Brawnfire posted:

[https://usmodernist.org/AIANYS/AIANYS-1955-01-02.pdf]

Brawnfire posted:

That's why I make sure to include sources for even the silly poo poo.

Welcome to page 4!

quote:

On 19 October 1869, King ascended from Rochester, New York, with his monster balloon the “Hyperion,” in the presence of nearly 50,000 persons, carrying a party of seven. The weather was unfavorable, the wind boisterous, threatening clouds flew across the sky, flurries of snow were frequent, and the cold was searching. In four and a half minutes, although gas had been discharged from the valve, they entered a snow-cloud. The balloon moved at the rate of forty miles an hour, the cold was intense, night came on, and the party were in the midst of a driving snow storm. The weight of snow that collected on the top of the balloon drove it to the ground, and a forced landing in an open field was made in the squall; but the anchor did not hold, and the balloon bounded over a piece of woods, alighting on the other side. Here the anchor held for a while, the gas escaping from the valve, but, unfortunately, two of the party got out of the basket, and the balloon, thus lightened, broke loose and bounded upon a side hill and at last ran against a tree, a huge rent being made in the machine, so that the gas escaped almost instantly. The party had landed near Cazenovia.

”D&C” posted:

Robert Timothy French was a spice trader in Elmira who started his own company in 1880. One of his sons, George, visited Fairport on a business trip three years later and liked what he saw enough to buy a mill and move the business there.
When an 1885 fire destroyed the mill, French's moved to Brown's Race near the Upper Falls in Rochester. While the company manufactured spices and extracts, George's brother, Francis, lobbied for a new kind of prepared mustard, one that was milder, lighter and creamier than the mustards of the time. By 1904, the company had developed its signature item — French's Cream Salad Brand Mustard, which was introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair and immediately became a big hit. The recipe has remained essentially the same since, while the name has slightly changed.

”D&C posted:

The R.T. French Co. moved to a new headquarters off East Main Street in 1912. The address became part of the company's ads: "Good things to eat come from 1 Mustard Street."

”D&C” posted:

French's introduced the "Hot Dan the Mustard Man" advertising campaign in 1932 and began attaching Hot Dan spoons to jars of mustard. The campaign continued to be the keystone of French's advertising until it was phased out in the 1940s. The spoons became a hot item for collectors who fondly remembered Hot Dan, as Peter B. Taub wrote in a 1982 Times-Union column.
"For such a small item, it was surprising how popular they were," French's top ad man told Taub. "Thousands of people wrote in for them, and French's mailed them in a special cardboard tube. A lot of women said the spoons were the best thing they could find for feeding their babies."

”D&C” posted:

The next year [1987], French's announced its plans to leave Rochester completely. Office operations and test kitchens were transferred to New Jersey. The news hit Rochesterians hard.
A French's official called it "the end of an era." Phil Ebersole wrote in a Democrat and Chronicle story that the company's yellow mustard jar "was once as distinctive a symbol of Rochester as Eastman Kodak Co.'s yellow box of film." A Democrat and Chronicle editorial lamented, "No longer will the label on the familiar yellow jar say 'Rochester, N.Y.' Newcomers to the city won't know why there's a place called One Mustard Street … We've lost a piece of history."

quote:

Q. After the Air Force you played and recorded with the Mangione Brothers. What a great band that was. Can you talk about that experience?

A. When I got out of the service I came back home to Rochester, and there was a club there called The Pythodd. It was a jazz club and had a great bunch of jazz musicians playing there from the Rochester area, and outside Rochester. That area brought in a lot of musicians. I think because the Eastman School of Music was there.

I was home for about two or three weeks and got the gig playing at this club. It wasn’t an organized group then. It was just a bunch of different guys playing every night. The bass player was Ron Carter. He was going to school there. Pee Wee Ellis was tenor saxophone player – who played with James Brown for years, and a lot of different people. Sal Nistico. Joe Romano. A lot of different musicians from upstate.

So, we were playing there. Chuck [Mangione] was playing there too, and his brother Gap [Mangione]. Occasionally. It just kind of developed into Chuck’s group. He started writing tunes and it became an organized group. We were working at The Pythodd six nights a week. It was a sextet. There was, Gap, and Chuck, and myself. Ron left to go to New York. Bill Saunders was the bass player. Larry Combs. And Sal Nistico was in that band. It was just a great band.

quote:

Panken: Describe the circuit a bit.

Donaldson: Well, it was the greatest circuit in the world. I’m the only one that did it—first. Then McDuff and Groove Holmes and Jimmy McGriff and all of them came in later. We started in Rochester at a place called the Pythodd. Jon Hendricks’ brother owned it—Stewart Hendricks. Then we’d go from there to Buffalo, to the Pine Grill. Or another place up there was the Bon Ton. We had about four clubs we could work. Then we’d go to Pittsburgh, play Crawford’s Grill. Then we’d segue into Cleveland. Now, all these places were short jumps. So we didn’t have no transportation problems or nothin’. We’d go to Cleveland. We’d play Leo’s Casino.

Brawnfire posted:

A business card for the Pythodd Room.

Guy Axlerod posted:

Roads in Rochester have been done to death with the inner loop. I was wondering about the bay bridge and 104 corridor. There are a couple scenic overlooks and parking areas that got closed around the time of the bridge rehab in the early '90s. It might be interesting to see some of the vision for the suburban parts of the "commuter's paradise".

quote:

Here stands one of the oldest pieces of earth known to man. The complex crystalline structure of this boulder shows that it is not a native of this region but is related to rocks in Canada far north of here. Thousands of years ago it was torn from its homeland by a huge sheet of slowly moving ice and carried many miles to the south. Finally with numerous others of its kind, the glacier abandoned it in this section of Irondequoit. Here it remains - mute evidence of a by-gone glacial period and of the slowly changing character of our earth.

quote:

During the 1900s, the outlet was crossed by a narrow truss highway bridge and a single track railroad line. Around 1929, the narrow bridge was replaced with a two lane bridge that was supported on timber piles. That bridge remained in service until August 14, 1985, when it was removed as part of a project by the Army Corps of Engineers. This project served the purpose of opening up the Irondequoit Bay to marine traffic from Lake Ontario.

Solumin posted:

I'm beginning to think the people of Rochester are not very good at naming things.

Brawnfire posted:

26 Sep 1966, Mon

[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/119827154/due-by-1970-pt2/]

Milo and POTUS posted:

Did rochester have a shipbuilding industry? I kinda assumed they did since I think they're biggest city on the US portion of lake ontario

quote:

Just north of the Newport House was another large cove. When the water was
high, it extended nearly a mile inland. It is narrow at the mouth and wider at
the rear. In the days between 1870 and 1900, this was considered the shipyard of
the Bay. Both steamboats and gasoline launches were built there, as well as
hundreds of row boats. Newport Cove was a busy place all the year around. Boats
were repaired and built there all during the winter months. Over the mouth of
the cove, Mr. Sours, owner of the Newport House, built a foot bridge. At one
time there was a lift bridge in the center operated with iron weights to lift
and lower the center span.

quote:

In 1934 John H. Odenbach and the Dolomite employees starting building self-propelled barges to move crushed stone thru the NYS Erie Canal for numerous construction projects. Later in the 1930’s the Odenbach Shipbuilding Corporation built larger ocean going ships named Dolomite I to IV. These nickel lined ships moved caustic soda to Texas and molasses back north from Havana, Cuba. These ships were all sunk by German U-Boats during WW II along the East Coast.

All Dolomite quarries and construction shut down when World War II broke out. Most of the Dolomite employees went to work for Odenbach Shipbuilding (John H. Odenbach), building landing barges and shallow draft oil tankers, called Y-boats, for the war effort. From 1941 to 1945 the Dolomite Group built these 632 ton, 182 ft. coastal tankers at an unprecedented rate of one completed every two weeks.

Brawnfire posted:

Just making sure, are you referring to the hydroelectric plant?

”Image Description” posted:

The restored waterwheel from Triphammer Mill at the Upper Falls. The mill, built circa 1816 on Brown's Race, originally housed William Cobb's Sythe and Tool Factory, and changed hands several times before being destroyed by fire in 1977. The waterwheel was rediscovered in 1983 and reconstructed in 1993. The wheel, measuring 25 feet in diameter, sits in a manmade pit within the mill, 34 feet below street level. It was powered by water from Brown's Race.

Brawnfire posted:

Milo and POTUS posted:

There's songs in the civil war that had a distinct anti-british tone to them. If the newly reunited states had gone to war with them in the aftermath, would rochester have had the capacity to build ironclads that they could drive down the st lawrence?

Kind of an insane question lol.

Rochester owns it seems

quote:

Fort Bender, a military breastwork, was located on the west side of the Genesee River above the Lower Falls in the area known as Deep Hollow. The fort was named for Hastings R. Bender, who had suggested its construction in 1814. The picture shows a portion of a stone wall, which was uncovered by workmen. It is believed to be part of Old Fort Bender, which was created as a defense against the British in 1814.

Anime Store Adventure posted:

All very fun to read! The most surprising thing I learned, which feels so silly to me now: They still use those power stations! I guess I can chalk it up to a sort of modern bias - unless I see some slick concrete drat across an entire river then it must just simply be a historical site.

When I have some time to sit down I’ll have to flick through the sources you posted. I love the snippets you find and I should be looking into more.

I know it’s been said before in local discourse but it’s amazing to me that Rochester can’t do more with the high falls area. Most cities would absolutely kill for a waterfront area with a huge waterfall in it. I was recently in Oklahoma City, which has a “canal” that - probably - has some historical origin in bringing bricks to the actual river, but now functions essentially as a giant fountain with a pontoon boat ferry around an entertainment district. It was very nice, walkable, and a lot of fun as a tourist.

Rochester has the Genny Brewhouse. Not to poo poo on them (the Brewhouse rules) but it’s weird that they can’t exploit the falls more.

Brawnfire posted:

I'd like to see those lobsterback cousin-fuckers try and stop us!

You may be interested to know that when Rochesterville was a new village, in 1814, word came that a fleet of 13 British vessels were prowling along the coast of Lake Ontario, near Charlotte. Francis Brown, the first mayor of Rochesterville, gathered a militia of 33 men--the sum total of the able-bodied men in the village--and joined with a larger militia of 300 from local towns. The men prepared an earthworks fort, called Fort Bender, between Lake Avenue and the Genesee River to serve as a redoubt-- rumor had it the British were preparing to burn the Main Street Bridge to use the river for more inland assaults.

Then the militia went to Charlotte, where they observed the fleet's movements: the British naval commander, Sir James Lucas Yeo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lucas_Yeo] approached the group under flag of truce, offering to leave private property alone if public property were surrendered to the British Navy--a capitulation which had been performed by neighboring Oswego shortly beforehand. The reply from Brown was "“I am ordered by the general to tell you we shall keep the stores until the King shall send a force sufficient to take it away. So, if you want them badly, you must get them the best way you can.”

The defenders then undertook a series of maneuvers in the treeline around the lake, making their numbers appear inflated by appearing and disappearing at various places with various groups of men. Yeo, frightened by engaging with an uncertain number of defenders, removed the fleet from Charlotte. The 33 men from Rochesterville, from thereon out, were known as "The Valiant 33" and considered the first heroic defenders of the nascent township.

Brawnfire posted:

I'd like to see those lobsterback cousin-fuckers try and stop us!

You may be interested to know that when Rochesterville was a new village, in 1814, word came that a fleet of 13 British vessels were prowling along the coast of Lake Ontario, near Charlotte. Francis Brown, the first mayor of Rochesterville, gathered a militia of 33 men--the sum total of the able-bodied men in the village--and joined with a larger militia of 300 from local towns. The men prepared an earthworks fort, called Fort Bender, between Lake Avenue and the Genesee River to serve as a redoubt-- rumor had it the British were preparing to burn the Main Street Bridge to use the river for more inland assaults.

Then the militia went to Charlotte, where they observed the fleet's movements: the British naval commander, Sir James Lucas Yeo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lucas_Yeo] approached the group under flag of truce, offering to leave private property alone if public property were surrendered to the British Navy--a capitulation which had been performed by neighboring Oswego shortly beforehand. The reply from Brown was "“I am ordered by the general to tell you we shall keep the stores until the King shall send a force sufficient to take it away. So, if you want them badly, you must get them the best way you can.”

The defenders then undertook a series of maneuvers in the treeline around the lake, making their numbers appear inflated by appearing and disappearing at various places with various groups of men. Yeo, frightened by engaging with an uncertain number of defenders, removed the fleet from Charlotte. The 33 men from Rochesterville, from thereon out, were known as "The Valiant 33" and considered the first heroic defenders of the nascent township.

Anime Store Adventure posted:

In the short time since you've posted this I've drunkenly shared it with a ton of folks who had no idea about it and are all excited and/or upset they hadn't heard the story before. So much for our local history classes! These sorts of anecdotes rock and I hope they never get lost.

quote:

Coming up to (the Deep Hollow) we found an earthwork thrown up on the south bank behind which, not far apart, were two small cannon pointed through an opening, and so planted that while a company of men were crossing they could be mowed down like hail devastating a field of wheat. There were also several men stationed here to watch an enemy’s approach, so that when warned, their first work was to remove the plank from the bridge, and then stand to their guns! The road beyond descended a great deal, and was enclosed on each side by thick woods, and we all felt inclined to back out, though neither broke his fears to the rest. Inquiring of the soldiers, they discouraged us, and two of them said, ‘Go back! Go back! What good can you boys do? You may all of you get killed.'”