Rochester (New York)

Rochester ( /ˈrɒtʃɛstər, _-ɪs-/) is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County and the fourth most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo and Yonkers with a population of 211,328 as of 2020. The city of Rochester forms the core of a larger metropolitan area with a population of 1 million people, in six counties. The city was one of the first boomtowns in the United States, initially due to the fertile Genesee River valley, which gave rise to numerous flour mills, and later as a manufacturing center, which spurred rapid population growth.

Rochester rose to prominence as the birthplace and headquarters of some of America's most iconic companies, notably Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb (along with Wegmans, Gannett, Paychex, Western Union, French's, Constellation Brands, Ragú and others), so the region became a global center of science, technology and research and development. This status has been aided by the presence of several internationally renowned universities (notably the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology) and their research programs; These schools, along with many other smaller colleges, have played an increasingly important role in Greater Rochester's economy. Rochester has also played a key role in United States history as a center for certain important social/political movements, especially abolitionism and the women's rights movement.

Today, Rochester's economy is defined by technology and education (aided by a highly educated workforce, research institutions, and other strengths born in the past). While the city experienced a significant loss of population as a result of deindustrialization, strong growth in the education and health sectors driven by elite universities, and the slower decline of core companies such as Eastman Kodak and Xerox (as opposed to the rapid decline of heavy industry with steel companies in Buffalo and Pittsburgh) resulted in a much less severe contraction than in most Rust Belt metropolitan areas. The Rochester metropolitan area is the third largest regional economy in New York, after the New York City metropolitan area and the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area. Rochester's gross metropolitan product is $50.6 billion, above those of Albany and Syracuse, but below that of Buffalo.

Rochester is also known for its culture, particularly its musical culture; Institutions such as the Eastman School of Music (considered one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world) and the Rochester International Jazz Festival anchor a vibrant music industry, ranked as one of the top 10 music scenes in the United States in terms of the concentration of musicians and music-related businesses. It is the site of multiple major festivals each year (such as the Lilac Festival, the aforementioned Jazz Festival, the Rochester Fringe Festival and others that attract hundreds of thousands of attendees each one) and is home to several world-famous museums, including The Strong National Museum of Play and the George Eastman Museum, the oldest collection of photographs in the world and one of the largest.

The Rochester metro is highly rated for livability and quality of life and is often considered one of the best places in America for families due to the low cost of living and highly rated public schools. qualified. and a low unemployment rate. However, there is a wide divide between its inner-city component (which has at times had the highest child poverty rate in the nation) and its wealthy, well-educated southern suburbs. It is considered a global city, classified by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as having sufficient status.

History

The Seneca Tribe of Native Americans lived in and around Rochester until they lost the right to most of this land in the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797. The prior settlement of the Seneca tribe is unknown.

19th century

The development of Rochester followed the Revolution of the Thirteen Colonies and the forced cession of its territory by the Iroquois after the defeat of Great Britain. Allied with the British, four large Iroquois tribes were expelled from New York. As a reward for their loyalty to the British crown, they were given a large land grant on the Grand River in Canada.

Rochester was founded shortly after the American Revolution by a wave of New England immigrants descended from English Puritans seeking new agricultural lands. They were the dominant cultural group in Rochester for over a century. On November 8, 1803, Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, Major Charles Carroll, and Colonel William Fitzhugh, Jr., all of Hagerstown, Maryland, purchased a 40-acre tract of land. ha of the state in western New York along the Genesee River. They chose the site because its three falls on Genesee offered great potential for water power. Beginning in 1811, and with a population of 15, the three founders surveyed the land and laid out streets and tracts. In 1817, the Brown brothers and other landowners united their lands with the Hundred Acre Tract to form the town of Rochesterville.

In 1821, Rochesterville was the county seat of Monroe County. In 1823, it consisted of 1,012 acres (4 km²) and 2,500 residents, and the town of Rochesterville became known as Rochester. Also in 1823, the Erie Canal Aqueduct over the Genesee River was completed and the Erie Canal east of the Hudson River was opened. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the arrival of the railways, the presence of the canal in the center of the city was a obstacle; It was diverted south of Rochester in 1918 when the Barge Canal was completed. In 1830, Rochester's population was 9,200, and in 1834, it became a city again.

Rochester was first known as 'the young lion of the west', and then as the 'flour city'. In 1838, it was the largest flour-producing city in the United States. Having doubled its population in just 10 years, Rochester became America's first boomtown.

In 1830-1831, Rochester experienced one of the largest Protestant revival movements in the nation, led by Charles Grandison Finney. The revival inspired other Second Great Awakening revivals. A prominent New York pastor, who was converted at the Rochester meetings, gave this account of Finney's meetings there: "The whole community was moved. Religion was the topic of conversation at home, in the store, in the office and on the street. The town's only theater was converted into a livery stable; the only circus in a soap and candle factory. The grog shops were closed; The Sabbath was honored; the sanctuaries were crowded with happy worshipers; a new impetus was given to every philanthropic enterprise; The fountains of benevolence were opened and men lived for good.

In the middle of the 19th century, when the center of the wheat processing industry moved west with the population and agriculture, the city became home to an expanding nursery business, giving rise to the city's second nickname, the City of Flowers. Nurseries surrounded the city, the most famous of which was started in 1840 by immigrants Georg Ellwanger from Germany and Patrick Barry from Ireland.

In 1847, Frederick Douglass founded the abolitionist newspaper North Star in Rochester. A former slave and antislavery speaker and writer, he gained a circulation of more than 4,000 readers in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. North Star served as a forum for abolitionist views. Douglass' house burned in 1872, but a marker for it is in Highland Park, on South Avenue.

Susan B. Anthony, national leader of the women's suffrage movement, was from Rochester. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in 1920, which guaranteed women's right to vote, was known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment because of her work for its passage, which she did not live to see. The Anthony House is a National Historic Landmark known as the Susan B. Anthony National House and Museum.

At the end of the 19th century, the anarchist Emma Goldman lived and worked in Rochester for several years, championing the cause of work in the Rochester sweatshops. Rochester also had significant unrest in labor, racial, and anti-war protests.

After the Civil War, Rochester saw an expansion of new industries in the late 19th century, founded by migrants to the city. including inventor and businessman George Eastman, who founded Eastman Kodak, and German immigrants John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb, who launched Bausch. & Lomb in 1861. Not only did they create new industries, but Eastman also became a major philanthropist, developing and endowing the University of Rochester, its Eastman School of Music, and other local institutions.

20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, Rochester became a center of the clothing industry, especially fashion masculine. It was the base for clothing stores Bond, Fashion Park Clothes, Hickey Freeman and Stein-Bloch and Co. Carriage manufacturer James Cunningham and Sons founded the pioneering Cunningham automobile company.

Rochester's black population tripled to more than 25,000 during the 1950s. Casually employed by the city's iconic industries, most African Americans in the city worked low-skill, low-wage jobs, and lived in substandard housing. Discontent erupted in the 1964 Rochester race riots. Triggered by the attempted arrest of a drunken 19-year-old black man at a street party, order was restored after three days, and only after Governor Nelson Rockefeller called in the National Guard. By the time the riot ended, five people had died (four in a helicopter crash) and 350 were injured. Nearly a thousand people were arrested and 204 stores were looted or damaged.

In the wake of the riots, Rochester-area churches, along with black civil rights leaders, invited Saul Alinsky of the Industrial Areas Foundation to help the community organize. With the Reverend Franklin Florence, who had been close to Malcolm.

The population reached 62,386 in 1870, 162,608 in 1900, and 295,750 in 1920. By 1950, the population had peaked at 332,488. In 1950, the Census Bureau reported that the population of Rochester was 97.6% white and 2.3% black. With industrial restructuring at the end of the XX century and the decline in industry and jobs in the area, by 2018, the city's population had decreased to 206,284 (although the metropolitan area was considerably larger) with 46.58% recorded as white and 40.71% as black. or African American.

Geography

Rochester is located in upstate New York. The city is 117 km east-northeast of Buffalo and about 140 km west of Syracuse. Albany, the state capital, is 364 km to the east; It is located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. The Genesee River divides the city in two. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is 270 km to the northwest and New York is about 402 km to the southeast.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 96 km², of which 93 km² is land and 3 km² is covered by water (3.42%).

The geography of Rochester was formed by ice sheets during the Pleistocene epoch. The retreating ice sheets stopped at what is now the southern edge of the city, melting at the same rate as they advanced, depositing sediment along the southern edge of the ice mass. This created a line of hills, including (from west to east) Mt. Hope, the Highland Park Hills, Pinnacle Hill, and Cobb's Hill. Because the sediment from these hills was deposited in a proglacial lake, they are stratified and classified as a 'kame delta'. A brief retreat and advance of the ice sheet over the delta deposited unstratified material there, creating a rare hybrid structure called 'kame moraine'.

The ice sheets also created Lake Ontario (one of the five Great Freshwater Lakes), the Genesee River with its waterfalls and gorges, Irondequoit Bay, Sodus Bay, Braddock Bay, Mendon Ponds, numerous local streams and ponds, the Ridge and the nearby Finger Lakes.

Rochester has 864 km of public roads, 941 km of aqueducts, 44 vehicular and eight pedestrian bridges, 11 public libraries, two police stations (one for the east and one for the west) and 15 fire stations. The main source of water is Hemlock Lake, which, with its watershed, is owned by the state of New York. Other water sources include Lake Canadice and Lake Ontario. The 30-year annual snowfall average is just above 100 in (2.5 m). The monthly daily average ranges from 24.7 degrees Fahrenheit (−4.1 °C) in January to 70.8 degrees Fahrenheit (70°F) in July. The large amount of snow Rochester receives can be explained by the city's proximity to Lake Ontario (see lake effect snow).

Government

The city government consists of a mayor and a municipal council made up of four councilors elected by district and five more elected by the entire city.

Population

In the 2000 census, the city recorded a population of 219,773 inhabitants. In 2007, the population was estimated to have decreased to 199,697. The metropolitan area (consisting of Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, and Wayne counties) had a population of 1,098,201 at the 2000 census.

Climate

Average climate parameters of Rochester, New York (Greater Rochester Int'l), normal 1991–2020, extremes 1871−present
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	23.3	22.8	30	33.9	34.4	37.8	38.9	37.2	37.2	32.8	27.2	22.2	38.9
Average temperature (°C)	0.8	1.8	6.4	13.1	20.8	25.5	28.1	26.9	23.1	16.2	9.5	3.6	14.7
Average temperature (°C)	-3.2	-2.6	1.8	8.2	14.9	19.8	22.4	21.5	17.6	11.2	5.3	0	9.7
Temp. medium (°C)	-7.2	-6.9	-2.9	2.8	9	14.1	16.8	16.1	12	6.3	1.1	-3.7	4.8
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	-27.2	- 30	-22.8	-13.9	-3.3	1.7	5.6	2.2	-2.2	-7.2	-17.2	-26.7	- 30
Total precipitation (mm)	64.8	54.1	63.2	75.9	72.6	85.6	90.4	84.1	80.8	81.8	70.1	67.8	891.3
Nevadas (cm)	69.6	58.7	45.5	7.6	0.3	0	0	0	0	0.3	20.6	56.6	259.1
Precipitation days (≥ 0.2 mm)	19.6	16.4	15.4	13.4	12.4	11.5	11.2	10.3	11.1	13.9	14.9	18.1	168.2
Days of snowfall (≥ 0.2 cm)	17.6	15.0	10.1	3.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2	5.7	13.5	65.2
Hours of sun	108.3	118.1	177.7	216.5	266.5	297.6	314.4	273.4	212.3	154.4	81.5	77.5	2298.2
Relative humidity (%)	74.0	74.1	71.0	67.0	67.2	69.4	69.7	74.3	76.8	74.5	76.3	77.5	72.6
Source: NOAA (humidity and sunny hours 1961–1990)

Sports

Urban landscape

Main suburbs

The city's main suburbs include:

• Brighton
• Brockport
• Chili
• East Rochester
• Fairport
• Gates
• Greece
• Henrietta
• Hilton
• Irondequoit
• Penfield
• Pittsford
• Spencerport
• Victor
• Webster

Neighborhoods

Rochester has a number of neighborhoods, as well as popular communities in the nearby suburbs of Brighton, Irondequoit, and Greece. Officially recognized communities include: 19th Ward, Community 14621, Barnard, Beechwood, Browncroft, Cascade District, Cobbs Hill, Charlotte, Corn Hill, Dewey, Dutchtown, Edgerton, German Village, Grove Place, High Falls District, Lyell-Otis, Maplewood, Marketview Heights, Mount Read, Park Avenue, Plymouth-Exchange, Southwest, East End, South Wedge, Swillburg, University-Atlantic and Upper Monroe.

Education

The Rochester Community School District operates the city's public schools.

Featured Characters

Born in Rochester, famous rock singer and songwriter Lou Gramm (born Louis Andrew Grammatico, May 2, 1950) has been the charismatic voice of various groups, including highlight Foreigner, with which he achieved international fame. In addition, he has been a soloist for other groups such as Shadow King and Black Sheep. Currently, he fronts The Lou Gramm Band.

Kim Gordon, vocalist, guitarist and bassist of the no wave group Sonic Youth, was also born in Rochester.

Other notable personalities who were born or lived in the city include Susan B. Anthony, Cab Calloway, George Eastman, Renée Fleming, Howard Hanson, Jon Jones, Wang Leehom, Ryan Lochte, Joe Arlauckas, Jenna Marbles, Alisa Weilerstein and Kristen Wiig.

Twinnings

Rochester has twinning agreements with eleven cities, as designated by Sister Cities International. They are dedicated on a pedestrian bridge over the Genesee River, called the Sister Cities Bridge (officially called the 'Frank and Janet Lamb' Sister Cities Bridge' since October 2006, in honor of Mayor Lamb and his wife, who were instrumental in the founding of Sister Cities International).

• Bamako, Mali
• Caltanissetta, Italy
• Krakow, Poland
• Hamamatsu, Japan
• Novgorod, Russia
• Rehovot, Israel
• Rennes, France
• San Felipe de Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
• Waterford, Ireland
• Wurzburg, Germany
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