Roc the Riverway Weekend – Insider Walk to High Falls

We have probably all been warned at some point not to fall in love with potential. But if you have ever walked over the Pont de Rennes Bridge near the Genesee Brewery, you can’t help but look down and think what a game changer it would be if Rochester developed the land around its best feature – High Falls. How many acres of brownfield are there, crying out for remediation and development? Close your eyes, and can’t you envision hotels, apartments, restaurants, a park and a boardwalk, and who knows, maybe even a performing arts center? Instead, it’s a wasteland, with the occasional deer sighting.

This past weekend was something called Roc the Riverway Weekend, with special events along the river, including Sam Patch boat tours (temporarily relocated from the Erie Canal), renewing of vows on the banks of the Genesee (I couldn’t get Charlie to do this with me!), and various other bike, boat, and walking tours. But the thing that intrigued me most was a tour to the base of the falls, through the RG&E-owned property (organized by the Genesee Land Trust). It intrigued about 100 other people as well, many with professional photography equipment! According to the tour leader, this was the first one of its kind, and hopefully not the last. 

We descended the hill next to where RG&E’s Beebe Station used to be, and stopped briefly to learn about the odd structure that remains from the days when coal would be delivered by train to a plant that would turn it into gas. 






Next stop was to view the derelict building with the smokestack, where, around the turn of the century, recyclable materials would be sorted, metal separated out, and the remainder burned to create steam for the surrounding buildings (if I understood correctly).

Once we reached the bottom, we were led through normally-locked gates, under the Pont de Rennes Bridge (where we were admonished not to pause because of potential falling objects, and it wasn’t clear if the fear was from the bridge itself or the people on the bridge), to the water’s edge.

It was thrilling to be so close to the river and to see and hear the falls from river-level. It was also depressing, since I have no faith that Iberdrola (RG&E’s parent company) will ever invest the funds to clean up the site (at least one of the individual parcels is part of the “Voluntary Cleanup Program” – the operative word being “voluntary”…). 

It appears that the entire mass of land is mostly owned by RG&E (about 20 acres?) with some additional property owned by the City. Given the relatively low priority of revitalization of the falls, compared to so many other pressing needs in Rochester, the land will most likely remain tantalizingly out of reach, except for the deer, who perhaps deserve a bit of refuge...