Rochester

About Rochester

Rochester is a city in western New York, set where the Genesee River tumbles over a series of waterfalls on its way north to Lake Ontario. Nathaniel Rochester and two partners bought land at the falls in 1803, and when the Erie Canal opened in 1825 with an aqueduct carrying it over the Genesee, the town boomed as America's first great boomtown, nicknamed the Flour City for its many mills. Later it became the Flower City, thanks to its famous nurseries, and the home of world-changing companies including Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Bausch and Lomb.

Rochester is also rich in history and culture. Susan B. Anthony lived and was arrested here for voting in 1872, and Frederick Douglass published his abolitionist newspaper The North Star in the city. Today Rochester has about 210,000 residents and a creative, affordable character, with the renowned Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Its signature dish, the Garbage Plate, is a late-night local legend.

Visitors will find excellent museums. The Strong National Museum of Play is the only museum in the world devoted to the history of play, home of the National Toy Hall of Fame and video game collections, and the George Eastman Museum combines the Kodak founder's mansion and gardens with one of the oldest photography and film archives in the world. High Falls, a 96-foot waterfall right downtown, Highland Park, famous for its Lilac Festival each May, the Memorial Art Gallery and the Seneca Park Zoo round out the city, while Lake Ontario's beaches and the Finger Lakes wine country are close by.