University of Rochester Pedestrian Bridge

While rivers are not a requirement for universities, they’re certainly not a bad feature to have, adding grace to the landscape, diversity to the ecology, and pretty pictures to the admissions brochures. In England, Oxford University sits along the banks of the Thames, while the River Cam winds through Cambridge University, where generations of students, scholars, and visitors have punted on its gentle waters. Here in the United States, the Charles River flows through Boston, serving as the picturesque backdrop to Harvard and MIT.

The University of Rochester too benefits from its positioning on the Genesee River, though it was not always so. That’s something I was reminded of when my wife Ursula and I visited the next two bridges on a mid-July day in the summer of 2022 (I’m realizing that this project is stretching out long enough, especially since I’m writing this nearly two months after we visited, that I probably should start to identify years).

The University of Rochester was originally located in downtown Rochester, on Prince Street and what is now appropriately named University Avenue. Architectural remnants of its first home include numerous buildings that once were classrooms or dormitories, such as the Memorial Art Gallery (still part of the university) and the building that houses the Visual Studies Workshop (formerly named Catherine Strong Hall, a classroom and administrative space for the UR Women’s College). Recently we’ve been attending Grace Road Church on Prince St., and one benefit of that is that we get to drive by much of the university’s original architecture that grew up after its founding in 1850.

By the 1920s, however, the University of Rochester (or UR as it’s more commonly called around here) was clearly outgrowing its central city location so the institution’s leaders began searching for a new home. Ultimately the trustees settled on the site of what was then Oak Hill Country Club, a landscape of rolling hills next to the Genesee. The College for Men moved there in 1930, followed by the College for Women 25 years later, and since then it has grown enormously, including the ever-expanding medical complex.

When we visited we actually parked across the river in Genesee Valley Park (more about that in the next blog), and walked over to Brooks Landing. A historical marker explained that it used to be called Castletown, named after Isaac Castle, a man hired by manorial landowner James Wadsworth to run a tavern here at the site of what once were shallow rapids that could often be forded (Indian trails ran through here, laying down the path that future streets such as Brooks Avenue, Genesee Street, and Plymouth Avenue would take). Durham boats, shallow craft widely used to navigate up and down the Genesee River, landed at this spot and unloaded their goods that were carried north of the Lower Falls where they were shipped via Lake Ontario. The coming of the Erie Canal changed the transportation patterns and finished this site as a hub of commerce.

Genesee River rapids, 1902. Courtesy of Rochester Public Library.

Brooks Landing was redeveloped about ten years ago, and now includes a hotel and housing, primarily for University of Rochester students. It sits in the 19th Ward, and the area seemed like an area trying to be gentrified but not quite there yet. The nicely designed hotel that sits on the west side of the river was hosting some sort of cookout for the guests the day we walked by. It’s a spot we hadn’t been to before and it was interesting to see, though it very much seems to have its face towards the University of Rochester across the river, not towards its neighborhood behind it. This likely reflects the ambivalence, and sometimes worry, that the University of Rochester community has had towards the 19th Ward.