A History of The Rochester, NY Camera and Lens Companies (1974)
nwmangum.com
nwmangum.com
I like to tell people that there was a time when there was a race to become, frankly, Chicago. Cities like Rochester, Buffalo, (Milwaukee?) competed -- but Chicago prevailed.
Similarly, Rochester was the original Hollywood. The film industry started there, and the original movie stars all had mansions on East Ave -- which are still up today. (Eventually everyone moved west, apocryphally to avoid the mob).
Lastly, did you know that there was a nuclear reactor in the basement of the Kodak building? Apparently the mayor, city council etc, never knew. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/2016/08/18/...
Rochester is great!
The Rochester International Jazz festival is fantastic too.
I searched for this and couldn't find anything. According to wikipedia:
> In the early 20th century, before Hollywood, the motion picture industry was based in Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River from New York City.[75][76][77] In need of a winter headquarters, moviemakers were attracted to Jacksonville, Florida due to its warm climate, exotic locations, excellent rail access, and cheaper labor, earning the city the title of "The Winter Film Capital of the World.
The movie business was also for quite some time a niche audience. There wasn't much of a market in developing specialty cameras for Hollywood--the real money was in home movies. A few firms such as Technicolor emerged to cater directly to the movie picture industry. Eventually, a tech cluster developed in Los Angeles.
And regarding Fort Lee, my understanding is that it remained a center of the animation industry until around the 1940s when Walt Disney moved to California.
[1] Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building the Studio System by Luci Marzola. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/engineering-hollywoo...
Rochester and Syracuse got their economic genesis in large part from the Erie Canal (leading to the NYC RR which terminated in Chicago), Buffalo to a relatively lesser degree but at no point was the economic magnitude of these ever in the same ballpark as Chicago which was an mercantile center long before the Rust Belt population and GDP peaking. There’s a nice recent article in the Atlantic about Kodak. Much like Pittsburgh (which is probably a more apt comparison) with US Steel and Alcoa.. Rochester relied on a oligopoly of Kodak and Xerox (that willingly gave up doing anything notable with all the great things from PARC). When they dwindled so did the city basically. Chicago has already lost even larger employers than Kodak (Sears, Motorola alone), the economy of the greater Chicago area is incomparably larger - I think even Schaumburg or Bolingbrook alone are bigger than the Rochester metro, certainly if you exclude URMC.
For the Rust Belt, Chicago was always literally the second city in terms of the railroads. So I’d argue all those cities listed prevailed in part because of Chicago.
And are you kidding?? The Erie Canal ran right through the city (likewise Syracuse, Utica, etc) and crossed the Genesee river on an old aqueduct that is still there today and interestingly carried the short lived Rochester subway. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Bridge_(Rochest.... The Canal put those places on the map and the New York Central maintained them there heading into the 20th century.
The Erie Canal was replaced by the New York Barge canal system which avoided the cities other than NYC and was ironically much larger than the Erie Canal though eclipsed by the railroads in fame by that point. Numerous sections in Western NY such as through Pittsford reused the Erie.
https://www.cityofrochester.gov/eriecanal/
Part of one of the expressways, I490, runs through downtown and still has some of the old canal locks next to it as the expressway approaches downtown.
As a current resident (hopefully changing that soon!), this place has gone seriously downhill. Used to be super cool, now... there are serious problems, and people have been shot on my street twice this month.
Churchville is an idyllic little town, because it's far enough out that the inner-city problems don't reach it. I don't feel safe downtown, and I understand why CCW applications have skyrocketed.
There's your problem. If you want to be in the city, stay in the SE quadrant
But I agree with the basic point (much less a contrast with much of Europe).
The first couple of times I planned a trip in the West that involved driving to different areas, I remember having to significantly modify plans when I realized I'd be driving rather than doing hikes.
The area is called Western New York.
Edit: yes it’s a joke.
Tappan Zee [sic] bridge maybe (that’s at least one arguable line).
I'd say Rochester is quite distinct from the Finger Lakes and "Western NY" is far easier to grasp. From this New Englander's perspective, I'm not sure everyone here could place the Finger Lakes on a map.
WNY is Utica westward, the Adirondacks are North of Utica, and we don't talk about the rest of it.
Yes, I'm speaking with tongue in cheek, but I'm representing the cultural lines as best I can.
And two of my co-op assignments were with IBM. With the Federal Sector Division in Owego and one of the labs in Endicott.
It's actually just a bit over a 2 hour drive from Owego to RIT.
I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs sometimes had that long of a commute between Pixar and Apple, given the traffic we have here.
Apparently located out there for defense reasons, easier for test flights outside major cities. All day long you see/hear helicopters taking off and landing
https://houseonrynkushill.com/wp-content/gallery/trinkets/ca...
https://www.rit.edu/news/rochester-rising-rit-helping-make-r...
https://13wham.com/news/local/some-experts-believe-rochester...
I have a decent number of classmates who stayed and can afford much larger houses than I can in sunny and expensive California. But they need that larger house because they can't do anything outside for 5 months of the year.
Yes, there's a real snow belt east of the Great Lakes. But with respect to there being "winter," you could say the same thing about a vast swath of the US. I live near Boston and I assure you there are tons of things I can do outside for those 5 months.
Also don’t forget Kodak had a huge presence in Germany. Kodak AG was an incredible source of innovation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neely_Nuclear_Research_Center
Surprisingly common in Universities.
The equity growth priority allows SV to hire talent from around the world before achieving profitability.
There’s a lot of tech talent in east coast finance. But it’s just the hired help for old money. And there is lots and lots in the defense sector, but it doesn’t seek publicity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley
I would also posit that CA coast (and west coast in general) weather, geographical amenities, and food are a big draw for many people. Fruits and vegetables taste better when they come from an hour away rather than across the country.
Plus, CA’s labor laws giving clear rights to people for their work on their own side projects and prohibition of non competes make it quite attractive for tinkerers and innovators.
Besides Wegmans, I struggle to argue your point. I really keep hoping for change and feel like the opportunity to use the local Universities as a source of economic growth just continue to be missed.
When I attended RIT I lived in downtown Rochester. I enjoyed it throughly. If you were stuck on campus it likely was a horrible time.