1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rochester (New York)

ROCHESTER, a city and the county-seat of Monroe county, New York, U.S.A., about 70 m. E.N.E. of Buffalo and about 230 m. W. of Albany, on the Genesee river, 7 m. above where it empties into Lake Ontario. Pop. (1880), 89,366; (1890), 133,896; (1900), 162,608, of whom 40,748 were foreign-born (including 15,685 Germans; 7746 English-Canadians; 5599 Irish; 3909 English; 1777 Russians; and 1278 Italians) and 601 were negroes; (1910, census) 218,149. Rochester is served by the Erie, the Pennsylvania (two divisions), the Lehigh Valley, the West Shore, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg (two divisions), and the New York Central & Hudson River (five divisions) railways. The Genesee river, which cuts through the centre of the city in a deep gorge whose banks vary in height from 50 to 200 ft., is navigable for lake craft only for 21/2 m. from the mouth, to a point 41/2 m. below the city; the Erie Canal runs through the heart of the city and is carried across the river on a stone viaduct of seven arches, 850 ft. long, and having a channel 45 ft. wide. Several lines of freight and passenger steamboats connect with Buffalo, Oswego and other lake ports, and there are daily passenger steamboats to Toronto, Canada, 70 m. distant across the lake. Electric railways connect with neighbouring cities and lake-side resorts on Lake Ontario (Ontario Beach) and Irondequoit Bay, an irregular arm of the lake 5 m. long 2 m. E. of the city limits. Rochester is on high plateaus on either side of the Genesee river at a general altitude of about 500 ft. above sea-level; It occupies an area of 20.3 sq. m. Within the city limits are the famous Falls of the Genesee^[1] three cataracts of 96, 26 and 83 ft. respectively, the banks above the first fall, which is in the heart of the city, rising to a height of fully 200 ft. above the river. From the city limits the river falls 263 it. in its 7 m. course to the lake. Ten bridges, road and railway, connect the two sides of the river.

Rochester is an attractive city, with many fine avenues. East Avenue is perhaps the most beautiful street in the city, and Plymouth, West and Lake Avenues are other prominent residential streets. The park system of Rochester, planned by Frederick Law Olmsted, was 1264 acres in extent in 1908. The largest park is Eastman-Durand (512 acres), on the shore of Lake Ontario; Genesee Valley Park (443 acres) is on both sides of the river; Seneca Park (212 acres) includes a zoological garden; Highland Park (75 acres) and eleven other smaller parks. In Washington Park there is a soldiers' monument surmounted by a statue of Lincoln, and a statue (1898) by S. W. Edwards of Frederick Douglass, the negro orator and editor, who lived in Rochester in 1847–70, stands at the approach to the New York Central & Hudson River railway station. The principal cemeteries are the Mount Hope, the Holy Sepulchre, and Riverside. The Powers Building, a 7-storey stone and iron structure surmounted by a tower 204 ft. high, was one of the first office buildings in the United States to be equipped with elevator service. The Monroe County Court House (of New Hampshire granite) on West Main Street is in the Renaissance style, and contains a law library of about 25,000 volumes. The City Hall (of grey sandstone) has a tower 175 ft. high. Among the other prominent buildings are the Post Office, the Chamber of Commerce, the Lyceum Theatre, the Temple Theatre, the Masonic Building, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg office building, the Sibley building, the Duffy-Mclnnerney building, and the Young Men's Christian Association building. The following churches are architecturally noteworthy: the Central, the First and the Third Presbyterian, the Brick Presbyterian, St Patrick's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), the Cornhill and the Asbury (Methodist Episcopal), the First Baptist, St Pau1's (Protestant Episcopal), and the First Unitarian. Rochester is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. In Rochester are the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes, the Monroe County Penitentiary, a State Arsenal, a State Hospital for the Insane, the Protestant Episcopal Church Home, Rochester City Hospital (1864), and others, including the Rochester Municipal Hospital (1903) for contagious diseases and consumption.

Rochester is an important educational centre. Its best-known institution is the University of Rochester (Baptist, 1850; co-educational since 1900), having in 1968-9 28 instructors, 352 students (231 men and 121 women), and a library of 49,000 volumes. It occupies a tract of 24 acres

1. From the top of the upper falls (96 ft. high), in the centre of the city, Sam Patch (1807–1829) jumped and was killed in November 1829; he had formerly made the same leap, had jumped half the depth of Niagara, and was planning to go to London and jump from London Bridge—he was to go by sailing packet to Liverpool and jump from the yard-arm every fair day.