990’s, work was completed on the Empire Connector that allowed the Amtrak to make it all the way to Penn Station. As the trains leave Penn, an electrified third rail is used to get out of Moynihan Train Hall without spewing diesel into the interior space. When the train reaches Albany, a different GE locomotive takes it the rest of the way. At some point in the future, the 1970’s era equipment will be replaced with Siemens Charger locomotives with battery power, making the third rail unnecessary, plus some very sexy Siemens Venture cars. There has been talk about electrifying the whole line with overhead wires and fixing up the tracks to support speeds over 100mph. I can hardly wait.
The non-purpose of my trip was twofold. First, I wanted to find an old subway tunnel downtown that had been used for a rapid transit system that operated from 1927 to 1956 on a disused section of the Erie Canal. I have often been in Genesee Valley Park and seen the Erie Canal, but never noticed that it actually crosses the Genesee river at that point, which seems complicated. Apparently, a set of “guard gates” are used to keep the river where it belongs during floods or when the canal is drained in winter. Who knew?
Anyhow, I checked out the subway tunnel and it didn’t disappoint.I guess over time the depression started killing it off, then the branch lines that connected with the system died off and finally the rise of urban expressways, with the Inner Loop creating a moat through poor neighborhoods and the Can of Worms interchange serving as a gold standard for wasting expensive urban space. Thankfully, both of these projects have been torn out over time.
So I saw the tunnel, which was cool.
Riding around the city I found the Fredrick Douglass home site. While in Washington, I was able to visit the Douglass home in Anacostia, which was a beautiful site with fruit trees and high ceilings. Historians have wondered why Douglass maintained a not so nice home in Rochester when his life was all in DC, along with his very nice house. Apparently, at the time, DC residents could not vote, but as a NY resident, Douglass could vote. After this freed slave worked tirelessly to get the vote for black people, it was perhaps worth it to him. His final resting place is in the Mount Hope cemetery. What an American patriot badass he turned out to be.
I checked out the iconic Kodak building. When I was a kid, I used to process photographic film and do printmaking, swirling Tri-X Pan in a can of Dektol and dumping it down the sink because what’s the possible harm, then working under eerie red safelight as the picture slowly emerged in living black and white. Apparently that film had a little smidgen of silver and over the years, Kodak dumped tons of the stuff in the genesee river, where it went to the bottom and collected in the mud and fishes and such. After declaring bankruptcy in 2012, they emerging from bankruptcy in 2013, having “shed its large legacy liabilities, restructured, and exited several businesses”. Being a great American Corporation, Kodak took responsibility for cleaning up the mess in the Genesee River stuck the state taxpayers with a $15 million cleanup bill. I did love that Kodachrome though.
Rochester has some cool buildings, including the brutalist Xerox Tower
Also, the 1974 First Federal Plaza, which features a revolving restaurant that broke in the 1990’s and stopped all the revolving, which was then home to an attorney who was later disbarred, and now is apparently in search of new tenants.
After some history, it was time for some fun. I joined this fancy climbing gym in Buffalo and part of the membership includes being able to visit their facilities in other cities, so I threw my bike in the corner and scampered up and down some fake rocks and of course took a free shower
Afterward, I wanted to get some of this Pho soup that I have trouble pronouncing but not eating. I tried making a batch at home and it was a heartbreaking failure. First you have to get these big cow bones from the local rendering yard, braise them in the oven and stink up the whole world, slow cook them for a day, and then end up with this greasy broth which you are supposed to strain the grease from. Not having good grease straining equipment, things went downhill from there. The whole meal was not good. Having a new appreciation for the nightmare of Pho cooking, I found a little place and enjoyed a heavenly bowl of hot soup on a cold day, just me and my little fold up bike.
Making my way back to the train station, I was able to catch a late afternoon departure that put me back home in time to make dinner for Kate, who has an actual job and comes home all hungry and such. And thus ended my small and largely pointless adventure in foldup bike tourism.
I was very interesting in the old suburban train as a teenager and college student growing up in Rochester. Visited the aqueduct that the Erie Canal went over the Genesee River in, the Upper Falls by Kodak Park and several sections of the old Suburban Railroad line that is now the highway to Pittsford and beyond. A fascinating bit of history I am glad you wrote about as it filled in several missing parts in my memory and had photos to boot!