NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. | JULY 2022 | FREE | SINCE 1971 NEWS
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CITY, 280 State St., Rochester, NY 14614 (ATTN: Feedback) CHOOSE LIFE I am greatly disappointed that the story “Lawmakers take aim at pregnancy resource centers” in the June issue was just another “us versus them” story about abortion rights. Here are just a few of my disappointments: • The article features only Mary Jost, the founder of Focus Pregnancy Help Center, defending her agency’s work, while pitting her against Michele Casey, CEO of the local Planned Parenthood; Assembly member Sarah Clark, a co-sponsor of the legislation; and Lauren deLancey of the Rochester Socialist Feminist Collective. • There are no interviews with women who were happy with the services they received from Focus. Instead, I read about a woman who is happy to have received her surgical abortion at Planned Parenthood seven years ago. • The article reviews the printed materials available at Focus, but there is no review of the literature handed out at Planned Parenthood. • Clark is quoted as saying about the pro-life movement that “this is a movement that blows up clinics.” Is she unaware of Jane’s Revenge and other groups that have vandalized and set on fire agencies similar to Focus since the Supreme Court decision was leaked? • Casey complains about Caring Choices offering free ultrasounds. “From what people have said, they wear white coats, presenting 2 CITY
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KEEPING US INFORMED Just catching up on CITY and want to thank you for the article on what’s going on with 5 and 15 Flint Sts. (“For sale: Toxic riverfront property,” June 2022.) I live in the 19th Ward right on the edge of PLEX and pass that site all the time, and I have wondered why no one’s doing anything with what seems like prime property, although we’re also concerned about the gentrification that’s happening on the other side of the river potentially spilling over to the west side. There is some beautiful art on 5 Flint St., but I wish they would clean up the site and put something usable there in keeping with the neighborhood. I hope you keep covering this and do a follow-up if and/or when something happens with the property ownership. I know local reporting is a hard job. I’m so grateful for CITY and the reporting you all are doing. Adrienne Pettinelli, Rochester
as medical people when they’re not medical people at all.” Did the reporter bother to check out this hearsay and interview a representative of Caring Choices? Apparently not. I hope that if CITY tackles this topic again, it does it with greater insight and balance. Jane Sutter Brandt, Pittsford I disagree with the negative portrayal of Focus Pregnancy Help Center in the article “Pregnancy Resource Centers: Healthcare or Religious Propaganda?” I have donated to Focus Pregnancy Help Center and my son volunteered there as part of his McQuaid Jesuit High School senior capstone project. Focus is made up of dedicated, good-hearted volunteers who do not receive government funds and subsist on shoestring donations. Focus mainly gives away things to needy moms and children, and their “clients” are grateful. Since the publication of the article, CompassCare Pregnancy Services in Buffalo, a non-profit, volunteer-based crisis pregnancy center (CPS) similar to Focus, was firebombed because they do pro-life advocacy, including giving away material aid.
What is everyone so afraid of and why is New York state government investigating CPCs instead of Planned Parenthood and their deceptive practices? The CITY article, the legislation that the article noted was passed by the Assembly, and the firebombing in Buffalo are more examples of the blatant discrimination pro-life folks and organizations who help pregnant moms face. As a pro-life feminist, I can attest, no matter what we do (adopt children, sit on the Board of Children Awaiting Parents or the House of Mercy) we are written off by liberal organizations because we do not support killing unborn children. Jessica Shanahan, Brighton For almost 10 years, I’ve volunteered at a pregnancy resource center in Rochester. Women have kept this center operating through donations and volunteer community support. It provides free car seats, pack n’ plays, diapers, clothing, formula, and more to families before their child’s birth, and throughout childhood. With this in mind, I was shocked when I read “Pregnancy
Resource Centers: Healthcare or Religious Propaganda?” (online May 16). The article lacked any information regarding the material aid and support that is relied upon by the most vulnerable members of our community: underserved mothers and their children. The article clearly favored Planned Parenthood, whose annual report shows $1.6 billion in yearly revenue. According to the Limited Services Pregnancy Center Bill, which the article described and was recently signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, pregnancy resource centers that do not refer or provide abortion services are subject to investigations, such as the use of “coercive tactics.” The failure to provide or refer abortion services is included as a “tactic.” Though the stated aim of the bill is the launch of a study examining the unmet health and resource needs of pregnant women, it ignores a vast array of service providers that interface with pregnant women. The bill’s study excludes every single abortionproviding center, including all Planned Parenthoods throughout the state. The double standard does not
stop there. It is much easier for abortion clinics to manipulate and coerce young women to terminate their pregnancy. Unlike most states, New York does not have informed consent laws, which require, among other things, that women receive information regarding life-affirming resources. Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio, for example, require abortion providers to present women with information regarding abortion alternatives. Furthermore, in the case of a minor receiving an abortion, neither parental consent nor parental notification are required in New York. We have reached a place where community members offering free support are deemed “coercive” and “extreme.” These centers are a place of hope and love for the whole community. Giving them a bad name is an atrocity. Anna Harvey Harvey is a policy intern at Feminists Choosing Life of New York CITY: Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill mandating a study of pregnancy resource centers into law in June. RETHINKING ROC’S HIGHWAYS As Rochester looks to remove the Inner Loop North, a significant question has arisen: Should the new street grid replacing the Inner Loop directly connect to Interstate 490? The Inner Loop North’s draft planning study says most motorists who use the Inner Loop are either coming from or going to the I-490 interchange, making it essential to retain access to it regardless of the re-design of the corridor. I would disagree and argue that building a connection to Interstate 490 does not move toward eliminating vehicle miles traveled and lessoning carbon dioxide emissions and is a step backward in the fight against climate change. It is time for Rochester to reevaluate and reimagine the two highways that cut through the
city’s core — Interstate 490 and the Keeler Street Expressway — and improve Interstates 390 and 590, which surround the city. The Keeler Street Expressway is an excellent example of highway infrastructure that does more harm than good for our community. It stifles future development, isn’t bicycle-friendly, and physically separates Rochester and Irondequoit. A great example of what the Keeler Street Expressway could become exists in Atlanta, Georgia. The John Lewis Freedom Parkway there exists today where Interstate 485 would have been. Thanks to community opposition, the road was instead transformed into a parkway with trails, bicycle lanes, and expanded green space. Imagine a multi-modal boulevard with trails and bicycle lanes connecting the Irondequoit Bay trails to the Genesee River gorge trails. Rethinking the Keeler Street Expressway could be a gamechanger for active transportation investment in Rochester. Interstate 490’s future in Rochester should not be promised. Instead of a highway cutting through the center of Rochester, we could reimagine the Interstate as a green spine that connects and restitches the center of Rochester. Imagine a future where Cobbs Hill Park is connected to downtown via this green spine, or West Main Street without the visual barrier disconnecting it from downtown.
All of these things are possible with the continued support of the state and federal government to reimagine urban highways. It doesn’t have to stop after the Inner Loop North is removed. This is why it’s so important that the community reject any proposal to connect the Inner Loop North’s future street grid to I-490. The interstate’s future is yet to be determined by our community. Jay Arzu Arzu is a native of the 19th Ward who is now a doctoral student in city and regional planning at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. “BOO” TO THE ZOO Plans for yet another expansion of the Seneca Park Zoo further threaten the beautiful Olmsteddesigned Seneca Park. Recent studies about the lives of zoo animals and related surveys suggest a growing antipathy toward zoos in general. The displacement of the native animal residents of the park for the purpose of caging beautiful creatures who don’t belong there is a travesty. Our view of chain link fences as we sit by the pond or picnic with family in the park is an atrocity. Mr. Olmsted would not be pleased. Stop the madness. Veronica Miller, Irondequoit
NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. JULY, 2022 Vol 50 No 11 On the cover: Photograph by Lauren Petracca 280 State Street Rochester, New York 14614 feedback@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 roccitynews.com PUBLISHER Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, Norm Silverstein, chairman FOUNDERS Bill and Mary Anna Towler EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT themail@rochester-citynews.com Editor: David Andreatta News editor: Jeremy Moule Staff writer: Gino Fanelli Arts editor: Daniel J. Kushner Life editor: Rebecca Rafferty Contributors: Matt Burkhartt, Jim Catalano, Mark Obbie, Lauren Petracca, Max Schulte, Mona Seghatoleslami, Brian Sharp, Jeff Spevak, David Streever, Jacob Walsh CREATIVE DEPARTMENT artdept@rochester-citynews.com Creative director: Ryan Williamson Designer/Photographer: Jacob Walsh ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales manager: Alison Zero Jones Advertising consultant/ Project manager: David White OPERATIONS/CIRCULATION Operations manager: Ryan Williamson Circulation manager: Katherine Stathis kstathis@rochester-citynews.com CITY is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased by calling 585-784-3503. CITY may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of CITY, take more than one copy of each monthly issue. CITY (ISSN 1551-3262) is published monthly 12 times per year by Rochester Area Media Partners, a subsidiary of WXXI Public Broadcasting. Periodical postage paid at Rochester, NY (USPS 022-138). Address changes: CITY, 280 State Street, Rochester, NY 14614. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the New York Press Association. Copyright by Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, 2021 - all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the copyright owner. WXXI Members may inquire about free home delivery of CITY including monthly TV listings by calling 585-258-0200.
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JULY 2022
IN THIS ISSUE OPENING SHOT
Shamila ties up a pair of skate shoes for Rolling Resettlement’s outing to the Roc City Skatepark. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
NEWS
8
WHEELS THAT HEAL
Rochester Rolling Resettlement aims to empower refugee children through skateboarding. BY GINO FANELLI
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GUN VIOLENCE, OVERSHADOWED
ARTS
LIFE
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The Wall\Therapy mural festival is back for its 10th — and final — year. BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
18
Alarm over mass shootings is obscuring the everyday shootings that are killing Americans and can be curbed.
WHERE THE PARTY NEVER ENDS
The vibe at Marge’s Lakeside Inn, with beach chairs and sand beckoning bare feet, feels much more exotic than the shore of a Great Lake.
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The Rochester Public Market is planning for its future, but economic conditions are already driving changes in what vendors are selling.
Rochester’s annual Pride festival celebrates 50 years with events spanning two weekends.
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BY BRIAN SHARP
MORE NEWS, ARTS, AND LIFE INSIDE
A FESTIVAL IN THE KEY OF “MUST SEE”
The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival returns for its 30th season with a smorgasbord of roots music. BY JIM CATALANO
ON THE COVER
(HOT) DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
Three hot dog carts remain in downtown Rochester. These are their stories. BY DAVID ANDREATTA
BY JEFF SPEVAK
RESTOCKING THE PUBLIC MARKET
‘PRIDE IN BLOOM’
BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
BY MARK OBBIE
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SPRAY PAINT THE TOWN
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CITY VISITS
HARBORFEST “WHEELS IN MOTION” CAR SHOW
Fuel-injected gearheads showed off their sweet rides at Ontario Beach Park. BY MATT BURKHARTT AND DAVID ANDREATTA roccitynews.com
CITY 5
EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
The Police Accountability Board — bush league or baby steps? BY DAVID ANDREATTA
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@DAVID_ANDREATTA
any supporters of law enforcement in our community take the view that the Rochester Police Accountability Board is nothing more than a kangaroo court hell bent on kicking cops to the curb. That may prove to be the case. Or not. No one will know until the board gets hopping. Right now, though, the board seems busy stepping on every rake in its path. Consider that in the span of a month, the board: • Lost its executive director, Conor Dwyer Reynolds, who was suspended pending an investigation into complaints that he fostered racial discrimination and a hostile work environment. • Lost its board chair, Shani Wilson, who stepped down after Reynolds accused her of sexual harassment. • Lost its ability to hire people and oversee its own finances when City Council imposed a hiring freeze on the agency and stripped the agency of control of its $5 million budget. The board, whose primary function is to field and investigate complaints of police misconduct, had justified its inaugural budget by anticipating a caseload of 480 complaints in its first year. But in that time, the agency had yet to set up the infrastructure to even take a complaint. (It began accepting complaints in late June.) “What do you guys do over there?” an indignant City Councilmember Willie Lightfoot asked board representatives during a recent council budget hearing. “I’m having a hard time understanding what you do all day.” Given the missteps and mismanagement of the agency, it is tempting to jump on the Police Accountability Board-bashing bandwagon and call for the whole thing to be blown up. 6 CITY
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DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
But kicking something when it is down is easy and, in the case of an agency that is being built on a blank canvas, is also unfair and premature. The hard thing to do, but right thing, is to remember that three-
quarters of Rochester voters wanted this board and to revisit the reasons why and the principles on which the board was founded. In the wake of the board’s crises, the Police Accountability Board Alliance, a
group of activists and police watchdogs who were responsible for writing the legislation that created the board, penned a plea to the Rochester community to recall the agency’s mandate. Here, in full, is the alliance’s plea.
REAFFIRMING THE COMMITMENT FOR AN INDEPENDENT POLICE ACCOUNTABILTY SYSTEM
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n response to the recent course of events, including PAB Executive Director Conor Dwyer Reynolds’ suspension and PAB Chair Shani Wilson’s resignation, the Police Accountability Board Alliance must reaffirm some basic principles found in the legislation it wrote. Previous systems of holding police accountable have been dangerously inadequate. There has never been an accountability system like this one before, so the board has been charged with, quite simply, inventing the wheel on which it will roll. In its infancy, though, it has experienced a number of roadblocks, some internal, some in its relations with city administration, and some due to a lack of cooperation from the Rochester Police Department. Members of the Board are all unpaid volunteers chosen for their experience and integrity, to uphold the five pillars of Article 18 of the City Charter. The Alliance asks the community to extend its understanding and support as the board navigates these difficulties and develops the processes necessary for its work. We also call for all agencies and governmental departments working with the PAB to cooperate fully and resolve any obstacles to the PAB’s carrying out its assigned tasks. In particular, we call on the RPD to give it the support that is required by the charter. The board needs all of our support as it resolves all of these issues. We wish to remind everyone of the five pillars on which the PAB stands: 1. It must be an independent agency of city government, separate from RPD. 2. It must have the power to independently investigate complaints of police misconduct. 3. It must have subpoena power to compel the production of evidence and witnesses. 4. It needs disciplinary power, using a disciplinary matrix. (Although this point is to be decided by New
York’s highest court, we expect this to remain part of the charter.) 5. It must have the power to review and evaluate RPD patterns, practices, policies and procedures to recommend systemic changes and to prevent misconduct from happening in the first place. Our Alliance is a coalition of local community groups responsible for nominating four of the nine sitting members of the board. We also advocate for the board’s full and independent functioning as defined in the City Charter and as demanded by an overwhelming majority of Rochester’s voters in the 2019 referendum. We are passionate about reforming our unjust criminal justice system and checking the abuses of power historically inflicted by the Rochester Police Department. We believe, too, that correcting those abuses will benefit both the community and its police force. Much of the PAB’s work continues and its members are focused on learning, serving, and protecting. It will soon be taking complaints from the public, and we strongly recommend that all investigations be allowed to proceed unencumbered, fairly, thoroughly, and in a timely fashion. The alliance thanks all of the board members for their service throughout. We are concerned, as are all Rochesterians, about recent events and about the many allegations that have been raised in the media, but we hope for their swift resolution so the PAB’s critical work can proceed. Because the public vote has spoken clearly, it is our duty to make sure the PAB can do the work the community has told us it wants. Let them do their job. The Alliance and the PAB are not going away.
Gentles Farm Market
Selling local fresh fruits and vegetables for over 100 years.
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CITY 7
NEWS
WHEELS THAT HEAL
Far from home, young Afghan refugees find community in Skateistan
Shabeer, foreground, gets a hand riding the bowl at the ROC City Skatepark from Skateistan instructor Farzad Sharafi. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
BY GINO FANELLI
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@GINOFANELLI
arzad Sharafi stood in the belly of the concrete bowl at the Roc City Skatepark on a recent muggy day, the blistering sun beating down on him. Overhead, perched nervously on a skateboard clinging to the lip of the bowl, was Shabeer, a young Afghan boy and student at the Rochester International Academy, a public school for new immigrants. Sharafi reached up to hold Shabeer’s hands and counted in Dari, the boy’s native tongue: “Yak, dou, se.” Shabeer rolled in. “I feel so happy,” said Sharafi, an instructor with Skateistan, a
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GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
nonprofit that introduces Afghan children and other youths who are often excluded from athletics to skateboarding and the creativity and freedom that comes with the sport. “I’m so happy, I’m skateboarding, I’m teaching, and also I’m learning.” Sharafi and about 30 students were there that day with Rochester Rolling Resettlement, a new initiative of the Friends of Roc City Skatepark and a slew of nonprofits, including Skateistan. That organization is based in Berlin, Germany, but started a pilot program in Rochester — the first in the United States — because of the
city’s high concentration of refugees from Afghanistan. Ben Rubin, of Rochester, worked with Skateistan overseas for several years before returning home. He sees Rolling Resettlement as a continuation of the mission that drove the skate programs in Afghanistan. “I think it’s regulating, especially for people that have gone through a lot of pretty intense experiences, there can be something that’s really healthy and grounding with the community that’s involved with (skateboarding),” Rubin said. CITY is withholding publishing the
full names of the student participants at the request of program organizers and school officials, who cited safety concerns for their families due to their refugee status. FROM KABUL TO COURT STREET Skateistan started in 2007 and in 2009 it opened its first full “skate school” in Kabul at the first skatepark in Afghanistan. The organization would later expand its operations into the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, just south of the border with Uzbekistan, and the western province of Bamiyan, about 150 miles northwest of Kabul. Skateistan
has garnered some acclaim in recent years and notably in 2020 was the subject of Carol Dysinger’s Oscar-winning short documentary “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl).” The program, while centered on skateboarding, also fostered students to play team sports like football and basketball, and provided academic support to students. That skate school became a second home for children like Sharafi, who is now 23, and fellow instructors Sohaib Nasrati and Zainab Hussaini. Hussaini now lives in Rochester. When she fled Afghanistan, she had been managing the Skateistan program there, and still works full-time for the organization. She had seen a skateboard in a photo on Skateistan’s website while a university student and was sucked in. “When I entered into Skateistan, my life was completely changed,” Hussaini said. As the United States pulled troops out of Afghanistan last summer, the Taliban quickly regained control of the country. Kabul fell just days before the troop withdrawal was to be completed. As the new regime took hold, thousands of Afghans fled the nation. Among them were Nasrati, Hussaini, and Sharafi, who ended up in Rochester late last year. In the meantime, Skateistan was forced to suspend its operations in Afghanistan. The organization, which operates similar programs in Cambodia, Jordan, and South Africa, entered into its “new chapter” and established 15 locations around the world, many of which are now home to a significant number of refugees. The Rochester location was launched alongside those in Belgium, and Albania. “I think it’s a really awesome opportunity to continue some of the work they were doing in Afghanistan in Rochester, and there’s a need for it,” Rubin said. Last year, Rochester welcomed 323 refugees from Afghanistan, according to Catholic Charities Family and Community Services, which helps settle refugees in the area. To put that number in perspective, it is greater than the number of Afghans who had settled here in the previous five years combined, according to the agency. The pace has slowed. This year to date, 111 Afghans have made Rochester home.
Shabeer, left, and Rahmatullah line up for the walk over to the ROC City Skatepark. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
Rubin and Hussaini both sought a way to continue the work of Skateistan. The goal was not just to bring skateboarding to young refugees, but to create a community for children to engage with fellow Dari-speaking people in similar circumstances. (Dari is one of the official languages of Afghanistan.) The organization refers to its activities as “trauma-informed sports.” Rochester Rolling Resettlement was born in March after its leaders coordinated with the Rochester City School District, and the Skateistan team received training from the district’s Office of Adult and Career Education Services. ‘BIG ARMS AROUND MY KIDS’ Rolling Resettlement is a first-of-itskind pilot program for the city school district and launching it is a job that seems tailored for Hussaini and Rubin. Through her experience in Skateistan, Hussaini had the skills to make Rolling Resettlement into a reality. Rubin, a lifelong skateboarder and globetrotter, has a wealth of connections in the skateboarding world. Those connections led Rubin to Nestor Judkins, a pro skater who in 2020 founded the Los Angelesbased nonprofit Salad Days, which introduces disadvantaged children to skateboarding. Rolling Resettlement seemed like the perfect fit. On a grassy knoll overlooking the Genesee Riverway Trail near the Roc City Skatepark, members of Rolling Resettlement and Salad Days laid out the equipment for the children’s
first outing. Salad Days donated 33 skateboards to the program — many of them Judkins’ own pro model from Enjoi Skateboards — alongside Adidas skate shoes, pads, helmets, decks, and assorted hardware. “One of our co-directors knows Ben, they’ve worked together on some projects in the past,” Judkins said. “Their paths have crossed in this small world of skateboarding, and in the world of skateboarding aid, it’s an even smaller world.” Rolling Resettlement has since March operated twice weekly at the Rochester International Academy, which is tucked inside Jefferson High School on Bloss Street. Principal Mary Andrecolich-Montesano was enthusiastic about the program from the start, and secured transportation for upcoming trips to the skatepark. “When I met Ben, it was like he fell out of the sky, because all of my newest students were from Afghanistan,” Andrecolich-Montesano said. “It’s so important, because the first day when Ben and the instructors came in, and my students saw them and they spoke the same language, it was like big, gigantic arms wrapping around my kids.” COMMUNITY ON WHEELS As the International Academy students rolled through the park, learning from Nasrati and Sharafi basic maneuvers like kickturns and rapid directional changes called tic-tacs, AndrecolichMontesano watched what she called the “fruits of our labor.” Andrecolich-Montesano’s son grew
up skateboarding so she had already been exposed to what she saw as a tight-knit community based around the sport, one that is both accepting and encouraging to newcomers. “Even if you fall off the skateboard, somebody’s there to pick you back up,” Andrecolich-Montesano said. “Isn’t that what we want to teach them? That even if you fall off, you can get back up. Skateboarding teaches that.” Skateboarding, to the members involved in the program, is more than exercise. It’s community, selfdiscipline, freedom, transportation, and empowerment all wrapped up in a wooden plank on four wheels. Hussaini believes the sport is also valuable for empowering women, especially those who have been oppressed. She’s a trailblazer herself — the International Olympic Committee recently highlighted her for being the first woman to complete a marathon in Afghanistan, in 2015. Later, she’d become the first woman in that nation to complete an ultramarathon. In the past, she also practiced basketball and taekwondo, the latter of which she was forced to quit after police in Afghanistan shut down her club due to what she described as “sports not being for girls.” “Sport is not only sport,” Hussaini said. “It has a really big meaning, especially for the women living in such countries as Afghanistan.” Rolling Resettlement works with boys and girls in grades 2 through 12. Andrecolich-Montesano coordinated an effort between the International Academy and School 50 that allows young students to join their older siblings who are already in the program. During their day at the skatepark, the kids started to learn the basics of skating: how to assemble a board, and how to support one another. Every time a student fell, Sharafi led shouts encouraging the skater to get back up and try again. “When people see skateboarding for the first time, they think, ‘No, I cannot do it.’ It was the same for me,” Hussaini said. “When I first saw a picture of a skateboard on the website, I thought, ‘People can do this in Afghanistan? “My first experience was, huh, I can fly on a skateboard.”
roccitynews.com
CITY 9
NEWS
OVERSHADOWED
We’re missing the real gun violence epidemic
A group of children walk past a house on 221 Emerson St. where 16-year-old Zahira Smith was shot while attending a birthday party. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
Alarm over mass shootings obscures the everyday gun violence that is killing Americans and can be curbed. BY MARK OBBIE
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@MARKOBBIE
n a single month following the mass shooting on May 14 in Buffalo, 33 people were shot — five fatally — on the streets of Rochester, according to police. Combined, the casualties in that span would constitute one of the bloodiest mass shootings in America this year if they occurred all in one incident. Instead, they happened in ones and twos, day by day,
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concentrated in the city’s so-called Crescent neighborhoods among young Black victims. None attracted anything like the notoriety of the racially motivated killing of 10 Black people in Buffalo or, 10 days later, the slaying of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. Irshad Altheimer has seen this before. But the director of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center
for Public Safety Initiatives said the pattern’s predictability doesn’t make the stark disparity of it any less disturbing. “I’m very concerned that so much media coverage and so much societal attention to those horrible incidents kind of overshadows our need to have a really deeper discussion about what’s going on with community violence,” said Altheimer, whose center analyzes violence in Rochester and evaluates
which programs work best to reduce everyday street violence. There is a solid body of science identifying the strategies that work best to reduce that everyday kind of violence, which claims far more victims in the U.S. than the sort of domestic violence incidents and mass shootings that are the primary focus of the policies proposed in the latest round of this endless debate.
“It’s not close,” one gun-violence prevention expert, Thomas Abt, wrote on Twitter about the relative deadliness of the various types of gun violence. “If that [community] violence is left unaddressed by Congress, the undeniable implication is that those victims, despite their greater numbers, matter less.” Abt, who chairs the violent crime working group at the Council on Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C., turned the scholarly consensus about community-violence prevention strategies into an anti-violence playbook for cities in a 2019 book and in a pair of white papers for the council — one on community-led strategies and another on evidence-based policing. Together, the most effective strategies — things like highly-targeted policing combined with community-led interventions to steer high-risk people to safety — overlap little with the policies emanating from Albany and Washington in reaction to the latest mass shootings. High-profile mass attacks, for obvious reasons, grab attention in dramatic fashion. But there’s a deeper disconnect at work, stemming from lawmakers’ preference for solutions that sound plausible, regardless of what the science tells us, and because the science of preventing mass shootings isn’t as developed as it is for everyday violence prevention, said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “I would call the mass shooting a low-base rate problem,” Butts said. “It’s horrific but infrequent and unpredictable. That would be like developing a protocol for not just car crashes but crashes where someone intentionally runs into someone else. How do you develop policy for that?” Mass shootings seem anything but infrequent, considering reporting that has become part of our mass-shooting response ritual. “There have been over 200 mass shootings so far in 2022,” a Washington Post headline announced nine days after the attack in Texas. The New York Times weighed in the same day on the same theme, reporting, “Since the devastating attack on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, mass shootings around the country have been relentless, coming at
Irshad Altheimer and the Center for Public Safety initiatives use data and analysis to help inform law-enforcement agencies around the country. FILE PHOTO
a pace of more than two a day.” Both reports, and many more, relied on the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit data collection project whose tallies of all types of gun violence have become a staple of mass-shooting news coverage. GVA, founded out of frustration that no government agency keeps real-time track of the toll of gun violence in America, uses an especially broad definition of mass shootings: where four or more people are wounded or killed “in a single event at the same general time and location” under any circumstance. By a more traditional definition — one that the public most likely thinks of when we hear the phrase “mass shooting” — there had been exactly two incidents in 2022 up to June 15: in Buffalo and Uvalde. The numbers of these especially horrifying attacks have remained relatively constant over many years, around 1 percent of America’s gun homicides, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. That narrower definition, which the FBI refers to as “active shooter” mass murders and The Violence Project and others call “mass public shootings,” singles out incidents where the killings of four or more people take place in public places and are not rooted in a more ordinary crime, like a robbery
or fight, or where the attacker sets out to exact revenge on someone or something over a particular grievance. They fit the stereotypical image: rampages by disturbed men taking out their rage on random strangers. Swept up in the much larger tally are the many ways Americans get shot by the thousands every year: in gang violence, petty arguments and other crimes, and over family and workplace grievances — almost always by shooters targeting people they know, and almost always using handguns instead of the assault-style rifles usually favored by the most notorious rampage killers. Though rarer and less predictable, the horrifying mass shootings dominating the news are not immune to strategies that might prevent or at least minimize their damage. Based on a study of 600 attacks and plots, the federally-funded “Mass Attacks Defense Toolkit” was published in June by RAND Corp. with a host of evidence-informed measures that community groups, police, schools and policymakers can take, from threat detection to discouraging copycats. In a similar vein, the journal Criminology & Public Policy in February 2020 published a collection of 16 papers by 40 researchers compiling the best scientific findings to date on
defining and effectively responding to mass shootings. (Disclosure: One of the sponsors of that academic project, the non-partisan Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, hired me to write a more digestible summary of the findings, published in April 2021.) Among the key recommendations from that project: banning largecapacity gun magazines rather than the rifles themselves; gun-licensing and red-flag laws to keep more guns out of the hands of dangerous people; and better threat-assessment systems, since mass shooters usually telegraph their intent in advance. One researcher, Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, cautioned during a June 2 online virtual briefing that “we can actually overemphasize” the differences between community gun violence and mass shootings. One big factor they have in common is overly easy access to guns capable of killing too many too quickly, he said. As with any complex social problem, there is of course no single solution. But, in places like Rochester that have suffered record levels of street violence since 2020, deeply understanding the various types of violence and their causes, plus a dedication to following the evidence of what actually works to fix the problems, form the necessary first steps toward progress. That sounds obvious, perhaps, but not in the context of lawmaking driven by the latest catastrophes and a public conversation that seems to start and end on the notion that we just need to “do something.” “The whole public safety conversation right now is just so performative,” said Butts, of John Jay College. “I would love to be optimistic. It’s hard.” RIT’s Altheimer said that’s his take, as well, so long as real data take a back seat to assumptions about solutions driven by politics and uninformed assumptions. “You have to have a clear process and you have to assess it,” Altheimer said. “And you gotta be willing to move on if it doesn’t have an impact — even if you like it.” Mark Obbie is a freelance journalist based in Canandaigua who covers gun violence policy nationally. roccitynews.com CITY 11
NEWS
TOUGH ROW TO HOE
Restocking the Public Market
Fatih Pirbudak, who works for a fruit and vegetable wholesaler at the Rochester Public Market, helps Shashi Gurung and Perm Adhikari select fresh produce. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
Rochester’s popular market is seeing fewer farmers as economic disruptions take a toll. BY BRIAN SHARP
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n a recent Thursday morning at the Rochester Public Market a light but steady stream of shoppers filtered past vendors peddling fresh fruits and vegetables, kettle corn, and blossoming flowers. A group of retirees sat around a picnic table at Zimmerman’s. And a swarm of grade-schoolers, having just unloaded from a pair of school buses nearby, waited impatiently for their tour to begin.
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Normalcy is returning to this place that is such a part of the community fabric. But its threads have been frayed, first by the pandemic, then by labor shortages, supply chain interruptions, and high gas prices. “The pandemic really hit the market pretty bad,” said Cindy Barrett, a longtime vendor and farmer who sells asparagus, beans, eggplant and tomatoes grown on the family farm in Williamson, Wayne County. “People are coming in more and
more now than they were before,” she continued. “Of course, now we got to deal with gas prices and everything else.” Vendors are struggling, like every other retailer, with changes in shopping habits. Many people got used to the convenience of online ordering during the pandemic. Both the market and individual vendors like Flower City Bread continue to do dozens of curbside pickup orders weekly. All of this has a domino effect on the industry.
“We’ve lost some vendors,” Barrett said. “I mean, the prices of the stalls went up this year. Some people didn’t renew their leases. It’s just the economy and, you know, some people are just getting out of it. “ The market is adapting in a shift last seen more than a half century ago. BACK TO THE FUTURE For a long time, the market’s challenge was accommodating all the vendors who wanted in.
Cindy Barrett, whose farm is in Williamson, offers wholesale produce. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
Farmers account for 15 percent of vendors at the Public Market. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
That drove a multi-million-dollar renovation and expansion, completed in 2017. A new shed was built, to be filled with farmers and other food vendors. But there wasn’t enough demand — even before COVID. Projections of higher and higher revenues fell flat. Today the market is grappling with vacancies. “It’s a whole little…small economy; its own microcosm of what’s going on,” said Jim Farr, who oversees the Public Market, and has been doing so for 25 years. The market, much like any retail operation, ebbs and flows. And financially, he said, it’s doing OK. Revenues are up, budget records show, but remain below pre-pandemic levels. Farr offers this quick history lesson: Back in the 1950s, the market was supposed to close. Everyone was moving to the new Genesee Valley Regional Market, a food distribution hub in Henrietta that offered easier access to the New York State Thruway and trucks that could ferry their wares to various locations across the Northeast. When some stubborn farmers refused to go, the only way to keep it viable was to open it to something it never had before. “That’s the first day we ever let anyone in but food and farm products,” Farr said. Those vendors, peddling socks, underwear and shoes, kept things going. As farmers markets saw a
resurgence, tripling in number nationwide between the ’90s and early 2000s, the vendor mix at the Public Market shifted back toward food. “Now,” Farr said, “since the pandemic, we may see a shift a little bit back the other way again.” BY THE NUMBERS Already farmers are routinely outnumbered by those selling crafts, hats, and kitchen gadgets. Farmers collectively fill more stalls. But a census of last year’s market days in June, July, and August — the busiest months of the season — showed local farmers accounting for just 15 percent of the vendor mix. Other food vendors, peddling jams, pies, and products not grown in New York, were 38 percent of the total. General merchandise vendors represented 31 percent, with craft vendors making up the difference. In recent weeks, market staff has relied on general merchandise vendors to fill the outer two sheds. Most of the licensed vendors hail from Monroe and Wayne counties, records show, but extend across the Finger Lakes and as far away as Queens, in New York City. The vendor census is being collected as part of a master plan and management plan update, the first in more than a decade. The assessment isn’t just looking at the market but the surrounding neighborhood, evaluating every commercial property in the surrounding neighborhood.
There is consideration of a small transportation center with a bus turnaround, the possibility of housing development and options for wholesale vendors to move offsite, finding their warehouses are more valuable as retail space. The market restaurants “are doing very well,” Farr said. The area around the market has seen $30 million or more in private investment along Railroad Street and around the market, he said. The city has put in close to $20 million in recent decades. ‘THINGS ARE GONNA CHANGE’ The shifting vendor mix isn’t all about the pandemic, or the economy for that matter. For some, the pandemic wasn’t all bad. Fresh meat vendors saw record sales as supermarket prices soared. More time at home meant more time for gardening, helping sales of flowers and vegetable plants. But Ted Cooper with Kirby’s Farm Market in Brockport, says foot traffic at the Public Market has yet to rebound, at least on weekdays. “Saturday, we sold over 100 pounds of asparagus and everything sold pretty well,” Cooper said. “But Thursdays have been not really that great.” There also is an oversaturation of markets, according to the Farmers Market Federation of New York. It’s also important to have a mix,
Farr said. Even among food vendors, the farmers and wholesalers ensure competition. That ensures affordability — a mission and a need not lost on Tom Watson, a farmer and produce seller out of Livingston County. “This area has always been a hub for food in a food desert,” he said. “With the price of fuel going up… loads from California have increased substantially, as well as from New York City, Philadelphia, from down south, and we rely on a lot of that produce early in the season.” Those farmers who remain are making do. People like Mary Ellen Loss, the self-described longestrunning and oldest vendor at the market, celebrated 50 years this season. Farming in her family goes back generations. There are fewer farmers now, she said, more what she calls “hucksters,” the wholesalers and resellers who undercut her prices. Too low for her to match. She and her husband make their living on farming. “Things are gonna change,” she said. “And we have to go along with that change. But we’ll take it. I grew up during a depression, so anything is better than nothing.”
roccitynews.com CITY 13
ARTS
PAINT THE TOWN
Irish artist Conor Harrington checks his sketch against his in-progress mural on the El Camino Trail in 2013. Harrington is among the Wall\Therapy alumni who will return to Rochester this month for Wall\Therapy’s 10th anniversary festival. PHOTO PROVIDED
WALL\THERAPY PULLS THE PLUG The project marks 10 years with a final festival this month, but its legacy will live on. BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
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all\Therapy returns this month with a week-long festival featuring more than a dozen muralists, a film screening, artist workshops, and more from July 23-31. But the affair comes with an unexpected caveat — this festival will be the organization’s last. While Wall\Therapy projects will extend beyond the summer — in that 14 CITY JULY 2022
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organizers will continue to facilitate the installation of murals and bring artists to Rochester — the week-long mural art festival is fading away like paint on weather-beaten brick. “The challenges of maintaining it are numerous,” said Wall\Therapy founder Dr. Ian Wilson. He and lead curator Erich Leman said each festival requires fundraising,
coordinating with traveling artists, booking flights and accommodations, wrangling volunteers, and planning related events. Going forward, organizers said they’ll present project-based events that will welcome solo or small groups of artists to town throughout the year. “This will allow us to be more nimble, and take more chances in who we’re able
to bring in or how we’re able to work, things like that,” Lehman said. This year’s artist roster includes six Wall\Therapy alumni: New Mexicobased Indigenous painter Nani Chacon (2018), London-based Irish artist Conor Harrington (2013), Canadian artist Jarus (2014), Native-Hawaiian artist Ian Kuali’i (2017), California-born artist Faring Purth (2013), and Rochester artist
Native Hawaiian artist Ian Kuali’i installed this wheatpaste mural on the corner of Greenleaf Street and Atlantic Avenue in 2017. Kuali’i will paint in Rochester again this month. PHOTO PROVIDED
A mural by Canadian artist Jarus, titled “Avery,” was installed at the Fedder Industrial Complex in 2014. Jarus will paint for Wall\Therapy again this year. PHOTO PROVIDED
Brittany Williams (2015). The 2022 lineup also includes several artists who are new to Wall\Therapy, and others who have yet to be announced. Rochester native Ephraim Gebre, known for his work on the John Lewis mural on State Street and the more recent painting of Minister Franklin Florence, Malcolm X, and Connie Mitchell on East High School, will create his first mural for Wall\Therapy with RIT professor and artist Luvon Sheppard. Also joining for the first time are Detroitbased artist Sydney G. James; Daniel Jesse Lewis of Berkeley, California; South African artist Elléna Lourens; and Keya Tama, who is the son of South African artist and Wall\Therapy alum Faith47. Renowned street art photographer Martha Cooper will return to Rochester to photograph the festival once more,
and the documentary about her life, titled “MARTHA,” is set for a July 26 screening in Cooper’s honor at The Little Theatre. The free screening will be followed by a Q&A with Cooper. Artist workshops and other events will be announced closer to the festival. Wall\Therapy was formally launched as an annual festival in 2012, one summer after Wilson brought a small group of South Africa-based muralists together with local artists to quietly paint murals with uplifting messages on Troup Street and around the Rochester Public Market. From there, the project erupted into an annual, highly-anticipated event that brought in artists from all over the world to paint walls throughout the city. In the process, it elevated the work of Rochesterbased artists, and presented film
screenings, dance parties, and conferences on public art. It still comes as a surprise to some fans of the festival that everything Wall\ Therapy accomplished was done without public funds. Wilson and Lehman shouldered much of the annual expense, including artist compensation. Beginning in 2013, organizers also held an annual crowdfunding period ahead of each festival, with incentives of artwork and ephemera donated by artists and art lovers. Wilson said that those successful fundraising campaigns, in which the organizers shared ownership of the project with the community, proved that there was enduring interest in what Wall\ Therapy was trying to accomplish. (There will be no crowdfunding effort this year. Aside from a $25,000 grant from the John Steuart Curry Foundation, this year’s festival will be financed through private fundraising efforts.) Over the years, donations and other expressions of community support have outweighed detractors of the project who complained about murals they found offensive. Mural designs weren’t approved by anyone. Property owners who agreed to allow their buildings to become a canvas did so with the understanding that the artist would have creative license. “There was a certain audacity present since the beginning,” Lehman said, noting that a handful of naysayers had trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that a small group of art enthusiasts were putting up public art without public consent. Many of the murals are simply
beautiful paintings — a captivating woman, children playing, or stylized depictions of animals. But others are more poignant reflections of artists who took a few days to soak up the city or the neighborhood they would be altering with their artwork. At times, the artists responded to a current event and spoke with residents about its impact on them. In 2013, New Jersey-based artist LNY painted a mural on Joseph Avenue that incorporated images of Trayvon Martin, Frederick Douglass, and a little boy from the neighborhood. “It’s the conversations with the folks who live near the murals, who are going to live with those murals, and what it means to them,” Lehman said. “And more often than not, you have people who just appreciate the effort, and that someone has made something with their space in mind.” This year, organizers gave participating artists the loose prompt to create work that tackles something they want to talk about regarding the state of the world. Wall\Therapy’s message has remained fairly simple and down-to-earth: to use public art to inspire Rochesterians. That may have taken the form of a child moved to pick up a paintbrush, or a neighborhood resident finding a spring in their step, or an out-of-towner visiting the city to watch a mural go up. “That act of coming together over art has the power to bridge gaps, to foster community and communication,” Lehman said.
roccitynews.com roccitynews.org CITY 15
ARTS
ROUNDUP
JULY OUTDOOR CONCERT LINEUP
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here are plenty of great outdoor shows to catch this month. This handy, yet in no way comprehensive, list was built around the big shows at CMAC and Darien Lake, but offers a few things for those of you who want something different — like two chances to see Rochester soul queen Danielle Ponder.
“Clarissa Uprooted” recalls a once-thriving Black neighborhood devestated by “urban renewal.” PHOTO PROVIDED
WITNESSING WHAT WAS “We were a village. They took that village away.” Those words, a quote by former Clarissa Street neighbor Joan Coles Howard, confront viewers on the title wall of “Clarissa Uprooted: Unearthing the Stories of Our Village (1940s-early 1970s),” an exhibit currently on view at RIT City Art Space in Sibley Square. The exhibit provides a deep look at the once-thriving Black residential and business corridor in Rochester’s Third Ward, which was devastated by “urban renewal” efforts and rebranded as the Corn Hill neighborhood. The neighborhood is brought to life through photographs, maps, infographics, video testimonials, historic artifacts, artwork, a virtual reality experience, and a to-scale recreation of the Pythodd Room Jazz Club right in the gallery. That club, about the size of a living room with a small stage and a few twotop tables, was a regular stop of the Chitlin’ Circuit — a network of spots where Black musicians could work that was founded during the Jim Crow Era — and internationally renowned jazz artists from 1942 to 1973. Presented by the Clarissa Street Reunion Committee — which for decades has held a commemorative block party on Clarissa Street — Teen Empowerment, and RIT faculty, staff, and students, the exhibit offers an intimate look at what was destroyed or displaced by highway construction in the early 1970s. Visitors can pore over directories of Black businesses and see where the shops were on a map, hear the stories of former residents from people who lived there, and explore the journey of Black Americans from the Great Migration through the pursuit of the American Dream — and the thwarting of those dreams. Computer stations offer a look at redlined districts and race concentration in Rochester and reveal changes in Rochester over time with an historic map viewerslider. Newspaper articles reveal the positions and attitudes of politicians of the time and the rhetoric that pushed public opinion to favor urban renewal. The subheadline for an article promoting the changes reads, “Third Ward Ghetto a Tinder Box…”. That portrayal appears in sharp contrast with images of families and business owners doing their best to work together and thrive, and the testimonies offered in video and virtual reality alike. The elders who witnessed the neighborhood change firsthand and provided their reflections — now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s — include military veterans, clergy, business owners, medical doctors, a newspaper editor, Kodak workers, and the first African-American police officer in Rochester. This valuable museum piece remains on view through July 24 at 280 E. Main St. Gallery hours are Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. and Friday from 1 to 9 p.m. More info at clarissauprooted.org. - REBECCA RAFFERTY 16 CITY JULY 2022
JULY 1 CMAC: The Tedeschi Trucks Band, after 2020 and ’21 dates at the venue postponed due to the pandemic, has 6:30 p.m. third try. With a strong set of openers in Los Lobos and Gabe Dixon. DARIEN LAKE: Easy listening pop crooner Josh Groban, 7 p.m. ANOTHER OPTION: The second annual Nature in the City day at the Rochester Public Market, from 2-10 p.m. It’s an environmental-awareness festival of art, music, dance workshops and activities for children and adults. JULY 2 DARIEN LAKE: The pop boy band Big Time Rush Forever Tour with Dixie D’Amelio, 8 p.m. JULY 3 DARIEN LAKE: The Backstreet Boys’ 7:30 p.m. show is another one making up for dates postponed in 2020 and ’21. ANOTHER OPTION: Amazingly, Three Dog Night is still out there, with a show at Point of the Bluff Winery. Danny McGaw opens the show at 3 p.m. JULY 5 DARIEN LAKE: Cheer Live, featuring performers from the Netflix series on competitive cheerleading, 7:30 p.m. ANOTHER OPTION: This is opening night for the Rochester Broadway Theatre League’s “Mean Girls.” It’s a musical-comedy, nominated for a dozen Tony Awards, about nasty high-school girls based on the 2004 film written by Tina Fey. It runs through July 10.
JULY 8 DARIEN LAKE: Dierks Bentley, Ashley McBryde and Travis Denning at Darien Lake, 7 p.m. This is the “Beer’s on Me” tour. ANOTHER OPTION: Buffalo’s The Donny Frauenhofer Band plays the Little Feet album “Waiting For Columbus” in its entirety, starting at 8 p.m. JULY 10 CMAC: Keith Urban and Ingrid Andress, 7 p.m. ANOTHER OPTION: Did we mention July 9 and 10 is Corn Hill Arts Festival weekend? JULY 15 CMAC: Luke Bryan, Riley Green and Mitchell Tenpenny, 7 p.m. DARIEN LAKE: Thomas Rhett, Parker McCollum and Conner Smith, 7:30 p.m. “Bring the Bar to You” tour. JULY 16 CMAC: Jackson Browne, 8 p.m. JULY 17 CMAC: Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, 7:30 pm. ANOTHER OPTION: Fema Kuti & the Positive Force has a show at the Point of the Bluff winery. But the 3 p.m. opener is a don’t miss: Soulful Rochester singer Danielle Ponder is fresh off her first national TV appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.” JULY 31 DARIEN LAKE: Pitbull and Iggy Azalea, 8 p.m. - JEFF SPEVAK
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ARTS
ON THE WATERFRONT
The vibe at Marge’s Lakeside Inn, with beach chairs and sand beckoning bare feet, feels much more exotic than the shore of a Great Lake. PHOTO PROVIDED
MARGE’S LAKESIDE INN: WHERE THE PARTY NEVER ENDS BY JEFF SPEVAK
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side from the red, white, and blue sign out front, Marge’s Lakeside Inn looks like any other beach house lining the street on the northernmost stretch of Culver Road in Irondequoit. But visitors who stroll up the concrete stairs rising from the sidewalk will see a cozy outdoor patio with a fire pit in the shadow of a sprawling tree. If they make their way through the door, they’ll find a tiny dark interior awash in Tiki décor, dried starfish trapped in nets, and photos on the walls. So many photos. The jukebox is a time machine of the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, and 18 CITY JULY 2022
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vintage pop. Past the mirrored beer signs, down a short hall, they come to the back porch. “And then they come out here,” says Francine Beth, the longtime owner of Marge’s, gazing at the vista of the vast expanse of blue that is Lake Ontario. To the uninitiated and geographically-challenged patrons who ask if they’re looking at an ocean, Beth coyly tells them, “Yesss.” The vibe, with beach chairs and sand beckoning bare feet, feels much more exotic than the shore of a Great Lake. Key West exotic. Caribbeanisland exotic, even.
Throughout Rochester’s brief summer window, Marge’s fills the beach with bands, music and patrons visiting the “Tip-sea” Tiki bar. The sunsets are generally quite marvelous. Perhaps they always are. But we never really notice until we take the time to actually study one, do we? Sometimes the live music is original, but mostly cover bands dominate. The oxymoron duo of Jumbo Shrimp plays a couple of times a month. Strangely fitting in with the celebratory mood of this beach scene is Watkins & the Rapiers’ and its “Xmas in July,” a fixture show
at Marge’s this time of year in which the Rochester band plays a set of sardonic, sometimes sentimental, Christmas songs. When it performs on July 7, the band will debut two new works: “No Summer Break for Santa Claus” and “Christmas in July.” The latter is the second Watkins song of that title. The band may be running out of options. Over the years, Watkins & the Rapiers has written 99 Christmas songs. As best the band can determine — and there’s no reason to believe that anyone else would engage in such an endeavor — this appears
PHOTOS PROVIDED
to be the largest collection of Christmas songs ever written by a single man, band or beast. (One of the band’s songwriters is Scott Regan, who hosts the radio program “Open Tunings” on WXXI, the parent company of CITY.) Such unorthodoxy fits the long arc of history that is Marge’s Lakeside Inn. Its very foundation has been threatened by Lake Ontario’s spring floods, its neighbors treated — whether they like it or not — to local musicians such as Dave Turner setting John Denver’s “Country Roads” to an island beat. “I don’t know how I got here,” Beth says, even though she knows the story well enough, since she’s been a central part of it. The building dates back to the 1930s. During Prohibition, it hosted an illicit speakeasy that secretly brought in booze from Canada. The owner then, George Magin, brewed
beer in the basement. But it was 62 years ago that Marge’s as we know it today was born. That’s when Marge Beth bought the place. She ran her namesake bar with her son, Ron. Her other son, Gerry, played piano there. Gerry “Fingers” Beth was a familiar presence in the city for decades, playing clubs with a large gay following, such as Bullwinkle’s on Lake Avenue and Tara’s on Liberty Pole Way, which is now Abilene Bar & Lounge. Ron Beth bought Marge’s Lakeside Inn from his mother in 1975, and ran it until he died of cancer 11 years later. Ron Beth’s widow Fran, and their daughter, Francine, were now bar owners. Francine was just 20 years old. “My mom worked at Kodak,” Francine says. “I’m an only child. This bar, it was up to me.”
It’s the family business. A cadre of regulars fills out that family tree, one that Beth likens to a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. That means there are some broken branches. “So our customers aren’t customers, they’re family,” she says. “And that’s how we live, and that’s why all the pictures, and why I get so emotional, with customers who pass, or do great things. That’s the Marge vibe.” Many of the photos on the walls of Marge’s are from the yearly trips, organized by the bar, to Caribbean islands. Tim Wagner is on those walls. Among Marge’s regulars, Wagner stood out. A big man with a big personality, he died in February. The bar waited until the June weather to throw a beach party in his honor. Maeve Mac An Tuile, who lives a few houses down the beach from Marge’s, recalls a Halloween party a few years ago at the bar. Wagner showed up dressed in a vintage golf outfit: jodhpurs, a sharp pair of spats over his shoes. “Beautiful, he was handsome, very gorgeous,” Mac An Tuile says of Wagner. And Beth? Her costume was a giant loofah sponge. But something was amiss. Wagner and Beth decided they had to switch costumes.
“Francine looked so cute in that golf outfit,” Mac An Tuile says. And Wagner? Wearing a huge tutu, flip flips and holding a sponge brush? “It was like, meant to be,” Mac An Tuile says. “They had the wrong costumes from the beginning, so they knew they had to switch.” On a summer evening last month, with some of his friends wearing the jaunty style of captain’s hat frequently worn by Wagner, the Marge’s crowd celebrated his life by setting adrift on Lake Ontario a fleet of candles mounted in paper bags. In this remembrance of Wagner, Beth thought of where she is now. And she recalled the loss that led to her becoming the third generation behind the bar at Marge’s. “Being 55 years old,” she says, “and only having my dad for 20, when he would dance with me in the barroom to Helen Reddy, ‘You’re My World.’ And, ‘The Wonder of You,’ by Elvis…” Beth began to cry a little, just as her friends called her away to another place in the tavern, where there was a party going on.
roccitynews.com roccitynews.org CITY 19
ARTS
BACK TO ITS ROOTS
Gunpoets frontman Dan Lisbe performs on the Infield Stage at the 2018 GrassRoots Festival in Trumansburg, N.Y. PHOTO BY DAVE BURBANK
GRASSROOTS ROCKS A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY The beloved Finger Lakes music festival marks 30 years of making music, memories. BY JIM CATALANO
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fter a two-year pandemicinduced hiatus, the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance returns in full flight July 21-24 with four days of music on four stages at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds, about 12 miles north of Ithaca. Marking its 30th anniversary this year, GrassRoots offers its traditional 20 CITY JULY 2022
mix of familiar favorites, some new groups, an array of regional and international bands, and a handful of national headliners. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of roots music, with everything from gospel, Cajun, old-time, and country to reggae, funk, Celtic, and Cuban represented among the more than 75 bands. Donna the Buffalo, the long-
running roots-rock band that founded the festival and hosts the event, welcomes back regional favorites such as the Campbell Brothers and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad; Louisiana-based staples such as Keith Frank and Walter Mouton; and Ithaca peers such as Gunpoets, John Brown’s Body (reuniting for its first show since
2017), the Sim Redmond Band, and Johnny Dowd. Among this year’s scheduled headliners are country traditionalists Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives; jamgrass group The Infamous Stringdusters; bluegrass legend Peter Rowan; R&B keyboardist Cory Henry; New Orleans funksters Galactic; Ukrainian
IF YOU GO What: 30th annual Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance When: July 21-24 Where: Trumansburg Fairgrounds, Trumansburg, N.Y. General-admission tickets: Fourday pass: $171 in advance, $185 at the gate; Daily tickets range from $46-$70 in advance and $58-$82 at the gate. Youth (age 13-15) four-day passes are $86 in advance, $91 at the gate; daily tickets are $44. Children 12 and under get in free Website: www.GrassRootsFest.org
avant-folk quartet DakhaBrakha; and Dobet Gnahoré, from the Ivory Coast via France. Like many festivals, GrassRoots was canceled in 2020. Last year it offered sort of a “HalfRoots” experience — a three-day event headlined by Donna the Buffalo that featured only two stages and a couple of dozen bands. But this year’s festival promises a return to form, one that organizers hope will help GrassRoots recapture the vibe it cultivated over the course of its existence. “We started this thing with a shoestring, and I’m so surprised that 30 years later it’s still going strong,” said Tara Nevins, an original member of Donna the Buffalo. “But there’s another part of me that’s just not surprised at all because people love gatherings, people love music, and people love festivals. And you can still pretty much expect the same thing when you come to GrassRoots — it’s a very positive experience, one that’s very family and community oriented.” That positivity — along with the music, of course — has helped the festival to attract 10,000-15,000 attendees annually, with people coming from all over the country. That includes more than 1,300 volunteers each year, which helps the non-profit GrassRoots organization maintain the relaxed, communal vibe with a relatively small staff. Over the years, GrassRoots has expanded its offerings to include music workshops, kids’ activities, an emphasis on sustainability, the Congo Square Market (which showcases Black and Latino vendors
Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins of Donna the Buffalo perform on the Grandstand Stage at GrassRoots Weekend, held in July 2021 in place of a full-fledged festival. PHOTO BY THERESA MOGIL
The Happiness Parade takes place annually on Sunday at the festival. PHOTO BY DAVE BURBANK
and performers), The Art Barn, the Healing Arts Area, three beer and wine gardens, and a variety of food and crafts vendors from around the country. The event has even multiplied, with fall and spring versions at Shakori Hills in North Carolina, and another in March at Virginia Key State Park in Miami. That’s a long way from
GrassRoots’s humble beginnings, which started with an AIDS benefit concert at the State Theatre of Ithaca in May 1990, followed by a move the following year to Trumansburg Fairgrounds for a three-day event. “We had been to all these festivals, and we thought, ‘Hey, we could do one of these,’” Nevins remembered. “We could see how they were run
and we thought we could probably pull it off here. So we did that AIDS benefit to start, and then decided to do the whole weekend the next summer. And then it just kept going from there.” Over the years, GrassRoots has featured dozens of well-known headliners, from 10,000 Maniacs, Steve Earle and George Jones to the Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, and Emmylou Harris. But the festival has never really been about bringing the big names or providing a VIP experience. Nate Richardson, who plays guitar with the Sim Redmond Band and John Brown’s Body, said he appreciates the non-commercial bent of GrassRoots. “I take great inspiration from the idea of doing a music festival like this, one that’s not corporatized and is not trying to cash in on everything,” said Richardson, who played his first GrassRoots in 1998. “They’re doing something with a lot of intention, and trying to maintain the traditions of it. But they’ve embraced some new ideas, too.”
roccitynews.com roccitynews.org CITY 21
ARTS
SAFE SPACES
Dick’s Tavern on Front Street was noted by the FBI in a 1958 report to be a “notorious gathering spot for homosexuals.” The bar later relocated to South Avenue and was renamed Dick’s 43 Lounge. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ROCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY
WHERE HAVE ALL THE GAY BARS GONE? In a half-century, Rochester’s gay bars went from secret and forbidden to “out” and everywhere to almost nowhere. BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
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amela Barres still remembers the freedom she felt walking into Rosie’s wearing lipstick and that
red wig. Back then, Barres was a middle-aged married man with children and a job at Kodak by day, and a covert “crossdresser” by night eager for acceptance of her authentic self. She found it at Rosie’s, a lesbian bar on Monroe Avenue. 22 CITY JULY 2022
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“It was one of the few places I could be totally me,” said Barres, now a 79-year-old transgender woman. “I was very, very hidden most of my life. And I was afraid of anybody finding out.” More than 30 years has passed since those days, and Rosie’s, like dozens of other gay bars in Rochester and hundreds across the country, has
closed. Still, the rush of relief Barres experienced has not left her. “There was a lot of fear, but excitement at the same time, and it felt so good to go someplace and feel that I wasn’t going to be beat up,” she said. “I wasn’t going to be screamed at or told how sick I was, or things like that, which we were all afraid of.” For decades, gay bars were among
the few places that queer people could gather in relative safety. To their patrons, they were important spaces for finding and socializing with one’s people — and looking for love or a hook up was a big part of the scene. “Back then, you couldn’t meet in places that hetero people could meet,” said Robert Dardano, a 65-year-old retired archivist for the Library of
Congress who spent his younger years in Rochester before relocating to Washington, D.C. “If you were looking for a boyfriend and got rejected, at least you knew it wasn’t because you were gay.” In a blog post for the Out Alliance’s “Shoulders to Stand On” project that archives memories of LGBTQ+ culture in Rochester, Dardano recalled coming out in Rochester and some of the many gay and lesbian bars that served as social spots for Rochester’s queer community. “The early-80s seemed to be a Golden Age for gay and lesbian night life in the Flower City,” Dardano wrote. “When I tell people in Washington, D.C., where I now live, how many bars there were in a city the size of Rochester, N.Y., they are amazed.” By the early 1980s, there were roughly 1,600 bars across the United States that catered to the LGBTQ+ community, including about 200 that were specifically geared toward lesbians, according to Greggor Mattson, an associate professor of sociology at Oberlin College who tracked the closure of queer bars using the Damron travel guide for such establishments. Their numbers dwindled in the ensuing years, but tumbled into an Information Age-induced free fall with the advent of the smartphone. Between 2007 and 2019, bars friendly to LGBTQ+ people declined by almost 37 percent, according to Mattson’s online database and accompanying report. Listings for bars that catered to gay men dropped to 387 from 699 during that period, while lesbian bar listings fell to just 15. The precipitous drop was only offset by a marked rise between 1987 and 2007 in listings for establishments in which women and gay men were socializing. (The data does not specify whether the women were lesbians.) From the 1960s through the earlyaughts, downtown Rochester saw the opening and closing of dozens of gay bars and dance clubs. A handful were mainstays, while others were flashes in the pan. Today, Rochester has three: a pair of stalwarts in Bachelor Forum and The Avenue Pub, and ROAR, a dance club that opened in 2019. “The biggest challenge is that you don’t really need a gay club anymore,” said Joe Marcella, 63, owner of Club Marcella in Buffalo, which had a location in Rochester on Liberty Pole Way from 1994 to 1999. “If gay people go out,
Bernie Brown working the door at Jim’s in 1978. The pub, at 123 North St., was one of the few gay bars in Rochester before 1975.
David Glasker and Steve DeMare during a “happy hour” at Tara’s. The gay bar was located on Liberty Pole Way and later became Abilene Bar and Lounge under new ownership. PHOTO COURTESY OF CLIFF MOTKO
PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL HALL
Sara Rosenfeld has worked at gay bars in Rochester and San Francisco, and says that many have closed for financial and cultural reasons. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH
they go everywhere. You can hold hands anywhere. With freedom, you lose a little of what you needed in the past.” But others insist that, regardless of general inclusiveness, there are many reasons that having specifically gay spaces is still important.
MORE THAN WATERING HOLES Piecing together Rochester’s gay bar history is no simple matter. There is no comprehensive list, official records are incomplete, and many original owners have died or moved away. Many former patrons of these establishments have aged and have vague recollections of which bar was where and when, and who owned it.
Specifics are in dispute. Jerry Bates, 76, rattled off the names and locations of watering holes and dance clubs he could remember: “Rathskeller was on Chestnut below the Edison Hotel, Red Carpet was across from the Eastman Theatre ….” There was also Bachelor Forum, which opened in 1973 on Main Street but later moved to its current location on University Avenue, and The Avenue Pub, which was founded in 1975 and is still on Monroe Avenue. Another place, Tara’s, was located where Abilene currently resides on Liberty Pole Way. The lesbian bar Riverview was near Geva Theatre Center, and Rosie’s became the Bug Jar.
Bates recalled one of Rochester’s earliest gay bars as Dick’s 43 Lounge (also referred to as Martha’s, after the owner), which opened on Front Street in the 1950s and later moved to Stone Street and then State Street. He remembered the days of police raids and other forms of harassment. Owners then would signal possible trouble by telling patrons “No dancing tonight” when they entered the bar. “They would see men dancing as indicative of, ‘This is a gay bar,’” Bates said, adding that he suspected some places paid off authorities to be alerted to unannounced visits from police. By the late 1970s and early ’80s, as the threat of police harassment faded, these taverns, piano bars, and dance clubs began to serve the gay community in new ways. In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, for instance, some nighttime haunts became daytime hubs for community activism. Tim Tompkins, 67, recalled hosting a meeting at Liberty, his club on Liberty Pole Way, to discuss the strange new disease that seemed to only be affecting gay men. In attendance were Tim Sweeney — who would become the president of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City — and Tompkin’s friend, Sue Cole, who worked for Monroe County’s STD clinic. “I gave everyone a free drink just to get them in there,” Tompkins said.
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Longtime Rochester resident Ove Overmyer at Bachelor Forum, a University Avenue gay bar that has been open since 1973. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH
CULTURE HAS CHANGED, BUT NOT COMPLETELY Reasons for gay bars closing range from the cultural to the financial, and sometimes the two overlap. A more accepting society made it safe for gay people to be themselves almost anywhere. That, in turn, hit gay bars at the register. “Social conditions have kind of relaxed,” said Ove Overmyer, 66, a retired librarian and the former communications director for the regional Civil Service Employees Association labor union. “Folks don’t necessarily need to go to a gay bar to meet people, you can pretty much do that anywhere now.” When asked why so few gay bars exist today, the answer from patron after patron was almost universal: “The internet.” “Cruising” can happen quickly on dating apps, without the user having to spend any money or much time trying to meet someone. “The advent of the internet changed everything — you can have your dinner and your sex delivered straight to your door,” said Tuesday Thomas, a 60-year-old trans woman, comedian, and actress who is based in Los Angeles but grew up in Rochester and bartended and performed at several gay clubs here in the late ’70s and ’80s. But long before the invention of the internet and smart phones, there was “mainstreaming” of gay 24 CITY JULY 2022
clubs. Clientele at these spaces became increasingly mixed as more representation of gay identities hit mainstream pop culture. Onceunderground features of gay clubs, like drag shows, became ubiquitous. Marcella said his Club Marcella started out as a gay space, but quickly became popular with straight people, too. His business model became more inclusive, and he said that success meant changing with the times. Nowadays, he said, most clubs can’t survive on a gay-only clientele with the singles scene online. “Grindr is killing the gay nightlife,” he said. Sara Rosenfeld, a 50-year-old military veteran who self-identifies as a “masculine-of-center woman of color,” offered a tongue-in-cheek reason for the waning of lesbian bars. “Lesbians nest,” she said with a laugh, playing on the oft-repeated trope that lesbians date briefly before shacking up and swearing off the bar scene. “And at my age, it’s about quality over quantity,” Rosenfeld said. “I’d much prefer to meet a nice woman at the library than in line for the pisser at the Forum.” Rosenfeld currently works as a school culture consultant, but spent years as a bouncer at several gay bars in Rochester and San Francisco. Through that work she made a more serious observation: not all gay bars are safe spaces for all gay people, especially queer people of color.
Robert D’Ambrosio, affectionately known as “Poopsie,” was a beloved bartender at Tara’s. D’Ambrosio died in 2011. PHOTO COURTESY CLIFF MOTKO
Carolyn Zook worked the bar at The Avenue Pub on Monroe Avenue for more than 30 years. The tavern has been a staple of Rochester’s gay bar scene since 1975. PHOTO COURTESY OVE OVERMYER
She touched on an ongoing inclusivity issue that is not exclusive to Rochester, but is present here. An outgrowth of it is the existence of Rochester Black Pride, which was created in 2015 partially in response to complaints from LGBTQ+ people of color that they did not feel welcome in what were predominantly white spaces. “People think that prejudice misses the queer community because we’re marginalized,” Rosenfeld said. “But it’s present.”
AN ONGOING NEED FOR QUEER SPACES Many former owners and patrons agree that a shift in culture has made gay bars obsolete. So a fair question to ask is: Is there a need for gay bars in 2022? That question is the central focus of a forthcoming book by Mattson, the Oberlin professor who tracked the decline of queer bars, titled “Who Needs Gay Bars?” to be published by Redwood Press. “Gay bars — who needs them these days?” Mattson wrote on his website promoting the book. “No really, who needs them? The newly out or newly widowed? The LGBTQ+ people who’ve rarely found a welcome in them?” But the spaces remain important to many people. Bates met his partner at The Avenue Pub and still frequents the place. He is semi-retired but not “out” at work, and said he relies on the tight-knit community at The Avenue to feel like himself. He said
he spends time hanging out with friends and meeting new friends earlier in the evening, before the younger crowds go out. Just like decades ago, gay-specific spaces can take the guesswork out of the kind of night you’re going to have — they decrease the chances that you’ll get harassed, or seen by someone who is homophobic, Bates said. But even “gay-specific” is a nebulous term. “Most every bar now is gayfriendly, and even the gay places are mixed crowds, maybe 50 percent gay,” Bates said. “But if the owners are gay, it makes a difference.” Many millennials and zennials who identify as queer seek queer-friendly environments and spaces to spend time — bookstores, cafes, and other spots, even if they’re temporary. Underground, pop-up dance parties like Sole Rehab and Juice Box ROC cater to younger queer people who want to revel and express themselves in a vetted safe space. Dardano, the Library of Congress archivist, said that he thinks having gay-specific spaces is still important. He pointed to the enduring annual Pride celebrations as evidence that the community needs to have ways of affirming itself, and that young people especially need to know where to find this affirmation. For him and others, the assimilation of gay culture has been bittersweet. “We enjoyed being different,” he said. “There was an excitement to the underground quality of life.
roccitynews.com CITY 25
LIFE
OUT AND ABOUT
ROCHESTER PRIDE TURNS 50 The annual Pride festival returns with a parade, festival, picnic, and a local focus. BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
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ochester’s annual Pride celebration was a reduced version of itself for the past couple of years, due to both the pandemic and the operational troubles of the Out Alliance, which previously organized the festivities. This month, Pride returns to its former flurry of events spanning two weekends that include the parade, picnic, and festival, but many more Pride-related activities fill the month of July. This year’s festivities are presented by The ROC Pride Collective, a group of volunteers and organizations, including Trillium Health and Rochester LGBTQ+ Together. The 2022 theme is “Pride in Bloom, Celebrating 50 years of Pride in Rochester.” If you’ve ever wondered why Rochester celebrates Pride in July — when June is designated as National Pride Month — it’s a simple matter of which came first. Rochester’s Pride celebrations date back to 1972, while Pride month has only been recognized nationally since 1999. June was selected in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, and many other cities hold their individual celebrations in June for the same reason. In Rochester, July is packed with Pride-related events, and official festivities kick off on July 10, with the annual Pride Picnic featuring a Tara’s Reunion Piano Bar with Bob Dietch, games, dancing, and more. The Pride parade takes place July 16 with the step-off at 1 p.m. from Park Avenue and Alexander Street, and continuing along Park to Brunswick Street. The festival follows the parade at nearby Cobbs Hill Park. Organizers said this year’s festival entertainment lineup has a local focus, and emphasizes BIPOC and younger drag performers. “The new generation of drag is very active politically,” said Sam Brett, who has been involved in Pride organizing since 2007 and is also known by his drag identity, Samantha Vega. “And we
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THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE FUNNY
felt that it was important to include drag queens, drag kings, and also the nonbinary performers of drag as well.” A partial list of Rochester Pride 2022 activities scheduled for July follows. For more information, see rocpridefest.com.
Tuesday, July 12, 7 to 9 p.m. Equal Grounds Coffee House. A Pride Open Mic Night for the Transgender and Gender Expansive Community.
POP-UP PRIDE DAY AT THE BEACH
LGBTQ HISTORIC WALKING TOUR
Saturday, July 2, 1 to 5 p.m. Ontario Beach Park. Dry event.
THIRD ANNUAL ROCHESTER SUMMER PRIDE COMEDY & STORYTELLING SHOW Wednesday, July 6, 7:30 p.m. Comedy @ the Carlson, presented by Queer AF Comedy. 21+, $20.
PRIDE CELEBRATION DAY Thursday, July 7, 5 to 9 p.m. Memorial Art Gallery. Arts & crafts, sidewalk chalk, free museum admission, a unicorn photo op, drag queen storytime with Vanessa LeRoux, workshop performances by Frazee Feet Dance, and more activities. All-ages. Bring a blanket and snacks to picnic on the lawn. Free, suggested donation of $5 per group. Registration required.
MONROE COUNTY PRIDE FLAG RAISING CEREMONY Thursday, July 7, Noon. County Office Building, 39 W. Main St.
CITY OF ROCHESTER PRIDE FLAG RAISING CEREMONY Friday, July 8, 5 p.m. Martin Luther King Jr. Park at Manhattan Square.
PRIDE PARTY Saturday, July 9, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. CRISP Rochester, 819 S. Clinton Ave. Drink specials, costume contests, giveaways, and karaoke.
POP-UP PRIDE DAY AT SEABREEZE Saturday, July 9, noon to 4 p.m. Seabreeze Amusement Park. Admission fee.
Tuesday, July 12. By Shoulders to Stand On & The Landmark Society of Western New York. Details TBA.
ROC’N RAINBOW CONCERT Saturday, July 9, 7:30 p.m. Allen Main State Theatre at School of the Arts. Rochester Gay Men’s Chorus with Rochester Women’s Community Chorus & Flower City Pride Band. $25, $10 for children 12 and under.
ROCHESTER RED WINGS PRIDE NIGHT
2022 PRIDE RIDE BY ROCHESTER RAINBOW RIDERS
Thursday, July 14. The Little Theatre. Details TBA.
Sunday, July 10, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Genesee Valley Park. Ages 18+. Pay what you can.
JUICE BOX ROC PRIDE PARTY
PRIDE PICNIC Sunday, July 10, noon to 6 p.m. Roundhouse Shelter at Genesee Valley Park. A $5 donation per person is requested, kids under 12 get in free. BYO food and beverages, or purchase from vendors. Throwback entertainment including a Tara’s Reunion Piano Bar featuring Bob Dietch. MC Samantha Vega will present a lineup of favorite entertainers including Alicia Michaels and Miss and Mr. Gay Pride. Also featuring tunes by DJ Reign, drag bingo with Vivian Darling, retail vendors, a gift raffle, lawn games, and activities for kids.
GAY LIBERATION FRONT AND TODD UNION HISTORIC LANDMARK CELEBRATION Monday, July 11, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Todd Union Hall, University of Rochester. Hosted by UR in partnership with the Landmark Society of Western NY. 18+.
Wednesday, July 13, 7:05 p.m. (gates open at 6 p.m.). Frontier Field. Tickets start at $13.
IMAGEOUT PRIDE FILM
Friday, July 15. Photo City Music Hall. 21+. Details TBA.
PRIDE PARADE Saturday, July 16, 1 p.m. Step-off at Park Avenue and Alexander Street.
PRIDE FESTIVAL Saturday, July 16, 1 to 8 p.m. Cobbs Hill Park. Featuring food and beverages, games and activities, vendors, and live entertainment. $5 general admission, $50 VIP admission.
SOLE REHAB PRIDE PARTY Saturday, July 16, 9 p.m. Photo City Music Hall. 21+. Details TBA.
ROCHESTER QUEER HANDMADE YARD SALE Saturday, July 23 through Sunday, July 24. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 30 Shaftsbury Road.
ROCHESTER BLACK PRIDE Friday, July 29 through Sunday, July 31. More information TBA.
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31 DAYS OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND LIFE EVENTS TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH
DAILY Full calendar of events online at roccitynews.com
todo
For up-to-date information on protocols, vaccination and mask requirements, and performance cancellations, consult the websites of individual venues.
pianist Gap Mangione kicks things off with his big band on the holiday weekend. MS
1990s. Philip Carli plays the piano, so expect a lively, inventive live score for this adventure. The train leaves at 7:30 p.m. MS
MONDAY, JULY 4 WEDNESDAY, JULY 6 HOLIDAY SPORTS
FRIDAY, JULY 1 DANCE
“Hitsville, 1959,” by Grassroots Dance Exploration MuCCC, muccc.org The songs are classics, the dances are new. This show, dedicated to the era of Motown and the people who lived through it, will be the debut outing for Nazareth alum and dancer Amya Brice’s new dance company and school, Grassroots Dance Exploration. She started this new company and school with a focus on inclusion, highlighting improvisation and the cultural connections between dance and the individual. Shows for “Hitsville, 1959” run through July 3, starting at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $10, $7 for students and seniors. MONA SEGHATOLESLAMI SATURDAY, JULY 2
AEW DynamiteRampage
music and psychedelic aura of Shane Joyce, a.k.a. Jimso Slim, is worth the price of admission. As CITY Arts Editor Daniel Kushner wrote of Slim, his “tenor voice manages to blend the nasality of John Lennon, the reedy folk-singing quality of Michael Nau, and the declamatory, aloof delivery of ’60s-era Bob Dylan.” Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the music starts at 8:30 p.m. DAVID ANDREATTA MUSIC
“Jurassic Park in Concert” Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, rpo.org With another installment of the dinosaurs-run-amok “Jurassic” franchise in theaters this summer, the RPO is bringing back the now-classic original “Jurassic Park” from 1993 to show on the big screen at Kodak Hall. And how better to experience life finding a way than with the iconic score by John Williams played live by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra? The stirring hymn-like themes and the dubious science experiments get started at 6:30 p.m. MS
City of Rochester fireworks Downtown, cityofrochester.gov Consider this an invitation or a warning, depending on how you feel about fireworks. The city puts on a big show over the Genesee River every July 4. This year, the pyrotechnics start at 10 p.m. The bridges on East Main Street, Broad Street, Court Street, and Ford Street provide great vantage points and some spectators arrive early to stake out a spot, so keep that in mind if snagging a choice view is a priority for you. JEREMY MOULE
Blue Cross Arena, bluecrossarena.com When All Elite Wrestling villain Maxwell Jacob Friedman’s plane touched down in Rochester last year, he tapped into the collective defensiveness of its residents by tweeting that our city had “literally nothing going for it.” An endless stream of hot takes and TV news stories later, Rochester finally has something going for it — AEW is returning to the Blue Cross Arena. Wise to leave your tomatoes out to rot now, so you can throw them later. General admission is $32.50. GINO FANELLI
THURSDAY, JULY 7
TUESDAY, JULY 5 FILM
SUNDAY, JULY 3 MUSIC
Gap Mangione Big Band MUSIC
Harmonica Lewinski with Jimso Slim Abilene Bar and Lounge, abilenebarandlounge.com The Rochester-based garage-surf punk rock outfit Harmonica Lewinski is the headliner here, but the endearing lo-fi 28 CITY JULY 2022
Sodus Bay Lighthouse Museum, sodusbaylighthouse.org For someone who gets around primarily by bike or bus, Sodus Bay is a bit of a haul, so I have yet to make it to see this lighthouse and experience this bay about which I’ve heard so much. But this is the year I’m going to get out there and add this to my list of Rochester-area explorations — with the added joy of some live music. There are free, live concerts every Sunday afternoon from 2-4 p.m. through Labor Day weekend, and jazz
“Roaring Rails” Dryden Theatre, eastman.org “Practical effects” is the term for when movie magic involves physical tricks instead of digital special effects. I’m not sure by what stretch of the imagination you could call the decision to film a cast running around an actual raging forest fire “practical.” But it produced some all-too-real thrills for the screen in the 1924 film “Roaring Rails,” a dramatic silent film starring Harry Carey, one of the greats of old leading men of westerns and a mentor to younger star John Wayne. This tale of heroism and train cars is the first in a series running through the summer called “Spectacle before CGI” which includes dramatic disaster films from the 1920s through the
MUSIC
Steve Von Till Bug Jar, bugjar.com Steve Von Till is the vocalist for Neurosis, a band whose thick, driving, sometimes psychedelic music has influenced countless bands in the metal and hardcore punk universes. Von Till is hitting Rochester as part of a tour around his most recent solo release, 2020’s “No Wilderness Deep Enough.” His music is heavy, but not in the vein of Neurosis songs. His work is lush and atmospheric, but still resonates in the gut, heart, and head. He’ll play with Helen Money. Tickets cost $15-$17. Show starts at 8 p.m. JM CONTINUED ON PAGE 30
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31 DAYS OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND LIFE EVENTS TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH
MUSIC
FRIDAY, JULY 8
“X-Mas in July with Watkins & the Rapiers” Marge’s Lakeside Inn, margeslakesideinn.com This show has become a postIndependence Day staple at this kitschy beachfront tavern at the northern tip of Culver Road. You may think you’re not in the mood for Christmas carols during the dog days of summer, but these guys’ mix of sardonic, sentimental, and original seasonal music will have you laughing, crying, and bellying up to the tiki bar for an eggnog to go with that rum runner. The band claims to have written 99 Christmas-themed songs, which may be the largest collection of such songs ever written by a single band outside of Santa and his Eight Tiny Reindeer. Music runs from 6-9 p.m. DA
Dead is your cup of tea, however, you’d be hard pressed to find a better tribute than Dark Star Orchestra. To be able to catch them under the stars at an arena is an extra-special treat. I’ll be there, that’s for sure. And, before you ask: Yes, I like Phish, too.
SATURDAY, JULY 9
JACOB WWALSH
MUSIC
“RPO Under the Stars” MUSIC
“An Evening with Dark Star Orchestra” Frontier Field, darkstarorchestra.net I’m constantly reminded, as a fan of the Grateful Dead, that they’re not everybody’s cup of tea. To each their own; it doesn’t click for everybody, and that’s just fine. If you meet a Deadhead who has a problem with that, I recommend you run for the hills, because they’re probably super annoying. If the music of the Grateful
Parcel 5, rpo.org/events This is kind of like “Movies with a Downtown View,” except instead of screening a film the audience will be listening to “music from some of the most iconic films of the 20th Century,” as the official description of the event puts it. Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik leads the ensemble through this free performance on everybody’s favorite lawn. Food and drinks are available for purchase, and the Rochester Museum and Science Center will simultaneously set up telescopes that anyone can use to stargaze. Performance starts at 7 p.m. JM
ARTS
Corn Hill Arts Festival Corn Hill Neighborhood, cornhillartsfestival.com Every year since 1968, with some exception, crowds have flooded into the streets of Corn Hill for this massive showcase of hundreds of artists from across the country. The festival obviously includes art, but it also offers musical performances, food, a 5K race, and more. Continues on July 10. REBECCA RAFFERTY CONTINUED ON PAGE 38
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INSIDE WXXI PUBLIC MEDIA | WXXI-TV PBS AM 1370/FM 107.5 NPR l WXXI CLASSICAL WRUR-FM 88.5 l THE LITTLE THEATRE
The Indian Doctor
Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., beginning July 7 on WXXI-TV
This comedy-drama set in the 1960s in a South Wales coal-mining community follows the death of the village’s local doctor. The deceased doctor’s replacement is high-flying Delhi graduate Dr. Prem Sharma. Along with his wife, Kamini, the couple has eschewed a glamorous lifestyle in London for the sleepy Welsh village, a fact that the regal Kamini does not let her husband forget. Photo Dr. Prem Sharma (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and Kamini (Ayesha Dharker)/Provided by APT
roccitynews.com CITY 31
5 Ways to Enjoy Summer & Nature with WXXI! 2
2. Attend Hochstein at High Falls every Thursday at 12:10 p.m. at Granite Mills Park. Join WXXI Classical host Mona Seghatoleslami at Granite Mills Park in the High Falls Business District for this free lunchtime concert series. Visit WXXI.org/hhf for details and a complete schedule. July’s artists include: The White Hots – July 14 Watkins & The Rapiers – July 21 Katie Morey – July 28 (Pictured/Photo provided)
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1. Watch America Outdoors with Bartunde Thurston on Tuesdays at 9 p.m., July 5 – August 3 on WXXI-TV. New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, and outdoor enthusiast Bartunde Thurston takes you on an adventure-filled journey to explore the diverse array of regions across the U.S. and how those landscapes shape the way Americans work, play, and interact with the outdoors. Photo: Host Bartunde Thurston / Credit: Courtesy of Twin Cities PBS
3 3. Meet WXXI Kids at Durand Eastman Beach (Parking lot B) to help the Seneca Park Zoo clean up the beach on Friday, July 15 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Bring the family and help clean up the beach together. Tools, bags, and gloves will be provided. To learn more, visit senecaparkzoo.org.
4. Visit our booth at the Corn Hill Arts Festival on Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10. Corn Hill Arts Fest is back and we’re excited to set up our new WXXI booth there for the two-day festival that showcases hundreds of artists from across the country. We hope you’ll stop by and visit our staff and volunteers manning the booth over the weekend, and be sure to take our survey there and you’ll automatically be entered to win a WXXI basket of great swag!
5. Be inspired to care for and celebrate the environment with PBS KIDS Cyberchase!
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As part of the animated series that takes kids on a wild ride through cyberspace where they are challenged to use the power of math in a classic good-versus-evil battle, WXXI Kids presents Cyberchase: Green It Up. It features a curated selection of crafts, activities, videos, and resources from our Cyberchase friends to help get you and your kids ready to Green It Up this summer. Check it all out at WXXI.org/cyberchase.
WXXI TV • THIS MONTH
Secrets of the Museum Sundays at 7 p.m., July 3 – August 7 on WXXI-TV Go behind the scenes at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the world-famous home of art, design, and performance, where only a fraction of the 2 million-item collection is on public display. Photo provided by APT
The Great Muslim American Roadtrip Tuesdays at 10 p.m., July 5 – 19 on WXXI-TV This three-part documentary series follows a millennial Muslim American couple on a cross-country journey along historic Route 66 as they explore Islam’s deep roots in America. Photo: Sebastian Robins and Mona Haydar/Credit: Courtesy of Adam McCall
American Anthems A Capitol Fourth Monday, July 4 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV Enjoy a front and center spot for the greatest display of fireworks in the nation. The celebration includes musical performances by top stars from pop, country, R&B, classical, and Broadway and features the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of premier pops conductor Jack Everly. Photo provided by Capitol Concerts
Fridays at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV This series celebrates the inspiring efforts of individuals facing extraordinary circumstances with surprise songs written and performed by music’s biggest stars. Each episode follows a different featured artist, including Grammy Award-winning country artist Jennifer Nettles, as they turn a local hero’s transformative story into a powerful and deeply personal anthem. Photo: Jennifer Nettles and Seth Grumet, Cancer Survivor and Stomp the Monster Founder/ Credit: Courtesy of Believe Entertainment Group roccitynews.com CITY 33
TURN TO WXXI CLASSICAL FOR MUSIC PERFECTLY TUNED TO YOUR DAY
Met Opera 2022 Laffont Grand Finals Concert Saturday, July 9 at 4 p.m. on WXXI Classical The newly named Laffont Grand Finals Concert took place on May 1st with Maestro Marco Armiliato leading the Met Opera Orchestra in arias performed by the competition’s ten finalists. Soprano Nadine Sierra serves as host and gives a guest performance. Photo provided by Met Opera
WFMT Summer Opera Series Saturdays at 1 p.m. on WXXI Classical From Milan to New York, Barcelona to Chicago, WFMT gives you a front-row seat to performances from some of the world’s greatest opera companies and performers. 7/2 Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (Vienna State Opera) 7/9 Handel: Theodora (Royal Opera) (Pictured/Credit: Camilla Greenwell)
7/16 7/23 7/30
Vivaldi: Bajazet (Royal Opera) Verdi: Macbeth (Royal Opera) Saint-Saens: Samson and Delila (Royal Opera)
True Colors: Sounds from the Heart
GamePlay
Saturday, July 16 at 12 p.m. on WXXI Classical On the day that Rochester celebrates the annual Pride Parade, WXXI Classical presents this special that highlights classical musicians from the LGBTQ community. Violist and educator Gabby Glass, who is an active member of the Sphinx Organization, hosts.
Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. on WXXI Classical Video games are an undeniable cultural force and serve as a fantastic point of entry to classical music for listeners of any age. In this series, host Keith Brown brings the music, composers, and performers of the vast worlds of videogame music to life.
Photo: Gabby Glass/Provided
AM 1370, YOUR NPR NEWS STATION + WRUR-FM 88.5, DIFFERENT RADIO
Smarter Health: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of American Healthcare Sundays, July 17- August 7 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370/FM 107.5 This four-part series is an exploration of how artificial intelligence and machine learning may revolutionize the healthcare industry. It investigates the technology already available or in development for clinical settings, criticizes the ethical dilemmas the technology presents in medicine, and understands the guardrails and regulations in progress to advise AI advancements. Credit: WBUR Illustration
American Routes Saturdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on WRUR-FM 88.5 Enjoy this two-hour weekly excursion into American music, spanning eras and genres — roots rock and soul, blues and country, jazz, gospel, and beyond. Songs and stories from musicians describe a deep and diverse nation with sounds and styles shared by all Americans. From the bayous to the beltways, from crossroads to crosstown, on interstates and city streets, turn up your radio for the sonic journey! Photo: Host Nick Sptizer/Credit: Francis Pavy
Becoming Muslim Sunday, July 10 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370/FM 107.5 Host Hana Baba, of Sudanese-Muslim background, shares intimate portraits through thoughtful and conversational journalism that allows real voices to come through — voices rarely heard on air. She walks us through these stories about the joys and challenges of four people after their conversion to Islam. Photo: Host Hana Baba/Provided roccitynews.com CITY 35
240 East Ave thelittle.org
NOPE
Special The Black Cinema Series screening: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 22 *Opens for a regular run at The Little following the July 22 debut*
“What’s a bad miracle?” Oscar-winner Jordan Peele disrupted and redefined modern horror with Get Out and then Us. Now, he reimagines the summer movie with a new pop nightmare.
COHERENCE 7:15 p.m. Monday, July 11 Tickets at thelittle.org Plot: On the night of an astronomical anomaly, eight friends at a dinner party experience a troubling chain of reality bending events. Part cerebral sci-fi and part relationship drama, COHERENCE is a tightly focused, intimately shot film that quickly ratchets up with tension and mystery.
The film reunites Peele with Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer (Hustlers, Alice) and Oscar-nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, Okja) as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.
One-Night Only: RRR 7 p.m. Friday, July 8
Picked by: Scott, Director of Communications For fans of: Primer, The Invitation, Timecrimes, with shades of Everything Everywhere All At Once Scott says: Clever, low-budget indie sci-fi is my jam. COHERENCE is the best kind of puzzle — you’ll want to revisit this bonkers gem again immediately after the end credits drop. Each Little staff member has selected a movie to recommend — no genre or era is off limits. It’s like walking into a movie rental store and discovering a new film to swoon over each time.
CatVideoFest 2022 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, July 16 Tickets at thelittle.org CatVideoFest curates a new compilation reel of the latest, best cat videos culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and, of course, classic internet powerhouses. Insert your favorite cat pun here. 36 CITY JULY 2022
RRR is an exhilarating, action-packed spectacular mythologizing two reallife freedom fighters who helped lead India’s fight for independence from the British Raj, Komaram Bheem (N.T Rama Rao Jr., aka Jr NTR) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan). Set in the 1920s before their fight for India’s independence began, RRR imagines a fictional meeting between the two, set into motion when a young Gond girl is stolen from her village by British soldiers.
31 DAYS OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND LIFE EVENTS TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH
SUNDAY, JULY 10 MUSIC
Aversed, Inherence, Mortimer, Dyspläcer Photo City Music Hall In the world of extreme music, female vocalists are a bit of a rarity. Sarah Hartman, who fronts the Bostonbased melodic death metal outfit Aversed, is one of them. The band, and Hartman’s guttural growls, will headline a Sunday smorgasbord of blood and guts at Photo City, accompanied by Rochester’s Mortimer, Dyspläcer, and Inherence. Tickets are $10 at the door, with a start time of 7 p.m. GF
the cork. This South Carolina native is only 25, but has been performing on the road since she was 16 and figures she’s played more than 2,500 shows. Consider yourself lucky to have a chance to see one of them. Wicklund is in town one night only. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the music starts at 8 p.m. DA WEDNESDAY, JULY 13
Rochester Red Wings Pride Night
Seneca Park Zoo, senecparkzoo.org Talons, claws, and hooves, oh my! Paws & Claws is a week-long event at the zoo offering the chance for children to learn about the many different types of steppers that make up the animal kingdom. The program has full-day and half-day options. Full days run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., while half days run from 9 a.m. to noon. GF TUESDAY, JULY 12 MUSIC
Hannah Wicklund Abilene Bar and Lounge, abilinebarandlounge.com Prepare to be entranced by this artist’s soulful and raspy vocals, clever and thoughtful lyrics, and sexy stage presence. Wicklund bottles up the spirit of her inspirations — from Lindsey Buckingham to Tom Petty and Jimi Hendrix to Jeff Beck — with her raw talent, shakes it up, and pops 38 CITY JULY 2022
Calling All Captains Bug Jar, bugjar.com The name of this Canadian pop-punk/ post-hardcore band suggest there are too many cooks in the kitchen. But this fivesome cooks with their poppy instrumental elements and aggressive vocals. The band is on a cross-country tour playing songs from its latest album, “Slowly Getting Better.” Don’t read too much into the self-deprecating title. They’re already good. They headline an evening that also features Goalkeeper, Face First, and Patient Basement, and begins at 8 p.m. Tickets $10-$12. DA
Community Cleanup SPORTS
Paws & Claws
MUSIC
VOLUNTEER
MONDAY, JULY 11
FAMILY
FRIDAY, JULY 15
Frontier Field, milb.com/rochester The Rochester Red Wings are running a Pride Night promotion in partnership with Rochester LGBTQ+ Together. The Red Wings will play against the Omaha Storm Chasers. Fans can buy Pride Packs starting at $34, which include a Pride-themed tank top and a ticket. DAVID STREEVER THURSDAY, JULY 14 THEATER
“RISE: A New Musical” JCC CenterStage, jccrochester.org Past and present collide in this world premiere musical by Joshua Daniel Hershfield inspired by true stories of young women resistance fighters in a Jewish ghetto during the Nazi regime. A modern rock score marries the ultimate acts of defiance with the music of rebellion. Hershfield is an actor, songwriter, and scholar of the Holocaust whose songs and compositions can be heard in more than two dozen film and television soundtracks and commercials. The show runs for five performances from July 9-17. Tickets range from $20 for students to $30 for JCC members and $35 for non-members. DA
Durand Eastman Beach, senecaparkzoo.org The city’s Durand Eastman Beach gets packed on hot summer days, a testament to how valuable it is to many locals. But between the debris that collects over the winter and nearconstant use year-round, the beach can get a little unkempt. Enter the Seneca Park Zoo, which is holding this community beach cleanup from 6-8 p.m. Organizers say they’ll provide tools, bags, and gloves, and that all ages are welcome to participate. They also remind potential participants to dress for the weather — that July sun can be brutal, even later in the day. Registration is required and can be done by heading to the zoo website, clicking on the events section, and finding the entry for the community cleanup. JM FILM
“Lost Highway” The Little Theatre, thelittle.org Creepy. Stylish. Mysterious. David Lynch in his element and at his best. Ask me to tell you what this movie is about or what happens, and I can’t remember — but I do vividly recall several haunting images, including one of the creepiest, most inexplicable moments I’ve experienced watching movies. Combined with the soundtrack — both the music and the effects — it all adds up to a real mood. Experiencing this modern classic in a theater is a treat, and hopefully more so with this new 4k restoration by Janus Films. The curtain rises at 7:30
p.m. Don’t blame me for any lingering nightmares. MS SATURDAY, JULY 16
MUSIC
Dar Williams JCC Dawn Lipson Canalside Stage, jccrochester.org Since I first heard her music in high school, Dar Williams has always felt to me like a cool older cousin: sharing stories in her songs that spoke to a life lived a few steps ahead, and with a wiser perspective. Things haven’t always gone well out there, but she’s there to relate it to you, with a wry and quietly defiant edge. Now we’re both a few decades older, and she continues to write thoughtful songs that are both clever and humane. Plus, she’s a great live performer, with an engaging way of blending songs and stories. Fellow singer-songwriter Heather Mosley opens. The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$45. MS
FILM
CatVideoFest 2022 The Little Theatre, littletheatre.org Who doesn’t love cat videos? The Little has already said everything that needs to be said about this program on its Facebook page for it: “CatVideoFest curates a new compilation reel of the latest, best cat videos culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and, of course, classic internet powerhouses.” Anyone who’s lived with or loved cats knows just how entertaining they can be. JM
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Don't miss these upcoming shows under the CMAC stars!
JULY 10
JULY 17
GET YOUR TICKETS AT CMACEVENTS.COM OR TICKETMASTER.COM
roccitynews.com CITY 39
31 DAYS OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND LIFE EVENTS TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH
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Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence Memorial Art Gallery, mag.rochester.edu An exhibit of a new type of bead art by women living in KwaZulu-Natal, a rural village in South Africa, opens at the Memorial Art Gallery today. The pieces consist of beads sewn on black fabric — the artists call it “ndwango,” which means cloth. The exhibit runs until Oct. 23. DS
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MONDAY, JULY 18 MARKET
NOTA Farmers Market 1050 East Ave. (Asbury Methodist), notafarmmarket.com While you won’t find quite the volume or the crowds that you get at the bigger markets, it’s always fun to explore the selection and the vibe at various neighborhood farmers markets that pop nearly every day over the summer. One of the newest kids on the block is the Neighborhood of the Arts (NOTA) market, outside of Asbury Methodist church. Stop by between 4-7 p.m. to add something fresh and local to your menu for the week. MS TUESDAY, JULY 19
MUSIC
Frankie & The Witch Fingers Bug Jar, bugjar.com This foursome cut their teeth in their hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, but they have been an ever-evolving 40 CITY JULY 2022
force of rhythm-ripped rock ‘n’ roll bubbling up from the psychedelic tar pits of Los Angeles for the better part of 10 years. The band is as potent as ever on its coast-to-coast tour, following past stints opening for the likes of OSEES, Cheap Trick, and ZZ Top. Tickets are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. The show starts at 9 p.m. DA WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 FILM
“Tank Girl” The Little Theater, thelittle.org Take one look at the promotional material for “Tank Girl” and you’ll probably know if it’s something that’s up your alley. Set in 2033, where there’s “no law, no mercy, and no water…” Honestly, just go watch the trailer. Do it right now, on your phone. It’s got Lori Petty, Ice T in heavy prosthetic makeup, and music by DEVO, Björk, Belly, Portishead — the list goes on. If you look up “’90s sci-fi romp with feminist undertones based on an underground comic book” in the dictionary, you’d find the poster for “Tank Girl.” JW THURSDAY, JULY 21 MUSIC
GoldenOak Abilene Bar and Lounge, abilenebarandlounge.com Right in the middle of the dog days of summer, the folk rock quartet GoldenOak brings a gentle, insistent reminder of our relationship with nature and climate change. This group from Maine features sweet harmonies from siblings Zak and Lena Kendall, and even sweeter, occasional melodies played by Lena on clarinet. Bassist Mike Knowles and drummer Jackson Cromwell set the beat, with the sound rounded out by Zak’s acoustic guitar. Tickets are $16 at the door, $12 in advance. The music starts at 7:30 p.m. — and Abilene is one of those clubs where that start time is actually not that far off from when the band starts playing. MS
FRIDAY, JULY 22
SATURDAY, JULY 23
FILM
FAMILY
“Nope”
Fireman’s Field Days Carnival
Little Theatre, thelittle.org Jordan Peele proved himself to be a masterful horror movie director with “Us” and “Get Out.” He is adept at manipulating everyday interactions and attitudes — including overt and covert racism — to build tension and terror, then using humor to punctuate whatever point he’s making. I love his films, in case you can’t tell, and I’m excited for “Nope,” which is scheduled for release today and looks to be about the residents of a California valley as they struggle with some otherworldly force. Peele films are something of a cultural event, in part because the acclaimed director, screenwriter, and comedian keeps a firm hold on his productions’ plot details. The Rochester Association of Black Journalists has scheduled a screening and panel discussion for 7:30 p.m. and there will surely be much to discuss. JM
ART
Rochester Street Photography, Richard Colón Ugly Duck Coffee, uglyduckcoffee.com Photographer Richard Colón has a great eye for detail in Rochester street scenes, especially after dark. I’ve had to do a double take at seeing a photo of a street corner I pass nearly every evening to realize that it was a recent image of our city, not a still from a 1970s movie set in New York City. His work has garnered a following online, through Twitter and Instagram, and now you can see the art and the artist in person at an after hours event at Ugly Duck Coffee from 5:30-7:30 p.m. MS
East Rochester schools campus, After I permanently moved to Rochester in 2003, I made friends with some people from East Rochester. They introduced me to the annual fireman’s carnival, specifically the beer tent. It’s a blast to hang out there after the yearly parade (6:30 p.m. tonight), when the local fire department bands knock back a few and trade off impromptu performances. The beer is reasonably priced, the cover bands that take the stage later in the evening are fun, and the carnival has more fried food than your arteries can handle. A fireworks display will round out the night. JM FESTIVAL
Indigenous Music & Arts Festival Seneca Art & Cultural Center, ganondagan.org This year’s celebration of traditional and contemporary Indigenous culture features headliners Shelley Morningsong (Northern Cheyenne) and Fabian Fontenelle (Zuni/Omaha), father-son blues duo Twice As Good, full-regalia performances by Bill Crouse (Seneca) and the Allegany River Dancers, traditional storytellers, a Native American Arts Market, Indigenous food, arts demos, and a family discovery tent. Through July 24, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. RR SUNDAY, JULY 24 SPORTS
Buffalo Bills Training Camp St. John Fisher College, buffalobills.com/training-camp Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills kick off their Super Bowl-winning season — hey, you can’t blame a fan for hoping — right here in Rochester today with the opening day of training camp. Unless you’re a season-ticket holder or prepared to beg, borrow, and steal to pay for a seat at a regular-season game, training camp is your best bet to get up close and personal with the behemoths that are the Bills. The camp is free to attend, but tickets are required. They go up for grabs online on July 14. DA
FIND PEACE Lead a rich and compelling life. Develop a deeper understanding of yourself.
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Self-Inquiry and Daily Practice A TEN WEEK COURSE IN
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY Interactive, Experimental, and Informal
SAVE THE DATE! Beginning Sept. 14, 2022 | Wednesday 7 – 9 pm Introductory Course $25 (75% Discount)
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CONTINUED ON PAGE 42
roccitynews.com CITY 41
31 DAYS OF MUSIC, ARTS, AND LIFE EVENTS TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH
TUESDAY, JULY 26 FILM
Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew Shorts Program
MUSIC
Gospel Jubilee Public Market, cityofrochester.gov/gospeljubilee Whether or not you’re a believer, you might echo Marc Cohn (singing in “Walking in Memphis”) by declaring, “Ma’am I am tonight,” with the inspirational singing by local gospel music groups at the public market. Along with the music, you can find food, drink, local vendors, and kids activities. This free gathering is presented by Jasen Monroe & Resilient Praise in partnership with the City of Rochester Public Market, 4-7 p.m. MS MONDAY, JULY 25
Dryden Theatre, eastman.org/dryden-theatre This short films program puts the spotlight on Sidney Drew and Lucille McVey, whom married in 1914. The couple went on to perform in over 150 films in the next five years, six of which the Dryden will screen tonight. Expect satiristic takes on married life and showbiz. But beyond their own work, the couple was an extension of the Barrymore acting dynasty. Sidney Drew was the brother of Georgiana Drew, who married Maurice Barrymore, the great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore. In fact, the program launches the Barrymore Family Album series that runs through Sept. 1 at the Dryden. The theater’s website notes that members of the Drew and Barrymore family have been in more than 600 films since 1911. Tickets for the shorts program are $5 for students and those under 17, $7 for members, and $11 for nonmembers. JM
ART
Wall\Therapy 10th Anniversary Festival Around Rochester, wall-therapy.com Celebrating a decade of bringing local and international artists together to paint scores of murals in Rochester, Wall\Therapy’s annual week-long summer festival returns this week, featuring returning and new artists, a screening of the “MARTHA” documentary about street art photographer Martha Cooper, artist workshops, and more. Mural painting kicked off on July 23, and continues through the end of the month. Check the website for locations and more details. RR
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27
FOOD
Food Truck Rodeo Public Market, cityofrochester.gov/ foodtruckrodeo It’s been about a month since the last truck-based buffet took place at the Public Market, so right now a lot of local foodies are jonesing for their fix. The event doesn’t require a lot of explanation: a bunch of food trucks roll up to the market and you can buy and eat their goodies to your heart’s content. Miller and Other Sinners out of Buffalo will play their blend
42 CITY JULY 2022
of soul, blues, and gospel. There’s no admission fee but you have to buy the food from the trucks, so you may want to hit up the ATM on your way. Don’t worry, if you can’t make it this time, the rodeo will be back in August. JM THURSDAY, JULY 28 MUSIC
Almost Queen Martin Luther King Jr. Park, rochesterevents.com First there was “Killer Queen,” now there’s Almost Queen. The two things are related in that the first is Queen’s breakout hit song and the other is a known-well-enough Queen tribute band. Hopefully the latter performs the former when it takes the stage for Party in the Park. If the band is taking requests I’d also like to hear “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Bicycle Race,” “Don’t Stop me Now,” and — forgive me — “Fat Bottomed Girls.” I spent a lot of time as a kid riding around in the car with my parents, who listened to classic rock, OK? The Pickle Mafia and Shamarr Allen open, bands start at 5:30 p.m. with Almost Queen scheduled to take the stage at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $7 advance or at the gate. JM
addition of a vocalist. I saw Majority Rule a couple of times during the band’s initial run, and again later at Bug Jar as part of its reunion tour. The two bands have a similar sound: heavy, noisy, propulsive, and cathartic. If Nø Man’s performances are anything like its predecessors, expect an intense, high-energy show and a wall of sound thick enough to push you back a step or two. Hell yeah. Dangers, from Los Angeles, plays urgent, churning hardcore punk, but the band also reminds me of Jesus Lizard. This allages show costs $15, doors at 7 p.m. JM
SATURDAY, JULY 30 MUSIC
KOPPS’s & Boy Jr.
Kopp's "Planet Bitch Tour"(which is, I think, the greatest name for a tour of all time) ends its triumphant run across a good chunk of the American Midwest and South on July 30th at the Bug Jar. The band, which welcomes you with open arms to Planet Bitch if you've had enough of Planet Earth, (especially if you've been labeled dramatic, hysterical, etc.) will be joined by local one-woman band and TikTok sensation Boy Jr. and DJ Chreath. You must be wondering: "Will there be a drag show?" The answer is yes. Let's party. JW
FRIDAY, JULY 29 SUNDAY, JULY 31 THEATER
“Seussical: The Musical”
MUSIC
Nø Man, Dangers, and more UUU Art Collective, facebook.com/ nomanbandDC The D.C. hardcore band Nø Man formed in 2017, following a renunion tour by the seminal Virginia trio Majority Rule, which was initially active from 1996 to 2004. Why the history lesson? Because Nø Man is essentially Majority Rule, but with the
Blackfriars Theatre, blackfriars.org This musical comedy is a collection of some of the most beloved children’s stories by Dr. Seuss, strung together with songs. The show was universally panned when it premiered in 2000, but spawned two national tours and has become a go-to for school and regional theaters. So why see it? There are few things more fulfilling than catching a future star on the rise, and this production has the right ingredients for that. “Seussical: The Musical” is the capstone of the Blackfriars Theatre Summer Intensive, a professional summer training program for high school and college students pursuing a career in theater. The show runs July 22-31. Tickets are $32-$35. DA
roccitynews.com CITY 43
WET HOT WET HOT ROCHESTER ROCHESTER SUMMER SUMMER I like to refer to Rochesterians as “professional summerers” because we muscle through the long, dark, freezing seasons and really make the most of our short stretches of heavenly weather. This city knows how to summer. The Rochester region is filled with flowers, water features, outdoor pursuits, film festivals, engaging art, and all manner of cultural attractions. There’s no excuse to utter “I’m bored.” CITY’s 2022 Summer Issue features loads of things to explore this summer, from seasonal dining on the water’s edge (page 60) to cruising on the Erie Canal (page 64). Ever heard of Devil’s Cove? Neither had we. That’s because it’s the only public park that is only accessible by boat. We tell you how to get to that heavenly place with a hellish name (page 56). For more summer fun, Jacob Walsh, our resident expert in all things ice cream, takes you to an ice cream parlor with a weekly BYOB party — as in “bring your own banana” for a banana split (page 62). Meanwhile, our new pictorial feature, “CITY Visits,” highlights that staple of summer — the classic car show — in photos by Matt Burkhart (page 52). Of course, what would summer be without an ode to the hot dog? David Andreatta and photographer Lauren Petracca tell the stories in words and pictures of the last three hot dog vendors standing in downtown Rochester (page 46). For date-specific events that run the gamut of arts and entertainment, head to our “DailyTo-Do” (page 28). But if you find yourself wanting more on a random day or evening, refer to our handy checklist of things to occupy your time on any given day of the week (page 54). CITY has something to pique every interest. So pick your pleasure, get out, and soak up that sunshine while it lasts. — REBECCA RAFFERTY
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S PHOTO BY N LAURE A C C A R T PE
46 CITY JULY 2022
HOT HOT DOG! DOG!
be o t d e s u s r do n e v g o d t . o n H w o t n w o ed r e h w y r e v e . e e r h t e r a e Now, ther
BY DAVID ANDREATTA
@DAVID_ANDREATTA
DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
F
ood trucks have been soaking up the love in Rochester ever since the city launched a program for mobile restaurants in 2013. Barely a month goes by each summer without one local news outlet or another doing a story on the “Food Truck Rodeo,” which sounds exciting but is really just a traffic jam of kitchens on wheels in a parking lot. Lost in all the attention paid to food trucks are Rochester’s original street meat source — the humble hot dog vendor. The few that remain sell more than hot dogs, but who doesn’t think of hot dogs when they see that red and yellow umbrella on the corner? There was a time that vendors like these lined downtown Main Street, sometimes two per block. The lot of them, reportedly close to 20 in the early 2000s, would enter a lottery for their choice of location every spring. Like food trucks, the city tells them where they can vend. For the most part, vendors established their turf through attrition. But stories of a vendor drawing a higher number than another and bouncing a competitor from his preferred spot abound. In 2005, there were reports of hot dog feuds downtown. Warring vendors undercutting each other became so fierce, that customers could find two hot dogs for $1. Those days are gone, though. As are the days of bustling foot traffic downtown. Today, three stalwart vendors are all that remain downtown with any regularity. They respect each other, and each other’s turf. These are their stories.
THE MIRANS ‘COME FOR THE SHOW’
The sun was directly overhead and the lineup at Dave’s Sidewalk Café was starting to snake around the corner. That meant Dave Miran was getting antsy. “When the line jacks around the corner, people start looking at their watches, and when people start looking at their watches, the hair on the back of my neck stands up,” said Miran, who runs the hot dog stand at St. Mary’s Place and Court Street with his wife, Sue Miran. “If you don’t know what you want when you get to me, it ain’t about me, it’s about the guy behind you and the guy behind him,” Miran said. Fortunately, Miran has been slinging hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken breasts, and rib eye steaks for so long at the intersection that he knows what most of his customers want by the time they inch up to his grill, where their order is waiting for them. “Two reds, bro?” Miran asked a man. “You got it,” the man replied. “Cheeseburger, honey?” Miran asked a woman. “Yes, please,” she said. “This guy likes his hot dogs black,” he said as he handed a man a burnt wiener on a bun. “I know what he wants. That’s why he keeps coming back. Unless it’s my charming personality.” “If you’ve come here more than twice I know what you want,” said Miran, who figured he can keep about 20 orders straight in his head and on his grill. “It’s like watching music the way I cook here.” Miran, 64, of Perinton, knows a thing or two about keeping lines moving. He worked an assembly line at General Motors for 10 years before he took a buyout and opened a hot dog stand on Main Street in 1988. He and his wife have been at their current location since 2000, a move Miran said they made to accommodate their loyal customers at Excellus
BlueCross Blue Shield, whose office relocated from Main Street to Court Street at the time. Miran recalled that he started his business on his 30th birthday with his mother as a helper, while Sue was pregnant with their second son. Thirty-four years later, their boys are grown and the couple has in them what Miran proudly calls “the trifecta” — a lawyer, a doctor, and an accountant. In that time, Miran’s menu has grown to 42 items, from the “Piggly Wiggly” to the “Bacon Bleu Burger.” This year, he began offering “The Grant” and “The Papa,” hamburger concoctions named for him and one of his grandsons. Miran has also earned the distinction of becoming the dean of the downtown hot dog vending delegation, having continuously operated a stand in the city limits longer than anyone. Fellow vendors around town call him “The Godfather.” “This guy is a like a Rochester monument,” said customer Alex Salcido, of Hamlin, who ordered a
blackened ribeye sandwich with meat sauce. “He’s got to be put on some historic list or something.” Miran gets the glory because his food is tasty and his outsized personality is hard to miss. “People like that we give them a little show,” he said. What’s the show? “I got no filter!” Miran replied. “My wife says, ‘You can’t say the F-word.’ Well, hey, it happens. There are a lot of ways the F-word comes about.” But Miran acknowledged that his café is a twoperson job that he couldn’t do without Sue, who quietly runs the cash register and doesn’t use the F-word around customers. “Without her, I’d be done,” Miran said of his wife. “We’re like a wheel.” The Mirans will be married 40 years this year. They’re planning to celebrate with a vacation with their children and their families in November — after the vending season. CONTINUED ON PAGE 48
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GEORGE HADDAD GEORGE HADDAD HE REFUSES NOBODY
Most customers who stop by one of the city’s hot dog carts for a bite are average people having an average day. Few are in the throes of the emotional highs or lows of the customers who frequent George Haddad’s hot dog stand at the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Boulevard. Situated down the street from the Hall of Justice, the seat of city and county courts and the county jail, and across the street from BlueCross Arena, Haddad waits on people having the best or worst days of their lives. He feeds judges who are contemplating murder sentences. He feeds newly freed prisoners. He feeds lawyers, from overworked public defenders to high-priced criminal defense attorneys and everything in between. He feeds kids going to a hockey game. When one of those customers reaches into a pocket to find not enough cash, Haddad shrugs and gives them what he can. “I respect everyone no matter whether they come from the courthouse, the jailhouse, or wherever,” Haddad said. “Some people have no money. But I never let people go hungry.” That ethos has made him a favorite among his regulars, some of whom have been known to drive
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downtown from the farthest reaches of the city for a taste of his wares. Gregory Gamble is one such customer. He said he lives in the east end of the city and goes out of his way to stop at Haddad’s stand for his go-to lunch combo meal of a hot dog with peppers and onions, chips, and soda. “He’s a friendly guy and his food is great,” Gamble said. Haddad, 62, opened his stand in 1988, making him the second-most senior vendor on the Rochester hot dog circuit. His “Haddad’s Best” menu touts “quality good foods at reasonable prices,” and is the only cart downtown where a hot dog can still be had for under $4. Like other vendors, though, he has his specialties. The item of which he’s most proud is his kielbasa, which Haddad figures is the best he has carried in his more than 30 years in the business. Haddad was a young man and newly arrived from Lebanon when he opened his stand. He recalled living briefly in New York City after arriving in the country and seeing the lineups at the hot dog stands there and thinking, “I can do that.” After all, he had experience in the food vending business. He said he peddled produce to stores in and around Beirut as a teenager, just as the Lebanese Civil War broke out and set about tearing the city and country asunder.
Haddad credited veteran Rochester restauranteur and fellow Lebanese immigrant, Sami Mina, who founded Pomodoro Grill and Aladdin’s Natural Eatery, with helping him get started in the hot dog vending business. “He said, ‘What do you think, George, you want to be in the hot dog business?’” Haddad recalled Mina asking. “I said, ‘Yeah, but Sami, I don’t have the money.’ He helped me out.” Haddad opened his first cart at Cobb’s Hill Park, around the time that traffic was being diverted through the park to make way for construction of the Interstate 490-590 interchange, better known as the “Can of Worms.” After construction was complete, Haddad moved to the Liberty Pole on Main Street. He was a fixture there for years before settling outside the courthouse in 2014, when he moved to fill a vacuum that was a casualty of the city’s hot dog wars. Most days, he is aided by his wife, Gloria. The couple lives in Rochester and have three children, ranging in age from 8 to 23 years old. “We are so lucky,” said Haddad, who expressed gratitude for every jurist, lawyer, cop, inmate, court clerk, and journalist who routinely relies on him for lunch. “I believe in honesty, taking care of everybody, treating people with respect and giving them a good product for good prices,” he said. “I’ve been blessed with that method.”
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CHARLIE CHARLIE ABIAD ABIAD ‘HE’S LIKE FAMILY’
Charlie Abiad had no sooner unfurled the red and yellow umbrella on his hot dog cart and left the first handful of freshly chopped peppers and onions on the grill to sizzle one recent morning than his fist customers began to hover. They descended on him at the corner of West Main and Fitzhugh streets in the heart of downtown Rochester seemingly from nowhere. “What we do is look out the window for the umbrella to see if Charlie is ready,” one of them, Wayman Harris, explained, pointing to the upper level of an office building across the street. “Then we come down in droves. Charlie is our guy.” Abiad, 43, has been hustling hot dogs and other fare on Main Street for 21 years. He started in the days when the strip was the intersection of government and commerce and lined with carts like his. Today, Abiad is the last vendor standing on Main Street. He outlasted his competition and, for that matter, most of the private businesses. Many of his customers are employees of the nearby Public Defender’s Office and the Monroe County Office 50 CITY JULY 2022
Building, and everyday people who use their services. His regulars said he has hung around so long because he doesn’t skimp on quality and doesn’t gouge his customers for it, either. That, they said, has made them loyal and made Abiad an honorary member of their clique. “Everybody looks forward to seeing Charlie,” said Vanessa Beato, a worker at the Board of Elections. “I think if we ended up switching or having another vendor here, we probably wouldn’t be here for lunch. He’s like family. He’s our Charlie.” It is easy to call Abiad’s business a “hot dog cart” because hot dogs and sausages top the menu. But that label is not entirely accurate. He sells burgers, Philly steaks, chicken and gyro pitas, and is the only cart in town that offers french fries. “A lot of people love it that I have french fries,” Abiad said. “Not a lot of hot dog carts have a deep fryer in them.” The cart’s official name is Joe & Charlie’s Grill. The “Joe” is a nod to Abiad’s late father, who used to help his son by fetching customers’ drinks from the cooler. The business is part slog, part American Dream.
Abiad immigrated to the United States from Lebanon with his family when he was 13 years old. They settled in Spencerport, where Abiad lives with his wife and their two young children today. His uncle, Khalil Abou-eid, had owned the business before him. “I had no idea this is what I was going to do,” Abiad said. “I came here at 13 scared, didn’t know what was going to happen, my uncle took us in. “I knew I would eventually want to open my own something,” he went on. “I just didn’t know what.” When his uncle offered to sell him the business in 2001, Abiad took a chance. To make ends meet, he worked festivals and parades and catered private events. He still works a second job in the evening providing security for a private company, but his bread and butter has been his business. The hours, he said, allow him to see his children off to school each morning and be there for them when they come home. “I’ve been blessed,” he said. “I’m a pretty happy guy. I’m always smiling. Yeah, I have a stressful life, but what are you gonna do? I don’t let that get to me. I don’t let anything get me down.”
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SUMMER
CITY VISITS...
HARBORFEST “WHEELS IN MOTION”
RICK TUFFO, 66
BRAD SARGENT, 48
JOE SACHELI, 65
DAVID STEIER, 62
MIKE BACCARI, 37
KRYSTAL KAMINSKI, 38
GREECE, 1970 DODGE CHALLENGER RT “I had one in 1971. Then I got married and the question was, where you gonna put the couch? You got to have some place to live and the couch wouldn’t fit in the car.”
ROCHESTER, 1931 FORD MODEL A TUDOR “People forget about the simple guy wanting to get a car back on the road. This was a rescue. Some people go for rescue dogs. I guess I go for rescue cars.” 52 CITY JULY 2022
PENFIELD, 1939 DODGE LUXURY LINER “It’s powerful for the period. Back at the time when they built the car, there were no expressways. So you’re really topping out at 55-60 mph. It’s best to drive around town.”
GREECE, 1966 CADILLAC S&S VICTORIA HEARSE “It’s something different. It’s not a Chevelle, it’s not a Camaro, it’s not a Corvette. Everybody has those. Very few of us have hearses.”
RUSH, 1969 PONTIAC TRANS AM “When I was 16, it could have been my first car and my father wouldn’t let me buy it. When I was restoring this car, I started laughing to myself one day going, ‘This was supposed to be my first car. It ended up being my last car.’”
ROCHESTER, 1937 FORD ROADSTER “It’s little, like me. Honestly, I’m one of the few people who can fit in it to drive it. I love the nice smooth lines and that it has a nice sleek look.”
PHOTOS BY MATT BURTHARTT
INTERVIEWS BY DAVID ANDREATTA
Fuel-injected gearheads showed off their sweet rides at Ontario Beach Park.
GREG SEDLAK, 52
ERIC “E-Z” BALDON, 51
ROCHESTER, 1962 CHEVROLET C-10 PICKUP “I love chrome. Everything is Chromed. So, I got a buddy that nicknamed me Johnny Chrome, because I chrome everything. Underneath the hood is a lot of chrome. Now everybody knows me as Johnny Chrome.”
GREECE, 1969 VOLKSWAGEN TARANTULA BUGGY “When I was kid, my neighbor was building a dune buggy and I always wanted to build one. I like things that are old school. I wanted to restore it like original.”
GREECE, 1978 PONTIAC GRAND PRIX “I call her Greeny. She’s a tough girl. I seen her sitting on a lawn. It said, ‘Come buy me right now.’ The guy wanted to get rid of it so bad, he said, ‘Give me $500 and get it off my yard.’ I’ve had it for 18 years.”
PETER BELMONT, 48
NICK DISTASIO, 73
BILL BARRY, 78
JOHN “JOHNNY CHROME” MATTLE, 75
WEBSTER, 1984 BUICK REGAL LOW RIDER “I feel like I’m on a cloud. It’s a high. Technically, I guess, depending on how you hit the switches, it’s a low too.”
GREECE, 1948 BENTLEY MARK VI “They call this the ‘Standard Steel Saloon.’ I’ve always loved Rolls Royce and Bentley, even when I was a little kid. I’ve now had it for 47 years, so I’d say it’s my pride and joy.”
ROCHESTER, 1970 BUICK ESTATE WAGON “It’s full of bling, you know? The leather top, the upholstery, the electric windows, the Riviera wheels, the wood sides, and it’s all original. It’s never been restored.” roccitynews.com CITY 53
1 2
Head to Frontier Field for a Red Wings game
5
Get a cone at Abbott’s and stroll Charlotte pier
See a film at Avon’s Vintage Drive-in
3
Have a beverage on the beach at Marge’s Lakeside Inn
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4
Beat the heat! Take an art DeTour at the MAG
7
Pack a picnic and relax at Highland Park
Bike along the Erie Canal
Stroll through Mt. Hope Cemetery and try to spot the oldest grave — or take a guided tour and learn some local history
Head to the Strasenburgh Planetarium on a Saturday night for a guided look through the telescope
Sketch the plants at Lamberton Conservatory
Ride the Jack Rabbit at Seabreeze Amusement Park
Rainy Day? Play on the indoor zipline at The Strong Museum of Play’s Skyline Climb
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Visit the lesser-loved Lower Falls and enjoy the sylvan spaces of Lower Falls Park
Wake up and smell the roses — while you saunter through Maplewood’s Rose Garden Explore the diverse community of animals and learn about conservation efforts at the Seneca Park Zoo
THINGS THIS SU CURATED BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
S TO DO UMMER
Change up your shopping routine and do it al fresco: get your produce at the Rochester Public Market or your favorite local farmer’s market
Check out the vintage goods and handmade wares any Sunday at The Lucky Flea
Take a day trip to hike the gorge-ous Letchworth State Park Sign up for a class at the Rochester Brainery — there’s something for everyone
Check out a “Hochstein at High Falls” concert
See a play at The MuCCC, JCC Canalside, or “Shakespeare in the Park” at Highland Bowl
Take an educational train ride at Rush’s NY Museum of Transportation and learn about local railroading history
Take in a GardenVibes concert on the manicured grounds of George Eastman Museum
Laugh out loud at a comedy show at Comedy @ the Carlson
Celebrate 10 years of Wall\Therapy by taking a self-guided mural tour around town
Got screen fatigue? Grab a copy of a past year’s Rochester Reads selection from Writers & Books and head to the beach
Head to the Genesee Country Village and Museum and interact with the historic interpreters, or visit during a special event, like the Old-Time Fiddlers’ Fair
See a movie — see several movies this summer — at The Dryden,The Little, and The Cinema
Cruise the canal aboard the Sam Patch or The Colonial Belle, or ride the river aboard The Harbortown Belle
Head to Ganondagan State Historic Site to learn about the original residents of this region
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SUMMER
IRONDEQUOIT BAY “CORMORANT ISLAND”
DEVIL’S COVE
Devil’s Cove Park, located on the southeast shoreline of Irondequoit Bay, is only accessible by boat. PHOTOS BY MAX SCHULTE
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RANDOM ROCHESTER BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
@RSRAFFERTY
BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
HELLISH NAME, HEAVENLY PLACE There’s not much to do at Devil’s Cove — and that’s the point of this hidden park.
W
hen we think of public parks, what often comes to mind are semi-wild spaces with trails that guide visitors responsibly through woods, perhaps an educational center or a lodge for rent, and signage on the history and ecology of the place. Devil’s Cove Park has none of these things. It is all wild. At the moment, the only indication that it is a Monroe County park is a small sign tacked to a single tree. You need a GPS to find it. The park is made up of two close but unconnected parcels of land set into the sylvan, sandy bluffs on the eastern shore of Irondequoit Bay, just south of Route 104. The space is gorgeous, almost untouched, thick with old foliage, and home to dozens of animal species and native vegetation. It is also entirely surrounded by private property and the bay, making it the only county park that’s accessible only by water. There are no plans to develop it for human recreation, making it an ideal place for fishing, bird watching, hiking, or just soaking in the pleasure of being enveloped in the green paradise of the cove. “Those 18 acres are going to be left natural,” Monroe County Parks Director Patrick Meredith said on a recent trip to the park. “We’re not going to build or put in a parking lot. We’re going to have just a trail to it and it will be left for birding and pollinators in the area.” Meredith visited the park on a hot, sunny day in June with three department employees who tagged along on a CITYorganized excursion to the cove. They came in part because the park is so tough to access that only one of them had ever been. Monroe County Parks Assistant Director Chris Kirchmaier recalled canoeing to the park about 10 years ago. The park is named for the existing Devil’s Cove, which itself has mysterious origins. Local lore has it that the cove is haunted. One version tells of warring British and American ships playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek in the dense pocket of foliage off the main bay.
PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
Cannonballs are said to have been found in the waters. Meredith offered another theory: that Devil’s Cove is so-named because its bluffs jut out to give the water the appearance of a pitchfork when viewed from above. The park’s two parcels, which together form the 20th of the 22 Monroe County parks, were two separate acquisitions purchased in 2000 and 2009, and are identified formally by their two “SWIS numbers” — Statewide Information System code numbers for parcels of land — and informally by the nicknames “Jack Doyle Acquisition” and “Sandra Orlen Acquisition.” In 2000, then County Executive Jack Doyle facilitated the purchase of 10 acres of land in what he called the effort of “saving one of the county’s most environmentally sensitive areas from ever being commercially or residentially developed.” Indeed, the parcels that immediately surround the park on the bluff house waterside residences that
range from modest cabins to elaborate vacation homes. Boats are moored at wooden docks that stretch into the bay here and there. Two small islands that guard the entrance to the cove are also developed. One is beautifully manicured with a house and garden. The other has a broken-down cabin, some ominous-looking trees, and is aggressively defended by a flock of cormorants, a protected species. That island is up for grabs — if you’ve got $99,000 in cash — presumably because its owner realized that the true owners of the island are the birds. At the time it was acquired, Doyle said that the land “will be used for the most passive recreation you could possibly have for a park, and the most spectacular and tranquil place for anyone to commune with nature.” He went on to say, “It is our intention to limit the use of the land to lowintensity recreational uses such as trails and fishing,” and that conservation efforts would preserve the “valuable habitat of
plants and birds, and decrease erosion of the bay’s steep and sandy embankments.” The park’s second parcel, acquired in 2009, is 8 acres named for the Sandra Orlen estate, from which it was purchased. The Orlen family was known for the Glen Edith restaurant on the bay in Webster, which they operated from 1925 until it closed in 1996. Shaped like a rhombus and located across Devil’s Cove from the long and narrow Doyle parcel, the Orlen parcel entrance is entirely surrounded by reeds and was not accessible when CITY visited. Meredith and Kirchmaier acknowledged having no idea what to expect of the park, noting that no county official has visited in years. “I just hope to find it respected,” Meredith said. “Hopefully we don’t find any major surprises.” Kirchmaier, who has been with the Parks Department for 22 years, could be described as an amateur but highly CONTINUED ON PAGE 58
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knowledgeable naturalist. He chimed in periodically to point out flying and fishing bald eagles, heron, turkey vultures, and swans, as well as swallows ducking into and out of the nest-holes they had excavated into the sandy face of the bluffs. He also noted invasive plants choking out native species. After warily rounding the cormorants’ island in our rented pontoon boat, our group eased into the cove and looked for an entry point onto the land of either parcel. It was a tricky task given the steep, tree-covered terrain. Thick stands of reeds and cattails formed a barrier between most places the parcels met the water. In other spots, dense bay weeds and fallen trees prevented us from getting the boat within a couple hundred feet of shore. No docks, no beach. The most accessible shores showed evidence of water levels dropping a foot or two, which Meredith said is cyclical. We killed the motor and dropped anchor, having drifted into some blessed shade well into the cove. Embraced by the forest on almost all sides, our group alternated between passively staring at the foliage reflecting off the water and taking in the monstrous dragonflies that flitted low above the drink. It was easy to forget civilization with the cacophony of birdsong drowning out the barely audible rumble of traffic on 104. Kirchmaier pointed out red-winged blackbirds and bright orange-breasted Baltimore orioles, and mused about the age of the white oak trees growing right up to the shore. He figured they could be as old as 150 years. Both he and Meredith agreed that the parcels likely contain old-growth stands of trees — a rarity in Monroe County, which was largely developed as farmland except in a few notable spots of tricky terrain, like these bluffs. We eyed the half-hidden logs and thick weeds and discussed who would brave what we estimated to be about three feet of murky water, and the danger of losing a toe to snapping turtles, to get to shore. In the end, our colleague, WXXI’s Veronica Volk, took the plunge and waded through the waist-deep water, and hiked up the steep hill to the top of the ridge. Returning about 20 minutes later, she reported no trails, plenty of birds and squirrels, and not much else. Meredith, the parks director, comes from a building construction background, and a big part of his job is overseeing infrastructure upgrades to 58 CITY JULY 2022
lodges and other amenities at the county’s parks. But his impression of Devil’s Cove is that it should be left as it is. “I wouldn’t change a thing about it,” Meredith said. “I think you’d get the most enjoyment from it just by being in the water, taking in the sounds and the sights like we have today. It’s just a beautiful, tucked away area.” There’s something hugely refreshing about Devil’s Cove Park in that it’s an out-of-the-way place to recharge your batteries, but also in the knowledge that, unlike so much of the available empty space in our world, there’s no rush to change it. Meredith said he thinks it would be a mistake to make this park more humanfriendly. “Everything doesn’t need to have everything,” he said. IF YOU GO:
Devil’s Cove Park is open daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. There is a carry incarry out rule, and a general request to leave the space as you found it. Pets are welcome but should be leashed and cleaned up after. Bug spray and vigilance against ticks and poison ivy are recommended. It is advised that visitors approach the cove north of the islands, as the inlet south of the islands is filled with fallen trees. CITY’s use of a pontoon boat prevented easy access to the land. Visitors could pull a canoe or kayak right onto the limited shore areas. Wear waterproof shoes regardless, as the terrain itself is partial wetland. We recommend launching from the metal dock at Abe Lincoln Park (call the county parks office ahead of time to be sure the lodge is not rented out) or from Bay Park West (available for launch anytime). We estimate the trip via canoe or kayak would take about 30 minutes to an hour to reach the cove. If you use your own vessel, Kirchmaier says it’s a responsible practice to clean off your boat to prevent carrying invasive species from one body of water to another. The county site says that permissible activities at Devil’s Cove include hiking and cross-country skiing, but bear in mind that there are no groomed trails to take. Be mindful of the fact that the parcels are surrounded by private property, with no border markers. Otherwise, happy exploring!
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GO WITH THE FLOW BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
@RSRAFFERTY
BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
SEASONAL WATERSIDE DINING These four spots strike the balance between special occasion and just-rolled-off-the-beach.
T
here are few pleasures sweeter than sharing a meal-witha-view with family and friends, and some of the best views are available at waterfront restaurants. I love the meditative calm that washes over everyone when they’re around a body of water, and the instant feeling of privileged elegance that lakes and rivers lend to the dining experience. Now, I’m not overly chi-chi about my waterside dining — one of my favorite lakeside eateries is Don’s Original on Culver Road in Seabreeze, “Where Quality Predominates.” I like to grab a ground round with mustard and extra pickles, and spend a sunset hour sharing my fries with the bickering gulls. These four seasonal waterside eateries in and around Rochester strike a balance between special occasion and just-rolled-off-the beach.
Hedges Nine Mile Point Restaurant
Located at 1290 Lake Road in Webster, Hedges is open for its 94th season through mid-December, when it closes for three months. It offers classic surf n’ turf fare, with indoor and patio seating options, as well as a gazebo and lawn chairs to relax in with a cold beverage. The menu boasts an extensive wine list featuring selections from the Finger Lakes, California, and around the world. Among the notable small plates is the sweet and spicy apricot and Sriracha duck legs (3 for $9, 6 for $16), the turf menu features burgers, steaks, and some pork and chicken entrees, and the surf options include a tempting wasabi and panko-encrusted Faroe Island salmon served with bok choy and red cabbage and topped with an Asian plum sauce ($38). Don’t forget to peruse the dessert specialties and cap the night with a spiked espresso. hedgesninemilepoint.com
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Castaways on the Lake in Webster has been a summer mainstay since 1906. PHOTO PROVIDED
Castaways on the Lake
Open since 1906, Castaways is located on the sandbar that separates Irondequoit Bay from Lake Ontario at 244 Lake Road in Webster. Through the summer, it offers lunches and dinners of steak, cajun rubbed blackened prime rib, and all manner of seafood, pasta, and signature cocktails paired with unparalleled sunsets best viewed from the restaurant’s lakeside patio decks, which are heated on chilly nights. Free boat docking is available on the bay side. Among the specialties are the chicken and shrimp jambalaya served with cajun sausage, peppers, and onions over rice ($19), honey Buffalo shrimp ($15), and coconut crusted grouper with mango-pineapple salsa ($32). castawaysonthelake.com
Pelican’s Nest Waterfront Restaurant
Try riverside dining at Pelican’s Nest, located at 566 River St. next to the historic Charlotte Genesee Lighthouse. Positioned near where the Genesee empties into Lake Ontario, you actually get the best of both waterways. The restaurant is open through October, features casual American fare and live music, and has a patio that is quite literally on the edge of the river, with boat docking available right at the restaurant. Standard starter snacks like wings, tacos, and nachos are offered alongside crab cakes and shrimp cocktails. You can order a variety of burgers, wraps, and salads, or opt for the Pelican Plate (it’s Rocheser, you know the drill; $15.99). Entrees include chicken french (again, it’s Rochester; $21.99) and a fish fry ($16.99). Check out the extensive signature cocktail list, too — there’s something for every mood. pelicansnestrestaurant.com
Schooner’s Riverside Pub
Located across the river from Pelican’s Nest is another dock n’ dine spot offering American fare and entertainment in a casual environment. Open for the summer, Schooner’s Riverside Pub is at 40 Marina Drive and features an open-air gazebo and large deck. The starter menu is filled with hitthe-spot fried favorites including beer cheese fries, wings, and tacos (beef, chicken, shrimp, or fish; 3 for $12). Mains include a variety of wraps, seafood specialties like the jumbo coconut shrimp with sweet Thai chili sauce ($13), and grill mainstays. Careful with the signature cocktails, which come in a reasonable 16 ounces or the wear-your-life-jacket-to-thetable 32 ounces. shumwaymarina.com
WE ALL SCREAM BY JACOB WALSH
JWALSH@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
ICE CREAM DREAM Ice cream is perfect. Here are three Rochester spots that make it more perfect.
L
et me cut to the chase: I love ice cream. Ice cream is perfect. Physically, it’s a blank canvas ready to receive any flavor or topping one might conjure up. It’s also a blank canvas conceptually, ripe for creating memories and re-visiting summer days gone by. Ice cream is a stone-cold classic. Even when it’s bad, it’s good. It’s a reward, a bribe, a condolence, or just a wholesome, sweet way to pass the time with a loved one. It can be silly, it can be joyous, or it can be dead serious. These three hot spots for ice cream are absolute home runs.
Stop 1: Netsin’s
Blink and you might miss this tiny storefront off Culver Parkway. So, don’t blink. Netsin’s is tucked away in a sleepy little pocket of Irondequoit on the edge of the city. You’ll feel like you’ve been transported to the utter stillness of a sitcom suburb. Step up to the window, and you’ll find an exhaustive list of flavors of soft-serve. Netsin’s is also the self-proclaimed “home of the ice cream plate,” which is something that any Rochesterian should be able to grasp. Bring a buddy and grab a picnic table out back during the golden hour; it will be a gorgeous summer night for y’all.
Stop 2: Dipper Dan’s
I rarely engage in nostalgia because I don’t find it particularly helpful, but I have to make an exception for this place. In the summer afternoons of my youth, my dad would often interrupt whatever it was I was doing (usually reading Goosebumps or talking to myself on the swing in the front yard like a real only child) and ask if I wanted to go for a drive. That always meant he and my mom were taking me 62 CITY JULY 2022
Bruster’s in Webster will cuts the price of their banana splits in half on Thursdays if you BYOB (Bring Your Own Banana). PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH
Conclusion: Ice cream can save the world.
to the village of Honeoye Falls to go to Dipper Dan’s. Get the cookies and cream, if you feel like cosplaying as a 6-year-old me, and don’t forget to project all of your hopes and dreams onto the yearbook pictures taped to the wall inside the shop. Time well-spent, in my opinion.
Stop 3: Bruster’s
I don’t drink, so I’m kind of used to B-ing my own “B” to BYOB functions at this point. (Side note: If you’re having a party, have some cold seltzers lying around! Everyone will love it.) But you have not brought your own “B” until you have been to Bruster’s on Ridge Rd. in Webster a Thursday, which happens to be BYOB Night, as in “Bring Your Own Banana.” Sounds silly, yes? Yes. But if a halfpriced banana split — perhaps the
silliest yet most classic ice cream delicacy out there — sounds like magic to you, this is your spot. A fun game: ask them to leave the peel on and see what they do! (Actually, don’t do this; harassing service workers is never funny). By the time the crew at Bruster’s is finished doing their thing, you won’t recognize your banana — and you’ll never look at bananas the same way again.
While I’m sure this isn’t true, it can be the perfect thing for when you’re feeling worn down by the world. Watching a crowd of kids losing their minds over a quadruple scoop cone may be able to cure any sadness ever introduced to mankind. So, if you take anything away from this summer summary, let it be this: Enjoy yourself this summer, and get some ice cream.
roccitynews.com CITY 63
GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
@RSRAFFERTY
BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM
SCENIC SUMMER CRUISES Let your cares melt away for a few passive hours on Rochester’s waterways.
I
f the long daylight hours and warm weather of summer beckon you to the waterways around Rochester, there are loads of places to rent a boat, canoe, or kayak, if you don’t already have one. But another option is to let someone else take the wheel for a few hours while you take in the sights along two of Rochester’s historic and enduringly special waterways. Consider these cruise services that operate seasonally on the Genesee River and the Erie Canal. They each strike that rare “affordable luxury” mark, and make for a unique gift-in-a-pinch or spur-ofthe-moment treat for yourself.
When you sail aboard The Colonial Belle, you’ll hear the call, “Low bridge, everybody down!” PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH
Sam Patch Erie Canal Tours
Named for the nation’s first and ultimately doomed daredevil — who died in the Genesee River after his second barrel jump over High Falls — the Sam Patch has been a fixture on the Erie Canal for more than three decades. The vessel is a replica of an 1800s packet boat that would have carried mail, local freight, and passengers in its day. It runs 90-minute jaunts from Pittsford village through the century-old Lock 32 at Clover Street, and back again. The boat’s windowed shelter makes the trip comfortable no matter the weather. The experience includes stories — as told by a deckhand — about the historic, scientific, cultural, and environmental importance of the canal. The Sam Patch holds 49 people 64 CITY JULY 2022
and can be booked for special events. The service also offers periodic themed cruises, including one focused on birding presented in partnership with Montezuma Audubon Center. The Sam Patch departs from 12 Schoen Place in Pittsford, and operates through October 31 on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. Tickets are $14-$22, free for kids under age 2. sampatch.org
The Colonial Belle Based in Fairport, The Colonial Belle has been offering tours of the Erie Canal since 1989, and has both an enclosed cabin with windows and
open-air seating on the upper deck. Fair warning: if you sit up top, you will hear the call, “Low bridge, everybody down!” and are advised to comply when the boat passes under a bridge. On board there’s a full-service bar and two restrooms, and the vessel can hold 149 people. Themed cruises include Sunset Lock Tours with live music, Murder Mystery dinner tours, pirate-themed family cruises, and a Fall Foliage tour to downtown Rochester. The Colonial Belle operates through the end of October, with afternoon and evening cruises scheduled Tuesday through Sunday. The Belle departs from 400 Packett’s Landing and travels 14 to 16 miles; some tour variations leave from different locations. There are a lot of options to choose from (time of day, twoor-three hour cruise length, lock passage or not, and special events). Basic tickets for cruises only are $13-$28, free to kids
3 and younger. Dinner packages are $60+ and range depending on the event. colonialbelle.com
The Harbor Town Belle
The Mississippi-style riverboat is not operating this season, according to a recorded message that greets callers to the service. The message notes, however, that the crew looks forward to getting back on the water in the future. The owners were not immediately available for comment. The vessel is an 80-foot paddle boat that normally offers cruises on the Genesee River and Lake Ontario. It was built in 1998 by WWII veteran Alfred Gilbert and his wife Joyce Gilbert, and is now owned and operated by their daughter and grandchildren. theharbortownbelle.com
LIFE
FIST BUMP
ACROSS 1. Launch spot for many a toy boat 5. “The Wire” airer 8. Ode title starter 11. Inquire 14. Buds
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22. Continent with 12 territories in Risk
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33. Otolaryngologists, commonly
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39. PowerBooks, e.g.
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58. Headwear for a prep cook 61. Inactive 62. Sheriffs’ supervisees
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75. Choco _____ 76. Talks and talks and talks 80. Default appointment time when you type “lunch” into your calendar app 81. Clearing a blackboard 84. “_____ Man,” frequent character in stories from “The Onion”
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93. ** Make a promising gesture to a schoolmate 95. Border 96. Olympic sport using 55-Across 97. Vietnamese new year 98. Ending for spin or huck 99. Excessively quaint 100. Migratory game fish
85. Onomatopoetic word often seen in comics
102. Pronoun for Miss Piggy
66. Length of a quick tennis match
87. Kick out a tenant
68. Rely (on)
106. On the decline?
89. Bone: prefix
69. Request to a blackjack dealer
108. Fiction subgenre
90. ** One of nine supervillains haunting Frodo’s fellowship in a Tolkien epic
112. Soothes
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26. Farce
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23. ** Wrestling bout in which participants are only allowed to move one body part
Answers to this puzzle can be found on page 40
PUZZLE BY S.J. AUSTIN & J. REYNOLDS
103. Identical
114. Subscription term, often
118. Chemical suffixes 119. With 121-Across, a “meal” served by a bully, assembled by combining the first words of each starred clue 121. See 119-Across 122. Milkshake flavor 123. Strengthen 124. Gator finisher? 125. Like _____ of sunshine 126. Finishes 127. Confederate soldier, pejoratively 128. SAT takers 129. West coast winter hrs. 130. Gen _____ (millennials)
DOWN
constant in quantum physics
1. Phony social media account holders
64. Soft drink named for a California peak
2. 18-Across, in Berlin 3. Wed. follower 4. Showtime series starring Claire Danes
67. Lacking musical ability 70. More standoffish 71. Letchworth or Watkins Glen, e.g.
5. Instructions
72. Useless
6. Alloy used in doorknobs
73. Popular date activity
7. Shortened preposition in the national anthem
74. Purpose
8. Diplomacy 9. Burdens 10. Playwright Chekhov 11. ESPN parent network 12. Lead-in to love or sacrifice 13. Brand name on a box in a therapist’s office 14. Command+V 15. 1975 Wimbledon champion Arthur 16. Word rhymed with “fire” in a schoolyard taunt 17. _____ Club, Costco competitor 21. Slangy contraction 24. “To _____ not to…”
75. Stun guns 77. Groups of mountains 78. Narcotic made from poppies 79. “Let’s _____ there” 82. Mike of “Dirty Jobs” 83. Increased in size 86. One of the five Ws of journalism 88. Heavyweight champ who famously quipped “‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” 91. Notions 92. Narrow passage between buildings 94. Bumper adornment 99. Bank employee
28. “Come on, _____ you!”
100. One of 154 published by Shakespeare in 1609
30. Updates across devices
101. Mimicked
32. Asylum seeker
102. Sail supports
34. Coupe alternatives
104. The “A” of IRA (abbr.)
36. Notes after do
105. Creates
37. Trapped, with “in”
107. Laundry units
38. Avoid a ball in gym class
108. Frost
40. “Folsom Prison Blues” singer
109. _____ empty stomach (bad way to take some medication)
42. Editorial strike-out 43. Astaire and Rogers 44. Confuse 45. Opposite of a liability 47. Caesar’s language 48. Colloquial expression 49. Cared for 50. Otherworldly beings 52. Former “Today” co-host Matt, fired in 2017 for sexual harassment
110. Blend, as with Spock’s mind 111. Feminine suffix 113. Torme and Brooks, for two 115. Ireland, in Irish 116. Hertz (or Avis) Rent-_____ 117. Darby of “Flight of the Conchords” 120. Connection port inits. 121. Maple syrup ingredient
53. Law field dealing with inheritances 59. Brown of “Good Eats” 60. Not experienced enough 63. Max who lent his name to a roccitynews.com CITY 67