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17 September, 2008

Rochester, We're close to cool things!

If you are in the Rochester, NY area, you may have heard a series of ads that are designed to show that Rochester is a pretty cool place to live.

I heard one in particular the other day that piqued my interest. In a nutshell, a guy on a plane is trying to convince the guy next to him that Rochester isn't such a bad place to live.

Before I go any further, let me say, Rochester isn't such a bad place to live. Are there shortcomings? sure, you'd be hard pressed to find a city that didn't have shortcomings. The key is to find a place whose shortcomings are outweighed by the positives.

Any way.. back to the ad..

The guy lists 6 things that are cool about living in Rochester. The problem is, only one of the 6 things is in Rochester (Strong Museum, I'm assuming he is referring to the Strong Museum of Play). Another one could be considered the 'Rochester area' (Letchworth Park). The others are more than an hour away (Riche Stadium, The Carrier Dome, both 75 minutes, Toronto is a 3 hr drive, and NY is an hour flight).

Nothing against the other venues, but if you are trying to say what's good about Rochester, how about keeping it to Rochester, or at least Monroe County. If you want to stretch it, include the 6 county 'Rochester Area'.

Things like:
- Charlotte (walk the pier, ride the carousel, have a picnic, etc...)
- A burger at Bill Grays or Tom Whals
- Catch a game from one of the teams that have one a championship in the last couple of years (Knighthawks, Rattlers, Razorsharks, Raiders)? Granted, only 2 of the leagues are at the top of that sport, but a championship is a championship
- Walk a canal trail in any number of communities along the Canal
- In the winter, go ice skating at Manhattan Square Park
- Catch a play in one of several venues (and I'm not talking about Renaissance square..)
- Hungry? Pretty much any type of food can be found nearby
- Golf at one of the countless golf courses, including world class Oak Hill

And the list goes on.

Do you have anything that you like to do in the Rochester Area? What do you do when friends and family come in from out of town?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with your comments. After a visit to St Louis I learned that just about any city has many interesting attractions. When I first moved to the Rochester area in 1969, we visited the Seneca Park Zoo. Having been raised on the Buffalo Zoo, I was extremely disappointed in what Seneca Park offered at that time. However over the past decades great improvements have been made and the Zoo is still growing. it is a wonderful place to spend the day!

Jess said...

I think that Nick Tahou's should not be left off the list