Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Pedestrian Bridge

Discovery is what I love best about this bridge project–finding myself in a place I’ve never been and seeing things I might never have seen otherwise. Now that I had at last moved beyond downtown I was excited because I was reaching areas that I had visited little or not at all, even if they’re no doubt familiar to others.

So on a beautiful afternoon in May I headed into Rochester. After getting off at the 490 my original plan was to go down the east side of the river, but when I went down Mt. Hope and tried to make a left I realized there was no left turn, so I crossed the river and traveled south along Exchange St., past the Church of Love Faith Center, which I had just heard about because they had promised $100,000 in scholarships to the Charles Finney School, where our friend Peter Burch is head of advancement (Peter is also the founder of Project Compassion, the group that Ursula and I accompanied on our trips to Haiti, something I wrote about in an earlier post). Driving farther down Exchange Street I turned into Flint Street where a large building promised the possibility of parking and access to the river.

An interior parking lot turned out to be a wonderful setting for oversized murals, not surprising since I discovered it is the studio of Rochester’s gifted wall muralist Shawn Dunwoody, as well as the home of Peaceworks Farms (whose CSA, community supported agriculture, we used to belong to).

After parking I headed down towards the river and there was a ruined factory that had another eye-catching mural, this time of a raven balancing an egg.

A week or so after I visited this site, an article in the local City newspaper came out talking about this factory. It turns out it was the old Vacuum Oil kerosene factory and now is a polluted brownfield site because of the kerosene that was produced on this site from the 1860s to the 1930s. Just past the factory, decaying steps led up to the river.

Once on top, the vista changed from urban decay to bucolic scenery, with a view of downtown Rochester in the distance .

Walking south I learned from a historical marker that this had been an encampment for Union soldiers mustering off to war in response to Abraham Lincoln’s call in the summer of 1862 for 300,000 volunteers, an event memorialized in the song “We are Coming Father Abraham.” The troops included the 140th regiment commanded by Patrick O’Rorke, who died gloriously at Gettysburg in the fight for Little Round Top and who gave his name to the first bridge that I visited on this journey. The history of another regiment, the 108th, makes for a compelling account of soldier’s eye view of what the war was like, in its mundaneness, drama, human emotion, and pathos. After leaving Rochester in August, the 108th headed to Albany, then headed south and saw their first action at the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, where 295 out of the 1,200 or so men were killed, wounded, or missing.

The lilacs were in bloom next to the historical marker, a poignant note of beauty next to a grim reminder of the war’s toll on the community, when more than 1 in 8 men who served from Monroe County died in the conflict. I thought immediately of Walt Whitman’s powerful elegy to Abraham Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” which begins:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

Continuing along the path I spied a bridge in the distance

It turned out it was a pedestrian bridge leading over to the University of Rochester campus, affording pretty views of the sparkling river on a beautiful day.

The bridge itself is built over the remains of the old railway bridge for the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, originally built in the 1850s and enlarged around 1915.

It was converted to a pedestrian bridge in 2011. Here’s a view of what it looked like before the conversion:

Bridge before it was restored

Whoever built the new pedestrian bridge did a wonderful job integrating the new structure into the old, even leaving remnants of the old bridge intact at the far end to show what it looked like before.

Pedestrian bridge nestled into old railroad bridge.

Remnants of the old bridge and bed.

The east side of the river, on the University of Rochester campus, gave a better view of the bridge.

I spent some time poking around the area on the east side, including going through an unlocked door in the UR studio art building, where I not only found a bathroom but also got to see some talented and whimsical art.

Artwork inside the University of Rochester art building

Faculty door

I also explored the university’s service yard where the grounds team stores materials for landscaping and discovered it backs up to Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Mt. Hope Cemetery

By then it was starting to get late, but I was enjoying this site so much that I called Ursula to see if she wanted to swing by and see it after work, so later we returned to walk it together. It is a beautiful place and I’d recommend it.

I also realized this might be the last time we would be able to see downtown Rochester on this journey of bridges, since the river takes a bend to the west, but it was a reminder of how nice the city can look with the Genesee River flowing through its heart.

View of downtown Rochester from the south