Culture of Rochester

Rochester is home to a number of cultural institutions including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, the Memorial Art Gallery, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Strong Museum, the A|V Room, the Strasenburg Planetarium, and numerous arts organizations. Rochester’s Geva Theatre Center is the city’s largest professional theatre.

The city’s Victorian era Mt. Hope Cemetery includes the final resting place of several famous Americans, including Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and George Baldwin Selden (inventor of the automobile). Rochester is also known for its extensive park system, including the Highland Botanical Park, Cobb’s Hill Park, Durand-Eastman Park, Genesee Valley Park, Maplewood Park, Edgerton Park, Seneca Park and Ontario Beach Park.

The city also has 13 full-time recreation centers, 19 swimming programs, 3 artificial ice rinks, 66 softball/baseball fields, 47 tennis courts, 5 football fields, 7 soccer fields, and 43 outdoor basketball courts. Echoing its famous history as the Flower City, Rochester still has a yearly Lilac Festival for ten days in May, when nearly 400 named varieties of lilacs bloom, and 100,000 visitors arrive from as far away as Europe and Japan.

South of Rochester is the scenic Letchworth State Park with its spectacular canyon and waterfalls. Also to the south and southeast is the glacially-formed Finger Lakes Region, with its numerous lakes and summer cottages.

Rochester has developed a number of festivals that celebrate the many aspects of Rochester life. These include the Rochester International Jazz Festival, now (2005) in its fourth year, and the simultaneous “CounterFit Fest,” originally conceived as an “anti-jazz fest” to counter the RIJF’s musical strictures, and which has hosted many of the groups responsible for the famous “Rochester Sound”; the Corn Hill Festival (arts, crafts, and food in this historic Third Ward neighborhood); the High Falls Film Festival (held at the George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre and the Little Theatre downtown); the Image Out/Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (also held at the Little Theatre); the Clothesline Art Festival (artists from the region display their works on the grounds of the Memorial Art Gallery); the Park Avenue Merchants Festival; the Lilac Festival at Highland Park (world famous for its lilac bushes); the Rochester Music Festival; and the Cold Rush Winter Celebration (celebrating the wide variety of winter sports in the Rochester area). There is something for everyone in these festivals.

Also of interest is the local vernacular. Soft drinks are called “pop” (at least among the older generations), while hotdogs are called “red hots” or “white hots”. The town of Chili is not pronounced like the food, but “chi(as in latte)-lie”; the neighborhood of Charlotte is not pronounced like the North Carolina city but rather with the accent on the second syllable.

A “Rochester accent” is often described as including the pronunciation of the city itself as “Rhaaaaach’str”. In decreasing usage is the Can of Worms, referring to the previously dangerous intersection of Interstate 490 and expressway NY-590 on the eastern edge of the Rochester city limits, bordering the suburb of Brighton. In the 1980s, a multimillion dollar project created a system of overpasses and ramps that reduced the danger but resulted in the loss of certain exits.