Ted Stiker is a familiar face in the Rochester restaurant industry — he started Rochester’s Top Shelf Staffing, an event planning and service staff provider located downtown. After receiving many requests from clients to add catering to his available services, Stiker opened Tedwards Café and Catering (183 East Main Street) in April 2014. Tedwards serves […]
downtown Rochester
Posted inNews & Opinion
‘I Believe’: Fringe and Rochester’s future
“The Book of Mormon” is headed back to Rochester, complete with the fresh-faced, dizzily optimistic Elder Price singing “I Believe.” And that song has been running through my mind the last several days, competing with less happy thoughts. Rochester has been through a tough time this month, losing, in the space of 48 hours, a […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Feedback 7/2
Even though the published literature on the proposed Business Improvement District (much of which has been published by City) talks as if it’s a done deal, it’s not. Taxpayers have a right to read about the potential positive aspects of such a program, and I applaud all those who have worked so diligently to collect […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Downtown rising?
Do I say this every year? The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival gives us a nine-day glimpse of what we could be. It’s not just the massive crowds in front of the outdoor stages for the free performances, or headline acts that sell out in minutes. It’s the hour-plus lines to get into Kilbourn and […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Good news and cynicism
Several friends have been on my case about focusing on Rochester’s problems so often. Can’t I, they ask, write about some of the good things that are happening here? And certainly there are plenty of good things to write about. Last month, at the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation’s “Changing Fortunes” program, a panel of business […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Feedback 1/15
Send comments to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources, and we edit those selections. Think like the Flintstones? On a reader’s letter arguing that preservationists are hindering progress in Rochester: Preservation and re-purposing of […]
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Planning a downtown: Rochester pictures its future
We moan a lot in Rochester about how much our downtown has changed. And it has, obviously. Cities do change — with population changes, with people’s needs, with the times. In the 1960’s, Rochester tore down seedy old buildings that had straddled the Main Street bridge and had cut off the view of the river. […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Teenagers, fights, and downtown Rochester
You’ve read the stories: As hundreds of teenagers change RTS buses downtown after school, fights erupt, crowds gather, chaos ensues, and the police try to restore order. The fights don’t happen every day. But they happen often enough to be a serious problem. And last week, the chaos had a new element: somebody fired a […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Lessons from Detroit
Last week was a tough week in Rochester, with the news about Valeant moving the B+L headquarters to New Jersey and laying off hundreds of employees here. And I keep thinking about Detroit’s bankruptcy. There are a lot of differences between us, certainly, beginning with the sheer magnitude of Detroit and its problems. Detroit spreads […]
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WEEK AHEAD: Sustainability meeting, RPD outreach, downtown planning, RCSD wants YOU
The coalition developing the Finger Lakes Regional Sustainability Plan will hold a public meeting from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, January 16, at RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability. When it’s finished, the plan will outline actions for improving the long-term sustainability of the region’s communities and natural resources, planners say. It’ll include recommendations […]
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Designers get their turn at downtown
If you could overhaul downtown, what would it look like? Think back to the last time you were in a thriving, vibrant urban environment. Maybe it was a neighborhood like Soho in New York, a waterfront area like San Antonio’s Riverwalk, or a plaza in a European capital. “What did you like about that place?” […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
City sees ‘catalyst’ in Italy-at-Midtown
Can an Italian-themed shopping center help restore MidtownPlaza to its former glory? City leaders seem to think so. Riedman Properties LLC and the Province of Parma, Italy, are proposing a joint venture to create a complex consisting of 150 specialty stores and restaurants offering Italian food, fashion, and furniture. The project, called Made in Italy, […]
