The City of Rochester will most likely look to a state competition to fund a $100 million expansion of the Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center on East Main Street. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Upstate Revitalization Initiative will award $500 million each to three regions in Upstate New York. Regions have to submit their revitalization […]
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The impossible woman
Jamie Romeo has a difficult — some might say impossible — job ahead of her. She was elected last week to lead a deeply divided, financially strapped county Democratic Party just as the election season kicks into high gear. “I know exactly what our challenges are,” she says. “I wouldn’t be stepping into a black […]
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Center for Youth expands west
The Center for Youth is expanding into the Buffalo area to provide social-emotional support programs to the Kenmore-Tonawanda School District, says Elaine Spaull, the agency’s executive director. “The Kenmore-Tonawanda School District, which is comprised of many excellent administrators and teachers, found they needed some triaging and some alternative support for their middle-school youth,” she says. […]
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The future of Rochester’s past
One look at the organ’s arthritic keys and crumbling casing tells you that this old instrument has hummed its last hallelujah. The entire chapel, known as the 1912 chapel at Mount Hope Cemetery, is a gorgeous, decayed thing — a survival-horror movie set waiting for a location scout. It’s one of two defunct chapels in […]
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The Eastman engine
It’s fitting that the fate of Kodak’s massive industrial complex on West Ridge Road, at least for the foreseeable future, will be tied to film.
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Sea change in student discipline
Christiana Otuwa spent much of the last school year scrutinizing every potential suspension in the Rochester City School District. Otuwa, who is deputy superintendent of city schools, makes the final decision on whether a student should be suspended. She asks: Does the punishment fit the wrongdoing? Has the student received support services? Is it the […]
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The mortgage drought
Despite the economic recovery, African Americans and Latinos continue to lack equal access to homeownership in Rochester and Monroe County, says a new report from the Empire Justice Center, “The River Runs Dry II: The Persistent Mortgage Drought in Rochester’s Communities of Color.” An analysis of local lending practices from 2010 through 2013 showed that […]
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Plaza scrutiny begins
Neighbors of the Palazzo Plaza site have concerns about the proposed Brighton development. Traffic is heavy on that part of Monroe Avenue, and the plaza will only generate more of it, they say. The development also has the potential to make the area inhospitable to pedestrians and cyclists, they say.
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Rochester scores major tech win
Vice President Joe Biden was in Rochester earlier today talking about the region’s winning effort to host a photonics hub.
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Theater math
Talk of a new performing arts center, of course, has been around for decades. But politics and finances have prevented a project from ever getting off the ground.
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A life’s work, but still not enough
Mention James Lawrence, the former longtime editor of the Democrat and Chronicle’s opinion page, and you’ll likely get a wide range of reactions. Lawrence, who retired from the D&C six months ago, became something of an iconic media figure in Rochester. Almost every high-level city, county, school district, and community leader in the area met […]
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Candidates come forward
Monroe County voters are getting a better idea of who will be on the ballot in the September primary and the November general election. The deadline to fill petitions to run for office passed last week. The four district seats are up on City Council this year, as are four city school board seats. In […]
