Sometimes natural beauty lies in the most unexpected places if you take the time to get off the road and find it.
That’s the lesson I take from the Jefferson Road bridge. Driving west on Jefferson Road from the 390, natural beauty is not the first thing that comes to mind. Instead a dense concentration of stores, restaurants, hotels, and other commercial establishments line the thoroughfare. Then the road passes Rochester Institute of Technology, a sprawling campus that is known, mostly affectionately, as “brick city,” because of the uniform style of its massive complex of buildings. When the road reaches the river, the view doesn’t seem to get much better. It’s a bridge with no adornment and the overwhelming impression of road.
But that all changes if one continues just past the bridge (the road changes name to Ballantyne Rd.), makes the first right, and then right again to get to the Black Creek boat launch. A member of our old church had told me about this site many years ago, saying it was one of his favorite places to go kayaking. Even so, it was an unexpected surprise, sitting at the confluence of Black Creek and the Genesee River.
When I visited in July of 2023, there were people boating, fishing, and walking. Small trails loop around the various waterways, and as I explored them I found small bits of nature, the type that often grows up in the interstices of urban and suburban sprawl. Thistles and other flowers, for example, grew in untended areas or even in the cracks of the sidewalk.
For fishermen, a sign highlighted various species of fish that could be caught in the river and creek.
I found equally fascinating the great numbers of snails I saw.
When viewed up close, nature comes to the foreground and the built landscape recedes.
Walking along the trail south of Scottsville Road I couldn’t see much of the river because of trees and shrubs along the bank, but I did come across a memorial to two Monroe County Sheriffs who died in the line of duty. James Conheady died of a heart attack in 1947 shortly after serving court papers to someone at the Black Creek Hotel. John Pullano died ten years later when responding to an accident. He was riding a motorcycle when he collided with a station wagon. As was often the custom at the time, he was not wearing a helmet, and after his death a new regulation was passed making it mandatory for Monroe County Sheriffs and members of the Rochester Police Department to wear helmets when riding motorcycles.
The signs, like all memorials, served their purpose of reminding me of the people who came before, whose lives intertwined with this spot, next to the river that rolls on and on in its timeless beauty, providing space for nature even in the concrete landscape of Henrietta.
Bridges of the Genesee River 