Here's some more thoughts and questions about Rochester, after my weekend up there:
~ What is going on with the renovation of construction at Broad & Clinton Streets in Downtown? Is it a re-cladding?
~ Rochester seems like Buffalo, in that both cities have a wealth of great buildings. It seemed like every neighborhood had something really nice. For instance, driving on I-490, the back of a Renaissance-style YMCA on Monroe Street is visible. Little places of rich architecture like that are great.
~ It that an actual old canal lock on I-490 near Darwin Street? You can see it here:
http://binged.it/1gYGWgc
~ What are locals' thoughts of tearing down the Inner Loop? You already have I-490 to provide access to Downtown. Even if part of it was torn down, and you had two spurs to provide quicker access to northern neighborhoods, it would be an improvement over so much highway. It strikes me as odd that an expressway was built almost directly on top of a waterfall. (Something would have to be done about the railroad tracks too.)
~ On the note of an expressway built almost on top of a waterfall, Rochester's Downtown has to have the most underutilized waterfront in the country. I stayed at the Rochester Plaza Hotel (a dump that should be imploded, by the way), and the park behind it is terrible. The concrete is breaking up, the pink pastel colors look hideous in a bleak extended winter, and the park doesn't connect to anything. Rochester could have a wonderful collection of waterfront parks connected by trails or walkways that go from High Falls to I-490 and beyond.