October 2020

NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. | OCTOBER 2020 | FREE | SINCE 1971 COMMENTARY

AROUND TOWN

DINING

HOW AN ALT-RIGHT TROLL HIJACKED MY TWEET

BEST OF ROCHESTER (IN A YEAR OF ‘WORSTS’)

THE GODFATHER OF GREASY SPOONS TAKES A BOW

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INBOX WANNA SAY SOMETHING? NEWS. ARTS. LIFE.

CITY wants to hear you rant and rave. Your feedback must . . . . . . be no more than 250 words . . . respond to CITY content . . . be engaging

October, 2020 Vol 49 No 2 On the cover: Illustration by Daniel Alsheimer

CITY reserves the right to edit for accuracy, length, and readability.

280 State Street Rochester, New York 14614 feedback@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 roccitynews.org

Send your rants and raves to: feedback@rochester-citynews.com

CITY, 280 State St., Rochester, NY 14614 (ATTN: Feedback) WHERE’S MY CROSSWORD? I was so happy to see the newly reformatted CITY at our local food coop. There’s nothing more satisfying and enlightening than excellent reporting and thoughtful writing about local events.

Thanks for being back in what is a great “pandemic pivot.”

The glossy, heavier paper and staple binding impart an important “look-feel” that kept me engaged as I read from cover to cover, gulping in the thoughtprovoking “now” of Rochester as only CITY provides. Well done!

I just have one request: Could you bring the crossword puzzle back?

Diane Macchiavelli, Rochester CITY: We heard you, Diane, and the many CITY crossword fans like you.

See page 63 for your puzzle.

COUGH, HACK, AHEM It’s so good to have CITY back, and the new format is very welcome. Specifically, the longer news or news-related pieces. The greater depth, compared to the weekly newspaper format, is appreciated.

Whatever hoops you all had to jump and crawl through, the final product was worth this reader’s wait.

Now comes the “but.” I had hoped we had seen the last of CITY’s acceptance of cigarette advertising. In the simplest of terms, such advertising contradicts the values and standards which have consistently been expressed by CITY. James S. Evinger, Rochester CITY: Duly noted, James.

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OCTOBER 2020

PUBLISHER Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, Norm Silverstein, chairman

OW, THAT HURT After reading CITY’s “Rochester’s superintendent is moving fast and breaking eggs,” I had a sinking feeling of despair. As an RCSD graduate and a teacher in the district, I can’t help but feel we were being personally attacked by the description of the loss of 528 educators and $130 million dollars of funding as “a few broken eggs.”

Through the revolving door of superintendents, one thing has remained constant: the catch phrases and jargon that boil down a district of 26,000 students and over 3,000 educators to pawns in the game of state and city austerity. “We have to do more with less,” they say. Tell that to a class of 8-year-olds who lost their reading teachers two weeks before winter break.

The truth is this superintendent will be no different than the 13 before her if she refuses to be brave and tell the truth. Education is an investment from which savings cannot be created. Claire Labrosa, Rochester WELCOME BACK Awesome to see CITY back on the newsstand.

We live in Livingston County, but always look in the print edition of CITY to see what is happening in the city to drive in and enjoy. Glad to see it on the shelf.

Jim Waide, Avon

HELL HATH NO FURY I look forward to voting in CITY’s Best of Rochester every year. I want to support great local businesses and people — and the theater community is no exception.

But this year, Best of Rochester ignored honoring any theater companies or shows this year.

There was no “Best Local Theater Company” or “Best Community Production” or “Best Regional Production.” Nothing.

While the pandemic kept a lot of shows and companies off the stage this year, there was still some great theater in the months prior to the shutdown.

Not giving those shows a platform to be recognized is a disappointing burn to them. And what about acknowledging shows that went virtual in the face of the pandemic?

For a publication that champions local theater — and is the only one in Rochester that does — to not recognize artists who worked to make great theater in this shortened year is extremely disheartening.

Justin Rielly, Rochester Rielly is the founder of Aspie Works.

CITY: If all the years of running the Best of Rochester readers’ poll has taught us anything it is that hell hath no fury like theater people scorned. Given the dearth of theater this year, we thought recognizing the “Local Theater Company that Best Weathered the Pandemic” was reasonable. We’ll keep trying. But, oh, the drama of it all!

FOUNDERS Bill and Mary Anna Towler EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT themail@rochester-citynews.com Editor: David Andreatta News editor: Jeremy Moule Staff writer: Gino Fanelli Arts & entertainment editor: Rebecca Rafferty Music editor: Daniel J. Kushner Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Kate Stathis Contributing writers: Leah Stacy CREATIVE DEPARTMENT artdept@rochester-citynews.com Creative director: Ryan Williamson Designer/Photographer: Jacob Walsh Digital content strategist: Renée Heininger ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales manager: Alison Zero Jones Advertising consultant/ Project mananger: 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, 2020 - 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.

@ROCCITYNEWS

IN THIS ISSUE OPENING SHOT

Joe Prude, center, waits at City Hall with family and supporters for Mayor Lovely Warren to address the death of his brother, Daniel Prude, on Sept. 2.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

NEWS ON THE COVER

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MAYOR LOVELY WARREN HAS DUG HERSELF A HOLE

ARTS

LIFE

26

46

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

FAIRPORT SAYS FAREWELL TO ITS ‘FIRST WHITE CHILD’

Who knew “first white child” signs were a thing?

16

JUSTICE FOR Graphic DANIEL PRnovelist UDE

Dave Chisolm catches the jazz legend on the night he soared.

Can she climb her way out of it?

8

CHASING CHARLIE “BIRD” PARKER

TRUST, BUT VERIFY

Chronicling 1,400 days of “fake news” and counting at RoCo.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

BY JEFF SPEVAK

YOUR GUIDE TO THE ELECTIONS OF 2020

A RISING VOICE

The rundown on key local races and the candidates who want your vote.

40

BY JEREMY MOULE

Sherice Barnes shed her shyness to become the R&B singer She Rise.

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

ADRIAN HALE WOULD BE, COULD BE MAYOR

An interview with the man political kingmakers are drooling over.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

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PUBLIC LIVES:

48

52

JAMES BROWN’S PLACE CHANGES HANDS

It is the end of an era at a diner beloved by power brokers and everyday people.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

THE BEST OF ROCHESTER

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s how to make the best of a bad situation.

BY CITY READERS LIKE YOU

MORE NEWS, ARTS, AND LIFE INSIDE roccitynews.org

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WELCOME

CITY presents the “Best of Rochester” amid a year of worsts For the better part of the summer, the nation and much of the world saw the worst of Rochester.

The death of Daniel Prude at the hands of police and the fallout from it was headline news coast to coast and overseas. The takeaway for most casual news consumers was that Rochester is an unruly place, where police put sacks over the heads of the suspects they collar, where protesters ransack restaurants with impunity, and where chaos at City Hall is the order of the day.

And that was just September. In August, Rochester made national headlines for topping a list of American cities to be hardest hit by the pandemic-induced recession.

Lest we forget, too, the city’s latest Kodak moment. In July, the company that put us on the map became the focus of a congressional probe after allegations of insider trading delayed delivery of a $765 million federal loan to jump-start Kodak production of ingredients used to make the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which the president has touted to treat Covid-19.

To anyone from the outside looking in, it must have seemed that Rochester was rotten.

Of course, anyone who lives here knows there is much to celebrate about our city and region. And if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s how to make the best of a bad situation.

With that in mind, CITY presents in this edition the winners of its annual Best of Rochester readers’ poll. Best of a bad situation . . . Best of Rochester . . . See what I did there?

Much changed in the last year that rendered some of the poll’s traditional categories irrelevant. Bars and restaurants sounded the last call for months on end, cultural institutions closed, and theaters went dark. But their resilience, and that of our entire community, was something for which we could be proud. Plus, CITY made up for the setback by modifying our categories.

Now, all we at CITY have to do is brace for the blowback. Every year when the “Best of ” results are released, CITY gets slapped with a healthy helping of snark from skeptical readers.

Some of them suspect the outcomes were fixed, either by CITY staff or because of ballot stuffing. I assure you that neither is the case. Skeptics will either believe that or they won’t. I shouldn’t care because I know it to be true. But I do care because CITY has integrity and I bristle at any attempt to besmirch it. To prove ourselves, we had planned prior to the pandemic to invite readers to oversee the ballot counting as election inspectors. Unfortunately, our office building is still closed to most guests. I can hear the skeptics now: “That’s a convenient excuse.”

Most of the snark, however, is reserved for the “Best of” label itself. Who is anyone, the skeptics contend, to say what is the “best of” anything? To that, we at CITY hear you. The “Best of” label is just a brand that’s been around for a long time and isn’t exclusive to CITY. Lots of other media outlets have their own versions of “Best of” readers’ polls.

But we also hear the more than 10,000 readers who each year vote because it’s fun and because they want to salute their favorite people, places, and things that make Rochester special. We think those are worthwhile pursuits amid the worst year in recent memory.

Thank you to those of you who participated, and congratulations to the winners.

David Andreatta, Editor

Thoughts about the new CITY? Tell us at feedback@rochester-citynews.com 4 CITY

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

COMMENTARY

Mayor Lovely Warren has dug herself a hole

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

Mayor Lovely Warren has dug herself a hole so deep it may be impossible for her to climb out.

The pressures enveloping her administration — a toxic stew of mishandling the death of Daniel Prude, criminal allegations of campaign finance violations, the crumbling of the Police Department command, and her increasingly fragile reign as the titular puppet master of local Democrats— are potent enough to potentially end her political career.

Warren has defied calls from protesters and the police union to resign, but she has declared her intentions to run for a third term next year.

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. But Warren has managed to exacerbate her predicament with defiance and deflection intended to distance herself from her crises and the people she wants us to believe caused them in the first place.

She may have thought she was being proactive in firing her police chief after he had already announced his resignation and suspending her chief legal counsel and spokesman for allegedly failing to keep her informed of the circumstances of Prude’s death.

But those things came off as her throwing subordinates under the bus to save face.

T-shirts emblazoned with a cartoon image of the mayor driving a bus over Chief La’Ron Singletary were being sold on Clinton Avenue.

Her own deputy mayor, James Smith, has even said that he had advised Warren to fire Singletary six weeks earlier, at the beginning of August, when Warren claims to have first seen the disturbing footage of Prude’s fatal arrest.

Then there have been the mayor’s gallingly sanctimonious statements about her leadership, like the one she made in an interview with WROCTV: “We wouldn’t know what happened to Daniel Prude had it not been for me, Lovely Warren, insisting 6 CITY

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DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

that we bring body-worn cameras to this city and putting it on our cops against what the union wanted.”

She could have easily have said, “We could have known what happened to Daniel Prude five months earlier if it hadn’t been for me, Lovely Warren, putting people in positions of power who worked to conceal what happened to Daniel Prude,” which she essentially did say when she drove the Warren Express over key members of her administration.

standards. She also invited the U.S. Justice Department to dig in.

Timothy Kneeland, a political science professor at Nazareth College, is one observer who thinks the mayor can salvage her career. That can happen, he said, if the investigations exonerate Warren, she becomes “the most active, vocal, and vociferous” champion of police reform, and if her other crises vanish.

“Her best bet for survival is to follow the playbooks she’s following, which is to demand an open and

PHOTO BY DAVID ANDREATTA

Whether Warren can climb out of her hole comes down to trust. How much do people trust what she’s saying about having been kept in the dark about Prude’s death? How much do people trust her ability to transform policing? She’s had seven years to do it and look what transpired.

There are currently four investigations into how her administration handled Prude’s death. There is the state attorney general’s criminal probe, the Police Department’s internal review, the City Council’s investigation, and Warren directed the city’s Office of Public Integrity to look into whether anyone in her administration — herself included — breached ethical

transparent investigation of everyone involved, including her, because that way she has the possibility of being exonerated,” Kneeland said. “That would help her build back the trust of people who mistrust her right now.”

“But,” he added. “I don’t see her surviving a primary (next year) if there is any hint of a cover-up on her part.

And that’s also if she isn’t indicted for campaign finance violations.”

The investigations will likely focus heavily on the contents of a 325-page cache of documents compiled by Smith that purportedly encompass the Warren administration’s handling — and mishandling — of the death of Prude.

Warren released the voluminous record to justify the firing of

Singletary and the unpaid suspensions of the city’s lawyer, Tim Curtin, and spokesman, Justin Roj. Nothing in it refutes Warren’s insistence that she was unaware of what happened to Prude until early August, with one possible exception.

But remember, the documents were culled by her right-hand man and did not account for face-toface conversations or text message exchanges the mayor may have had with key players.

The possible exception is an April 10 email between Singletary and Roj in which Singletary wrote, “The Mayor has been in the loop on such since 3/23.” Prude was arrested on March 23 and the mayor has said Singletary advised her that day that the arrest was problematic. Prude died a week later.

What Singletary meant by “in the loop” is unclear. In the same email, he lied about the medical examiner citing “resisting arrest” as a contributing factor in Prude’s death.

What the medical examiner cited was “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”

Since his suspension, Roj has fallen on the sword, releasing a statement that said in part that he “should have questioned the chief further and/or taken the opportunity to discuss his email with the mayor.”

This is where the red flag goes up.

It is inconceivable to many that no one in the Warren administration recognized the significance and potential consequences of Prude’s death and had a chat with Warren about the implications.

Even if Warren and Co. didn’t recognize the pending calamity before them from the outset, one would think they would dig deeper into “that Prude thing” after the country erupted in protest over the killing of George Floyd — three months before Prude’s death became public.

Instead, they appear to have buried their heads in the sand while Warren dug her hole.

LOVELY’S ROCHESTER Nightly protests over the death of Daniel Prude dominated September.

PHOTOS BY MAX SCHULTE

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NEWS

SIGN OF THE TIMES There are countless “first white child” signs across the country, each a window into the origins of our current national anxieties about race and immigration.

A New York historical marker denoting the Abner Wight Home celebrated the “first white child” of Perinton. The sign was erected in 1949 and taken down in September 2020. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

Fairport says farewell to its“first white child” memorial

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

Anyone setting eyes for the first time on the historical marker denoting the Abner Wight Home in Fairport could have been forgiven for doing a double-take.

The marker, out front of a handsome yellow colonial on South Main Street, was one of those ubiquitous blue and gold cast-iron plaques that New York state handed out between 1926 and 1969 to seemingly anyone offering a scintilla of evidence that history “happened here.”

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“BUILT BY ABNER WIGHT 1794,” the sign read in all capital letters. “MOVED HERE FROM WIGHT FARM ACROSS THE ROAD. FIRST WHITE CHILD TO SURVIVE BORN HERE. LATER HOME OF COL. HOWARD.” Come again? Was that supposed to have read “first white child?” Or was that a typo, for which these signs are notorious, that should have read “first Wight child?”

They were questions I had after

happening upon the sign about six years ago. Only then did an internet search reveal that “first white child” signs are an actual thing. Countless of them are sprinkled across the United States, each a window into the origins of our current national anxieties about race and immigration.

Once upon a time — a different time, as we say when excusing the inexcusable customs of the past — early American settlements commemorated the birth of their “first white child.” For

European colonists, the occasion was the equivalent of a dog marking its territory.

“In each of these cases it was an emblem that Euro-American white settlers have claimed the land enough to start peopling the land themselves,” said Michael Leroy Oberg, a history professor at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Plaques marking the event can be found in cities big and small, suburban towns, and on rural roads in the middle of nowhere.

One is on the DuSable Bridge in Chicago commemorating the birth of that city’s “first white child,” Ellen Marion Kinzie, in 1805. Another is outside of the Blowers Homestead, the first settlement in Jamestown, New York, honoring the birth of the “first white child” in 1810.

And, until early September, one stood off the sidewalk outside Lynn Barber’s home in Fairport, where it had been since it went up in 1949.

“I got home from running some errands and there were three burly guys taking the sign off,” Barber said. “So I went out and said, ‘What are you doing?’ and they said, ‘We’re taking this down ma’am, we were ordered to take this down.’”

QUIET REMOVAL AFTER A RAUCOUS SUMMER Village workers hastily removed the plaque on Sept. 9 after I contacted a village board member to inquire about word circulating that the sign’s days were numbered.

The village had been looking for funding to swap out the sign for a new one with updated language ever since a resident complained about the “first white child” wording a month earlier.

But the prospect of the plaque becoming a news story spurred village officials to waste no time getting rid of what they saw as a scarlet letter of intolerance, even without a replacement, before the sign became another stain on the village after a trying summer.

Fairport workers removed the historical marker on Sept. 9. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

“I feel like if people are going to start talking about it, I don’t want to proliferate any additional issues in our village,” Mayor Julie Domaratz said a few hours after ordering the sign to be taken down. “I love our village and I want more people to love our village and move here, and if more things are

Lynn Barber is proud of the history of her home on South Main Street in Fairport, but called the language of the historical sign denoting it “racist and offensive.” PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

going to come up, right now it’s just a powder keg.”

Recall that in June, as the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, the village made news when an employee of a prominent business, Fairport Brewing Company, removed Black Lives Matter-themed artwork posted around town.

The village responded somewhat clumsily, issuing a statement supporting free speech but asking that signage not be posted on public property. Rallies that had been limited to Rochester then came to Fairport, as well as other suburbs.

Hundreds of people marched through the village on a route that went right past the Abner Wight Home sign.

The spectacle was not only a symbol of a suburban village engaged in some overdue self-reflection, but also a stark reminder of just how white Fairport is, even by the standards of Rochester’s lily white eastern suburbs.

Census data shows that 94 percent of residents in Perinton, which includes the village of Fairport, are white. Penfield is 93 percent white.

Webster is 91 percent white. Pittsford

is 86 percent white. Brighton is 76 percent white.

But at 97 percent white, Fairport makes some of those places look like the United Nations.

At the rallies, Black former Fairport High School students spoke of the difficulties they encountered in school — from having trouble relating to their peers and teachers to confronting outright racism.

A few weeks later, swastikas and other racist graffiti, including the n-word, were discovered spray-painted on the rental offices of the Pines of Perinton, an affordable apartment complex just outside the village border that houses a diverse clientele.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo dispatched the State Police Hate Crime Task Force to investigate. Police reportedly knocked on the doors of 600 residences.

It was on the heels of those events that Domaratz had the “first white child” taken down.

“The text on this sign is inappropriate,” Domaratz said. “It might have been appropriate for the people who were living in Fairport in 1949. It’s not appropriate for the people living in Fairport in 2020.”

‘FIRST WHITE CHILD’ SIGNS SCATTERED ACROSS NEW YORK New York’s historical marker program began in 1926 to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the American Revolution. The commissioner of education was directed by law to arrange “markers to designate sites that are of historic significance in the colonial, revolutionary or state formative period.”

Most of the markers we see were erected between 1926 and 1939, when funding ran out. But the Office of State History and the Education Department continued approving signs intermittently through the 1960s.

Over the years, though, the state effectively ceded maintenance of the signs, and by extension ownership, to the municipalities in which they stand.

That was how Fairport could get away with ripping the Abner Wight Home sign out of the ground on a whim.

The state doesn’t even keep a reliable inventory of the signs. The closest thing to a complete list is one compiled by the Association of Public Historians of New York State CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

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that details the 2,428 plaques erected during the original phase of the program that ended in 1939.

The Abner Wight Home sign is not among them, although there are six on that list that celebrate the “first white child” or “first white children” or the “first white native.” One honors Sara Rapelje, who was born in what is now Albany in 1625 and is said to have been the “first white child” in New York.

More than a dozen signs pay homage to “first white” settlers doing one thing or another, from clearing land to building homes.

It goes without saying that the United States would not be what it is today, for better or worse, without European colonization.

The laying down of roots by settlers forever altered the landscape and the balance of power. That is not without historical significance.

The trouble with framing that significance in the context of race, however, is that it elevates colonists above the natives of the land and perpetuates the racist notion that white supremacy enabled them to come to dominate the continent.

Indeed, white supremacists have claimed Virginia Dare, the “first white child” of America’s 13 colonies, as their own. She is the namesake of the Vdare Foundation and its media arm, vdare.com, which The Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “antiimmigration hate website” that publishes works by prominent white nationalists.

“There is a point in time when ‘white’ doesn’t mean much,” said Oberg, who is the author of several books on Native American history.

“By the time Mr. Wight is having his progeny, the notion of whiteness is well understood by Euro-American settlers, and it certainly meant something by the 1940s.

“By the time those signs are going up, whiteness has a very clear definition of something that is not indigenous, not African, not un-American.”

PROUDLY CARRIED TO THE GRAVE The land on which the Abner Wight Home sits was once occupied by the Seneca, one of six nations of native people that made up the Iroquois Confederacy.

By the late 18th century, though, the land was known to settlers 10 CITY OCTOBER 2020

Asa Wight carried the distinction of being the “first white child” of Perinton to his grave. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

Perinton Town Historian Bill Poray.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

as Township 12, Range 4 in the governmental unit of Northfield. It was settled primarily by the Perrin family, from which Perinton is derived.

Town history has it that Wight, a Revolutionary War veteran, and his wife, Huldah Perrin Wight, were the first couple to have a child that would survive to adulthood.

Their son, Asa Wight, was born in 1797 and carried the distinction of being the “first white child” to his grave. He is buried in nearby Mt. Pleasant Cemetery under a headstone that reads: “THE FIRST WHITE PERSON BORN IN PERINTON.” The 1800 census shows 71 people lived in what would become Perinton.

By the time Asa Wight died in 1865, there were more than 3,000.

I imagine Asa, like Dare and other “first white children,” assuming a social status of almost mythical proportions, walking around town trailed by fawning whispers of “Do you know who that man is?”

For Barber, who is the third generation of her family to live in the Abner Wight Home, the “first white child” distinction and its prominent notation on the historical marker outside her house has been a source of embarrassment.

“I think for people who are conscious of racist language, it has been for some time,” said Barber, 73, who remembers her grandfather mocking the phrase. “It’s just pretty clear it was dismissive of the Seneca, whose births and deaths were of no concern to probably most of the white settlers.”

Barber, whose bumper stickers on her car project her liberal leanings, has had a homemade Black Lives Matter sign on her lawn for months, a few paces from where the Abner Wight Home stood. She said she never attempted to have the historical marker taken down because of the bureaucratic red tape she feared would be involved.

“I’m sorry to say I did not push for it,” Barber said. “I wish I had because

I think it would have been the right thing to do.”

As Barber recalled, the marker was championed by a friend of her grandmother who lived in another historic house in town and was involved in the local historical society. That friend, she said, wrote the text for the sign.

“Talk about sign of the times, that’s what seemed important to her and the people that she knew,” Barber said. “But my grandfather was not impressed with it.”

He would not be alone in his distaste today.

SIGNS OF CHANGING TIMES Around the country, “first white child” historical signs, so often overlooked, are being rediscovered with fresh eyes and their implications reconsidered.

Two years ago, officials in Mankato, Minnesota, removed a “first white child” plaque from a state park, citing new guidelines that prohibited the posting of texts that could be interpreted as favoring one culture over another.

Descendants of that child donated the plaque to a county museum.

“People are starting to recognize that that’s kind of insensitive,” Bill Poray, historian for the town of

Perinton and village of Fairport, said of “first white child” signs.

Poray is working with Barber, village officials, and the local historical society to arrange and write the text for a replacement sign.

Because the state abandoned the historical marker program, most municipalities that want to repair signs or erect new ones either find the money in their budgets to have them cast or rely on grants from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

The foundation launched a historical signage program in New York in 2006 whose plaques resemble the original blue and gold markers. The city of Rochester went through the program to erect a sign last year at a house where Frederick Douglass once lived.

“In this case,” Poray said of replacing the “first white child” verbiage on the Abner Wight Home sign, “the Native American experience in this part of New York state wasn’t so great when pioneers came west and I don’t think it’s necessary or even communicates what I think they were trying to say, that a pioneer child survived and we’re rejoicing this.”

Barber said she looks forward to a new sign that accurately captures the historical significance of her home and pays tribute to the native peoples who were on her land long before the Wight family.

As an aside, local historians have argued for decades that the house was inaccurately dated when the sign went up nearly 70 years ago and could not have been built as early as 1794.

Most historical markers tend to blend into the scenery unnoticed.

If and when Fairport residents learn this story of the Abner Wight Home sign, Barber said she suspected the reaction will be mixed.

“I think some people will say, as it should be, that that sign was racist and offensive,” Barber said. “But I think some people will fail to see that and maybe just be upset that it was taken down for at least no reason they would understand.”

GET IN OUR CORNER BECOME A CITY CHAMPION SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM

We don’t have to tell you that local journalism is on the ropes.

In the last 10 years, nearly half of all newsroom jobs nationwide were lost. Tech titans plundered newsrooms’ traditional revenue streams and did little to replace the local news coverage knocked out in the process.

At CITY, we believe that a community without journalism that aggressively questions authority, fights for its most vulnerable residents, and celebrates what makes it unique, can lose its way.

That’s why we’ve been fighting the good fight since 1971. But every fighter needs a team.

If you value CITY’s voice, we invite you to get in our corner and become a CITY Champion. CITY has always been free, and will continue to be, in print and online. But it isn’t free to produce.

Together, we’ll keep journalism in Rochester free and independent, our community connected, and you in the know.

FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP AT ROCCITYNEWS.ORG N E W S . A RT S . L I F E .

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NEWS

RIGHTING WRONGS FOR RENTERS

Tipping the scales of justice for tenants . . . temporarily

ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN WILLIAMSON/ADOBE STOCK

Housing advocates say a permanent solution is needed

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

Fifty-seven years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously established that poor criminal defendants had a right to an attorney under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution.

The reasoning was straightforward: they needed one to have a fair shot at defending themselves.

Yet poor people facing eviction defend themselves every day in Rochester civil court, where the stakes of losing the roof over their head are arguably as dire as being incarcerated.

To watch an eviction proceeding unfold is to witness a stark imbalance of power. On one side are the tenants — frequently overwhelmed men and women clutching a handful of papers on which their hopes to retain their home hinge. On the other side are lawyers for landlords — dressed in suits and in the courthouse so often they’re on a first name basis with the bailiffs.

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GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Which side will likely win is a forgone conclusion.

“Someone who does not have an attorney in a system that is built for attorneys to be adversaries is at a massive disadvantage,” said Tina Foster, executive director of Volunteer Legal Services Project (VLSP), a pro bono legal group. “You won’t have equal access to justice.”

With eviction proceedings slated to begin in October after being put on hold for six months of the pandemic, Mayor Lovely Warren and the City Council have moved to level the scales of justice with a temporary infusion of funding for legal services for tenants.

The money, some $460,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds, is meant to guarantee a free lawyer for tenants facing eviction who can’t afford one. (And if someone is facing eviction, they can’t afford one.)

The so-called right-to-counsel pilot program is a victory for tenants and their advocates who have championed such an initiative for years. But what happens when the money runs out, as it is expected to

by June, if not sooner?

City officials say they will reevaluate the program then. Advocates for the poor and affordable housing see no need to wait — and the data backs them up.

In recent years, wages have stagnated while housing costs have soared, and Rochester has averaged roughly 7,300 eviction filings annually, according to the New York State Office of Court Administration.

That figure is expected to balloon as landlords seek redress for their losses during the pandemic when the state’s moratorium on filing eviction proceedings lifts this month.

Mark Muoio of the Legal Aid Society.

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

“What I think is important to remember is the courts were full before the crisis even happened,” said Mark Muoio, housing program director for the Legal Aid Society, a partner of the VLSP.

Barbara Rivera, an organizer with the Rochester City-Wide Tenant Union. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

NINE-TO-ONE RATIO FAVORS LANDLORDS In many housing courts around the country, 90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys while 90 percent of tenants are not. The VLSP estimates a similar imbalance in Rochester, based in part on a right-to-counsel initiative launched in Irondequoit Town Court a few years ago.

A 2018 study from the national Volunteer Lawyers Network found that tenants fighting eviction with a lawyer kept their homes 96 percent of the time, compared to 62 percent of those without one.

Guaranteeing a right to legal representation in civil matters has been established in countries around the world and some municipal housing courts in progressive American cities.

New York City became the first city in the nation to legislate a right to counsel for tenants in 2017 after years of experimenting with a hodgepodge of legal services programs that aimed to protect renters and preserve the city’s stock of affordable housing.

There, the law provided free lawyers for tenants in specific ZIP codes whose household incomes were below $50,000 for a family of four. In one year, tenants facing eviction who could take advantage of the free counsel were nearly four times likelier to keep their housing than those who could not, according to data culled by the New York City Department of Investigation.

Barbara Rivera, of the Rochester City-Wide Tenant Union, expects the new program here to have the same effect. The initiative has been a wish list item for the Tenant Union for years.

“It’s going to level out the playing field a little bit for tenants, just to make it fair,” Rivera said. “If a landlord is being represented by a lawyer, why shouldn’t a tenant? Just so they know what to do to move forward and what exactly is happening.”

Advocates look at the benefits of a permanent right-to-counsel program for poor renters mainly through the prism of the health and welfare of tenants and their families. Research affirms that people who endure an eviction experience higher levels of depression.

Eviction has been found to be a risk factor in suicide and, for children, academic failure.

But there are monetary benefits, too.

A pilot right-to-counsel program that ran in The Bronx from 2005 to 2008

and helped more than 1,100 families avoid eviction, for example, cost New York City around $450,000 but reportedly saved the city more than $700,000 in emergency shelter costs.

A BURDEN OF PROOF The state Tenant Safe Harbor Act, signed into law in June by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to protect tenants who experienced financial hardship during the pandemic from eviction, is still in effect. But it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, housing lawyers contend.

While the law prohibits a landlord from evicting a tenant who has not paid rent for months as a result of the pandemic, it does not bar a landlord from initiating an eviction proceeding as a way to secure a judgment against the overdue back rent.

And in each case, tenants will have to prove that the pandemic prevented them from making their rent.

“So I could say (a tenant) lost their job from the pandemic, and the judge could say, ‘Yeah, but they got their extra $600 a week for 10 weeks and they still didn’t pay, and they got a TV or a new car,’” Muoio said. “That’s a sensible argument for some people, and I’d have to prove (hardship) in some other way.”

In Monroe County, a new court, dubbed the Special COVID Intervention Part (SCIP), has been introduced just to deal with pandemicrelated cases.

Following the launch of the rightto-counsel initiative in August, state Supreme Court Justice Craig Doran, the administrative judge for the Rochester region, participated in a ZOOM call on the intricacies of the program.

“There is normally a burden of proof on the person who brings an action, in this instance the landlord or the petitioner,” Doran said. “There’s a little bit of an imposition on the responsibility of the tenant . . . there’s some indication that there has to be a demonstration of hardship due to COVID.” It is, ultimately, up to the judge what the case will look like. In some cases, Doran said, a judge may require landlords to prove through records the tenant has not been impacted. The law says a court must consider income before and during COVID, the tenant’s assets, and what benefits they were eligible to receive.

“So let’s give a scenario, say your aunt or mom got sick and you had to move to Indianapolis to take care of them,” Muoio said. “Were you financially impacted by COVID under this statute?”

PANDEMIC PROMPTS PUSH FOR CHANGE Elijah de la Campa, a research associate at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, has been surveying landlords in Albany and Rochester to determine what effect the pandemic has had on rent payments.

In June alone, de la Campa found, the 285 landlords surveyed were between $2.7 and $4.6 million behind in rent payments. Whereas 80 percent of properties had received full rent in June 2019, it was about 60 percent this year. That drop in full rent payment was seen in both high income and low income neighborhoods.

“These numbers are big, any way you want to slice it,” de la Campa said.

De la Campa said that trend is likely to translate to more landlords seeking to settle issues in the courts as the moratorium on eviction filings sunsets.

“It’s reasonable to expect, given these numbers, that landlords will be looking to seek lost rent through the legal system when they are able to,” de la Campa said.

While these numbers are new, the problem is not.

Non-payment has always been the largest source of eviction filings in Rochester, accounting for 93 percent of all filings. According to the OCA, just shy of half of eviction filings are for non-payment of $1,200 or less, and the majority were for two months or less of missed rent.

To Foster, the data reinforces that this is a longstanding societal issue, not just a pandemic-spurred spike.

“This has been the goal of tenant rights activists for a long time, to enshrine that Right to Counsel in law,” Foster said. “We hope this is the first step to getting there.” roccitynews.org CITY 13

NEWS

VIRAL REFLECTIONS

How a right-wing troll turned my tweet into fake news and I went viral

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

The night the alt-right co-opted my tweet and I went viral, I had arrived home doused in PepperBall residue and was physically and emotionally exhausted from covering another mass demonstration downtown.

By then, the third of what would become nightly protests in response to the news of the death of Daniel Prude, the national media had parachuted in and turned its cameras on Rochester.

All I wanted was to plop down on the couch and binge on “Futurama” over a leftover cheeseburger. But before I could put up my feet, my phone buzzed with breaking news that was quickly circulating: protesters were overrunning people’s homes, scaling walls and rooftops like a swarm of locusts devouring everything in its path.

“Black Lives Matter activists are now climbing onto people’s homes in Rochester,” read a tweet with a five-second video showing throngs of protesters marching the streets and three people standing on the roof of a portico of a house.

The news was alarming, not because protesters were invading homes — they weren’t. It was alarming because the video in the tweet was mine and had been hijacked by an influential rightwing troll with a quarter of a million followers.

His name was Ian Miles Cheong, a resident of Malaysia who has amassed his social media following by playing a neo-conservative American provocateur.

A month earlier, he provoked an entire day of outrage from American right-wing news outlets, Republican officials, and conservative pundits when he retweeted a video by Ruptly, the video news arm of the Kremlinfinanced RT News, with the comment that activists in Portland were preparing to burn Bibles.

“Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal 14 CITY OCTOBER 2020

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

courthouse in Portland,” he wrote, wildly exaggerating what the Ruptly video showed, which was that a few protesters among many thousands appeared to have burned a single Bible, and possibly a second, as kindling to start a larger fire. The Bible burning was not a focus of the demonstration.

It wasn’t long before the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican from Texas, had retweeted Cheong with their own comments tailored to a base that long ago bought into the narrative that liberals sow godless disorder. The president’s son tweeted that Antifa had moved to the “book burning phase.”

Cruz wrote, “This is who they are.”

For such an audience, and the media outlets that serve them, the story that Black Lives Matter protesters in Rochester were infesting people’s homes like parasites was too good to check out. Besides, there was video to prove it, right?

I had shot the footage a few hours earlier while trailing the demonstration march along Tracy Street. The video indeed showed three people standing on the portico roof of a house.

What the video didn’t show, however, was what I and countless others had witnessed before I trained my camera on the house and hit record,

which was that the people on the portico had emerged from the house, climbing out of a second-story window to watch the action on their street. They were either residents of the house or somehow acquainted with the residents.

Marchers could be heard and seen beckoning them, shouting to them, “Come on! Come on!” and waving them down.

I was live-tweeting the event, and the video was one of several short clips I posted to Twitter that evening without a caption. Although anyone could have copied and repurposed the video, posting it without comment left it more vulnerable to interpretation.

By the time I learned that Cheong had stolen my video and attached his own warped narrative to it, right wing spin sites like Gateway Pundit had already latched onto Cheong’s lie and published a story that included my video.

“The mob in Rochester tonight stormed restaurants, broke glass, flipped restaurant tables and screamed at frightened diners,” the site reported.

“And later the BLM rioters started climbing on people’s homes! Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!”

Lesser known sites also shamelessly glommed on, twisting a mundane nugget of video footage into a completely phony tale and spoonfeeding it to an audience seemingly eager to lap it up.

The term “fake news” has been obfuscated over the past five years, but the process of creating it is straightforward and unsophisticated.

All it takes is an absence of scruples and a willingness to beg, borrow, and steal without caring a fig for the facts.

Unsure of how to stop the conveyor belt of lies switched on by Cheong, I did what real journalists seek to do: set the record straight. I retweeted Cheong with a comment that read, “Just FYI since I took this video, this is a blatant

lie. These people lived in the house and came out to show support.”

With the alt-right media machine in full force, I expected my tweet to fall on deaf ears.

But within a matter of minutes, my Twitter feed blew up. The modest engagement that was typical of a reporter in a mid-sized city was replaced with thousands upon thousands of notifications. People heard my message.

At last count, the tweet was retweeted nearly 30,000 times and had more than 111,000 likes.

Best of all, Cheong heard it, too.

The next day, he deleted his lie and even, sort of, acknowledged his wrongdoing in a backhanded way.

He retweeted a video of protesters in Rochester trashing a restaurant with the comment, “There were some people standing on a roof in Rochester, whom I called ‘rioters.’ They were residents. Apparently that’s me posting disinformation about a ‘peaceful protest.’ The same ‘peaceful protest’ where this happened, that no one wants to talk about.”

To set the record straight again,

there was nothing “apparent” about Cheong spreading disinformation. He did it.

Hundreds of people replied to my tweet, many of them thanking me for adding some badly-needed context and taking a jab at the alt-right.

Other responses, though, were violent, abusive, racist, and downright scary.

The most disheartening were those written by people who recognized they had been fed a lie, but found it empowering. Some claimed the lie was acceptable because the idea that protesters would scale homes was not that far-fetched and would eventually come to pass.

Some dismissed the lie because other videos showed protesters disrupting diners by throwing chairs, breaking glassware, and turning over tables at Swan Dive and Ox and Stone.

But again, here context is needed.

Cheong claimed “no one wants to talk about” the episodes at the restaurants.

He’s wrong. I’ll talk about them.

Exponentially more protesters attempted to stop the vandalism

than were taking part in it. Property damage was minimal. The restaurants subsequently issued statements saying so and offering their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

I know because I was on the ground that night covering the protests, unlike Cheong who was tweeting about them from the other side of the planet.

The sad reality is that some people will buy into a story without regard for honesty or facts or the source. They want their beliefs affirmed and they’re prepared to devour any content that confirms their biases.

I filed a copyright claim with Twitter against Cheong, but heard nothing back. I also tagged Twitter Support several times demanding some sort of accountability. Those pleas, too, were met with silence.

I reached out to Cheong himself, contacting him through Twitter. Where else? I wanted to know what drove him to manufacture fake news. He never responded.

About a week later, protest organizer Adrian Elim, speaking to demonstrators at Martin Luther King Jr. Park complained about media weaving false narratives and issued what sounded an awful lot like a threat.

“We know that camera equipment you have is expensive and fragile,” they said, “and that’s all I’m going to say.”

He didn’t specify what media he was talking about, but I had an idea. I only hoped they could tell the difference between the good guys and the bad. roccitynews.org CITY 15

ELECTION 2020

THERE’S A MESS TO CLEAN UP WHETHER YOU DO IT BY MAIL OR IN PERSON, EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE

BY JEREMY MOULE

@JFMOULE

JMOULE@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Look, 2020 has been a mess. Americans are getting collectively thrashed by a virus, much of the country is in righteous unrest over systemic racism and police brutality, and a combination of demand and political meddling broke the mighty U.S. Postal Service.

On top of that, we have to answer some serious questions, such as who should be president. Voters have to decide whether they want to keep Donald Trump or replace him with Joe Biden. Chances are most people have already figured this one out.

But also important are the local congressional race and the state legislative races that will be on the ballot. These representatives make the decisions that Rochesterians feel in their daily lives. The economy, education, infrastructure, justice, policing, the preservation of the environment, and more are in their hands.

The last day to register to vote is Oct. 14 and the last day to apply for an absentee ballot in Monroe County is Oct. 27. The applications have been mailed to registered voters, but if you don’t have one and want one, you can apply at monroecounty.gov/elections-absentee.

Early voting begins Oct. 24 and ends Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 3. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

16 CITY OCTOBER 2020

THE CANDIDATES MONROE COUNTY CLERK

JAMIE ROMEO jamieromeo.com Romeo, an Irondequoit Democrat, is running to keep the position Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed her to in February.

Soon after she became county clerk, her office — which records deeds, mortgages, court documents, and operates the local Department of Motor Vehicles branches — had to halt in-person transactions due to the pandemic. Romeo led the office as it shifted many of its operations online, including coordinating the electronic filing of real estate transactions.

Prior to her appointment as clerk, Romeo briefly served in the state Assembly. She was the chief of staff for former state Sen. Ted O’Brien and a longtime aide to the Democratic Caucus of the county Legislature.

HOW TO VOTE EARLY elected to the seat several years later.

She served from 1994 to 2005, and then from 2012 until present.

A former executive director of the Rochester-Monroe County Youth Bureau, Boyce currently works as youth development and teenage services coordinator at Coordinated Care Service Inc. She pledges to run a secure, customerfocused clerk’s office.

Boyce was at the center of controversy last year when she introduced legislation making it illegal to harass or annoy police officers and other first responders.

Despite substantial opposition, legislation passed along party lines. But after fierce backlash, Boyce early this year co-sponsored legislation to repeal the law.

such as reproductive rights, tougher gun laws, and LGBTQ rights. Morelle does not favor a single-payer health care system, but has advocated for what he calls “universal health care” that blends public and private insurance.

25TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

GEORGE MITRIS

All of Monroe County except Hamlin, Wheatland, Rush, Mendon, and a part of Clarkson

JOE MORELLE

KARLA BOYCE karlaboyce.com Boyce, a Mendon Republican, has the distinction of being the first county legislator to leave her seat due to the body’s 10-year term limits and then to return when she was

votemorelle.com Morelle is one of the most recognizable and influential Democrats in Monroe County politics and government. He has spent more than 30 years in public office, starting in the county Legislature and working his way up to majority leader of the state Assembly. In 2018, following the death of longtime Rep. Louise Slaughter, Morelle was elected to take over her seat in the 25th District seat. He lives in Irondequoit.

His campaign emphasizes his experience, as well as his commitment to core party issues

Monroe County offers nine days of early voting, during which voters registered in the county can cast their ballot at any one of 12 sites. The locations are open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 24, 25, and 31, as well as Nov. 1; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 26, 28, and 30; and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 27 and 29.

CITY OF ROCHESTER: David F. Gantt Community Center, 700 North Street City of Rochester Recreation Bureau, 57 St. Paul Street; second floor Genesee Valley Field House, 1316 Genesee Street

mitrisforcongress2020.com Mitris, whose family emigrated from Greece to the United States when he was 8 years old, is a lawyer with his own practice who is making his first run for public office. The Brighton resident is a self-described conservative Republican, but he’s said several times that he’ll work across party lines and meet with practically anyone to advance solutions to local and national problems.

On his campaign website, Mitris states that he is pro-Second Amendment, but that he backs universal background checks, improved mental health checks, and regulations on assault weapons.

He notes that he supports school choice and pathways to citizenship for immigrants already in the country. He also wants to reform the country’s immigration system to make it more efficient for people trying to enter the U.S. legally.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

Edgerton Recreation Center, 41 Backus Street SUNY Empire State College, 680 Westfall Road

WEST SIDE SUBURBS: Town of Chili Senior Center, 3235 Chili Ave, Chili North Greece Road Church of Christ, 1039 North Greece Road, Greece

CENTRAL SUBURBS: Marketplace Mall, 1 Miracle Mile Drive, Henrietta; use north entrance Irondequoit Public Library, 1290 Titus Avenue, Irondequoit

EAST SIDE SUBURBS: Harris-Whalen Park Lodge, 2126 Penfield Road, Penfield Perinton Square Mall, 6720 Pittsford Palmyra Road, Perinton Webster Recreation Center, 1350 Chiyoda Drive, Webster

roccitynews.org CITY 17

ELECTION 2020

56TH SENATE DISTRICT

The race to succeed Robach is wide open

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

New York’s 56th Senate District is as diverse as they come. The territory runs south from the decidedly Trump Country rural towns of Clarkson and Parma to the working-class 19th Ward of Rochester to the predominately white, affluent suburb of Brighton in the east.

Though Democrats have a pronounced enrollment advantage in the district, Republican Joe Robach has held the seat for the past 17 years. But Robach is one of several Republican senators who, after spending the last two years in the chamber’s minority, chose not to run for re-election. Republicans lost control of the chamber in the 2018 elections and Democrats are just two seats shy of holding a two-thirds majority in the chamber.

This year’s contest pits Republican Mike Barry, a Greece Town Board member handpicked by Robach to run for the seat, against Democrat Jeremy Cooney, a former staffer for the late House Rep. Louise Slaughter and Mayor Lovely Warren who ran against Robach in 2018.

The 56th District has always been a political battleground and the stakes in this year’s race are as high as they’ve ever been. Rochester Democrats are keen to have a voice in the relatively young Senate Democratic majority, while Republicans locally and statewide want to keep their ranks in the chamber from shrinking further.

For Cooney, a larger Democratic majority means progressive policies have a better chance of making it through the legislature.

“All of the problems we talk about — education, criminal justice reform, healthcare access — happen at the state level,” Cooney said.

One Tuesday afternoon, Barry, clad in a blue flannel shirt, was running a rag in circles across the bar at Barry’s Old School Irish Pub, the bar in Webster owned by his brother, Danny.

Barry positions himself as a pragmatist. He believes his role in the Senate should be to bridge the gap between the left and right.

“There’s so much animosity, there’s so much hate,” Barry said. “I sound like my grandfather, but when I was growing up, it was fun to be part of the discussion, to have those conversations.

We need to get back to that.”

18 CITY OCTOBER 2020

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Top: Mike Barry, the Republican candidate for the 56th Senate District seat. His challenger, Jeremy Cooney, is a Democrat who has experience in Washington and in City Hall.

PHOTOS BY GINO FANELLI

Bipartisanship will be critical as Monroe County stares down a potential $122 million deficit, housing instability has become a crucial sticking point, the Rochester City School District faces more potential layoffs, and protesters still march through the street demanding justice against police brutality, Barry said.

Speaking about the same cluster of issues, Cooney said the state legislature needs cohesive leadership that is able to swiftly pass legislation.

“Since 2018, we have seen a different state assembly, we have a Democrat-controlled Senate, Assembly, and executive chamber,” Cooney said.

“But we in Rochester and upstate New York haven’t been swept up into that energy and excitement, because our

representatives didn’t participate.”

Both candidates believe in serving the community’s values, but offer diverging views on what exactly that means.

Cooney believes that service relies on pushing progressive policies that aim to improve quality of life, especially amid economic uncertainty and social tension. Barry, a born-again Christian, believes it starts with promoting the faith community, fostering community dialogue, and pulling the community together across partisan lines.

“There’s just so much hate right now,” Barry said. “That’s what bothers me. Partisanship is now much more than just ‘I disagree with you.’ I think we all may believe different things, but we should be able to just sit down, have a cup of coffee, and talk.”

25TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (CONTINUED)

Canandaigua town supervisor.

Much of Helming’s campaign platform is in line with other Republican lawmakers from upstate. She wants the state to provide tax credits for businesses that create jobs, preserve the STAR tax exemption for homeowners, remove the responsibility for funding and administering Medicaid from counties, and cap the state’s spending, among other things. She’s been a vocal opponent of the SAFE Act and introduced legislation to expand hunting in parts of her district. Helming also serves as chair of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

STATE SENATE 59TH DISTRICT Henrietta, Wheatland, parts of Livingston, Wyoming, and Erie counties

KEVIN WILSON kevinwilsonforcongress.com Wilson, a digital marketer who lives in Rochester, is the Libertarian Party candidate in the race. On his campaign website, he states that he joined the Libertarians after he became disillusioned with the twoparty system.

His campaign stresses key Libertarian principles, such as reducing the national debt and taxes, reining in executive power, a return to a non-interventionist foreign policy, and ending the War on Drugs. He also pledges to uphold the Second Amendment.

STATE SENATE 54TH DISTRICT Webster, Wayne and Seneca Counties, parts of Ontario, Cayuga, and Tompkins counties

PAMELA HELMING pamhelming.com Helming, a Republican, was first elected to the 54th District seat in 2016 after almost three years as

PATRICK GALLIVAN

SHAUNA O’TOOLE facebook.com/Shauna4NYSenate O’Toole, a Democrat from Geneva in Ontario County, is a former high school earth sciences teacher and former Kodak engineer. A transgender woman, O’Toole serves as the executive director of We Exist, which creates programming for and about the Finger Lakes transgender and gender expansive community.

Throughout her campaign, O’Toole has emphasized the need for the state to provide tax breaks and financial assistance to small businesses to help them weather the pandemic. She has said that she wants to be a representative of the working class in Albany.

facebook.com/Senatorgallivan Gallivan, a Republican from Elma in Erie County, served two terms as the sheriff there before he was elected to the state Senate in 2010.

He touts his work on legislation that enacted a property tax cap in New York, lowered tax rates on corporations and the middle class, and relieved counties of some of their Medicaid costs.

He opposed the rolling back of a law that shielded police disciplinary records from public view. Gallivan also voted against the SAFE Act and he supports its repeal.

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JASON KLIMEK Jasonforstatesenate.com Klimek, a Henrietta Democrat, works as a corporate and tax attorney at Boylan Code, where he heads the firm’s cannabis practice group. He describes himself as a strong supporter of cannabis legalization. He has also worked in

axomhome.com 661 south ave

CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

roccitynews.org CITY 19

ELECTION 2020

55TH SENATE DISTRICT

Race for the Senate’s 55th District is about roots

BY JEREMY MOULE

@JFMOULE

The state Senate’s 55th District is a testament to the power of gerrymandering. It combines Democratic strongholds in Irondequoit and Rochester’s east side with Republican leaning suburbs and rural towns in Ontario County.

This is the territory over which Democrat Samra Brouk and Republican Chris Missick are competing. Democrats have the enrollment advantage in the district but the GOP has historically held the seat, in part because voters in the city don’t turn out at the same rate as those in the towns.

Republican Rich Funke has represented the district since 2015 but decided not to seek re-election this year. The GOP lost control of the chamber in the 2018 elections and several Republican senators made a similar choice, presumably because they didn’t want to serve in the minority.

The relatively recent power shift in the Senate gives the 55th District race statewide importance. If Brouk wins the seat, she could bolster the Senate’s Democratic majority.

A victory by Missick could aid in preventing the Senate Republican conference from thinning further.

A winemaker and attorney who lives in Victor, Missick co-owns the Bellangelo winery on Seneca Lake’s west side. Missick said he got into the race because of bail reform.

This year, new laws took effect that eliminated cash bail for many nonviolent offenses in favor of nonmonetary forms of pretrial release.

Like many critics of the reforms, he believes they should have preserved judges’ discretion to set bail.

“When a judge is looking at a defendant and there is a clear record that shows further victims will be made in our community by putting this person back on the street and they didn’t have the discretion to hold that person until their trial, to me that was a problem,” Missick said.

Otherwise, Missick’s campaign has focused mostly on pocketbook 20 CITY OCTOBER 2020

JMOULE@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Chris Missick.

Samra Brouk.

PHOTO PROVIDED

PHOTO PROVIDED

issues and small businesses. He wants the state to provide relief to businesses by cutting down on the number of licenses they have to get and fees they have to pay, and he wants lawmakers to find ways to reduce New Yorkers’ property taxes.

Missick has also proposed the creation of a state infrastructure bank, which would make grants and loans to struggling urban and rural communities for roads, bridges, electrical grids, water treatment systems, projects to address climate change-related flooding, affordable housing, and broadband internet, among other efforts. He called for a $3 billion bond measure to seed the bank and said the state could find ongoing funding for it by eliminating $425 million in tax credits it provides for film and television production in New York.

“What it does focus on is the working class and making our region attractive for business,” Missick said.

Brouk compares the 55th District to a road map of her life. She was born in Rochester and attended city schools before graduating from Pittsford-Mendon High School. Her parents live in Pittsford, her grandparents

have lived in East Bloomfield for more than 80 years, and she lives in Rochester’s Park Avenue neighborhood.

“I think that there are a lot of communities that haven’t had their voices heard throughout this district,” said Brouk, a former Peace Corps volunteer who now works with nonprofits on fund-raising, development, and leadership.

Brouk announced her candidacy in November and has campaigned in all corners of the district.

She said she often hears from residents concerned about funding for education and health care programs, such as community health centers. She added that New York’s budgets should prioritize those areas and that it should raise taxes on billionaires to generate additional funding for them, education in particular.

She said the state should provide assistance to struggling small businesses to help bolster local economies.

“We have to keep in mind that our goals and our values should be around protecting, supporting, and serving the majority of New Yorkers and not just a few,” Brouk said.

(Jason Klimek continued) the film and securities industries.

Among the issues he’s emphasizing in his campaign are reform of the state’s tax system, which he has said relies too much on property taxes to fund education and programs such as Medicaid. He also supports a statewide single-payer system for health care.

unserved and underserved areas, increasing state funding for child care, and supporting the community school model, where students and their families also receive support services.

STATE SENATE 62ND DISTRICT Sweden, Ogden, Orleans County, Niagara County

STATE SENATE 61ST DISTRICT Riga, Chili, southwest Rochester, Genesee County, part of Erie County

CHARON SATTLER-LEBLANC votecharon.com Sattler-Leblanc, a Pittsford Democrat, started the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America in 2015, 25 years after her cousin and her cousin’s daughter became victims of domestic gun violence. Gun violence is a priority issue for Sattler-Leblanc, and she promises to advocate for evidence-based legislation, while advocating against “nuisance bills that target responsible gun owners.”

She also backs the single-payer New York Health Act and state investment in rural broadband.

ROBERT ORTT EDWARD RATH III

JACQUALINE BERGER bergerforsenate.com Berger, a Democrat, was elected to the Amherst Town Board in 2017 and is currently the deputy town supervisor. She has advanced degrees in early childhood and special education and is a lecturer for SUNY Empire State College.

She has a platform that includes expanding job training programs, encouraging the clean-up and reuse of brownfields and vacant buildings, supporting municipal broadband programs that extend high-speed internet access to

edrathforsenate.com Rath, an Amherst Republican, is an Erie County legislator who was first elected to the office in 2007. He includes among his achievements writing legislation that would create a property tax stabilization fund for Erie County.

Among the priorities Rath has outlined in his campaign are property tax relief and the repeal of New York’s 2019 bail reform laws.

He’s also emphasized his support for law enforcement, criticized legislation establishing public financing of political campaigns, and his desire to be a voice for upstate in the Senate.

robortt.com Ortt, who lives in the Niagara County city of North Tonawanda, currently serves as the Senate Republican leader.

He is running uncontested.

ASSEMBLY 133RD DISTRICT Pittsford, Mendon, Rush, Wheatland, Livingston County, part of Steuben County

MARJORIE BYRNES byrnes4assembly.com Byrnes, a Republican from Caledonia in Livingston County, is seeking reelection to the seat she first won in 2018. She’s an attorney who served as a Rochester City Court judge for 10 years. Byrnes supports term limits for all state offices and has vowed to serve no more than three two-year terms in the Assembly.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 23

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roccitynews.org CITY 21

ELECTION 2020

Elections officials act to avoid repeat of primary problems

BY JEREMY MOULE

@JFMOULE

The Monroe County Board of Elections’ first shot at pandemic-era voting during the June primary was rough sailing. Some inexperienced, inadequately trained poll workers led to confusion, to put it politely, and left some voters and candidates alarmed.

If you’re a Republican and you want to help the general election go a little more smoothly, the Monroe County Board of Elections is looking for you. The board is staffed up on Democratic poll workers but is facing a shortage of registered Republicans to work alongside them. Information about becoming a poll worker is available at monroecounty.gov/electionsinspectors.

Immediately after the June primaries, Monroe County elections officials acknowledged that there were problems at some polling sites and vowed to do better

22 CITY OCTOBER 2020

JMOULE@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

for the general election.

They’ve hired a training team, which is instructing poll-workers daily, according to Lisa Nicolay, the Republican elections commissioner.

The board will also be designating site chairs for each polling location and they’ll be explicitly instructed to call the elections commissioners should any questions arise.

“We didn’t want to have the same issues we had with the primary workers,” Nicolay said.

As for widespread concerns about U.S. Postal Service delays tainting the presidential election and everything else down the ballot, and the potential that those fears could lead to packed polling places on Election Day, Nicolay said there’s a simple way voters can help everyone out.

Monroe County has nine days of early voting and during the

EARLY primary, voters “underutilized” that opportunity, Nicolay said. Between Oct. 24 and Nov. 1, voters registered in the county can go to any of 12 different locations and cast their ballots. Those locations can be found at monroecounty.gov/ elections-earlyvoting.

“The best thing people can do is go to early voting,” Nicolay said.

with energy efficient technologies, and wants to repeal and replace the SAFE Act.

(Marjorie Brynes continued) Her priorities in the Assembly have included increasing funding for New York’s bridge and road repair programs, raising “this region’s voice against Albany’s red tape,” and funding for every school district to have trained, armed school resource officers in their buildings.

ASSEMBLY 134TH DISTRICT Greece, Parma, Ogden

gerrymandering in New York, Johns has also introduced legislation to create a unicameral legislature. He touts his support of state budgets that cut middle-class tax rates and his support of legislation creating the state’s property tax cap. He’s also been pushing for passage of a bill he wrote that would allow each legislator to bring one piece of legislation to the floor for a vote each term.

JOSH JENSEN

CAROLYN CARROL carolyncarrol.com Carrol, a Greece Democrat, works as a fraud investigator with the Monroe County Department of Human Services. On her website, Carrol said she was inspired to run for public office by the work of the late Rep. Louise Slaughter.

As part of her platform, Carrol said she would hold quarterly meetings in the district and hold virtual sessions in which residents of the district could vote on popular bills, both efforts she said are designed to help her understand the opinions of district residents.

She also supports a universal health care system for New York.

jensenforassembly.com Jensen, a Republican, currently sits on the Greece Town Board. He held several staff jobs in state Sen. Joe Robach’s office and now works as client strategy and relations supervisor at Tipping Point Communications.

His priorities in the Assembly would be jumping off what Jensen considers his accomplishments in Greece, including supporting town budgets that reduced taxes, increasing funding for police and public safety, and supporting measures to protect and improve infrastructure.

ERICKA JONES No website Jones, who lives in Greece and is running on the Green Party line, is a long-time disability rights advocate and activist. She works for the Vermont Center for Independent Living as a peer counselor.

Much of Jones’ advocacy work has centered around public transportation, particularly ensuring accessibility to wheelchair users and other disabled people.

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 135 Webster, Penfield, Perinton

DYLAN DAILOR dailorforassembly.com Dailor, a Greece resident who is running on the Working Families Party line, is autistic and has written two books about being on the autism spectrum. He also regularly speaks on the topic and has given two TEDx talks.

On his website, Dailor has laid out positions on everything from making school supplies purchased by teachers tax-deductible to landuse reforms. He favors tax rebates for people who retrofit their homes

JEN LUNSFORD votejenlunsford.com Lunsford, a Penfield Democrat, came close to unseating Republican state Sen. Rich Funke in 2018 and was set to challenge him again before she switched to run for the 135th District seat in the Assembly and Funke decided against seeking re-election.

A personal injury attorney, Lunsford’s platform is framed around helping New York recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. She is an advocate for broad action on climate change, and is calling for infrastructure investment, particularly for projects that reduce carbon emissions or help adapt to climate change.

Lunsford favors a 2-percent tax on wealth over $1 billion and a tax on anyone earning $5 million or more a year, and cannabis legalization.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

MARK JOHNS facebook.com/AssemblymanMarkJohns Johns, a Webster Republican, has held the seat in the Assembly since 2011. Before he was elected to the position, he spent 30 years working for the Monroe County Public Health Department.

A backer of independent redistricting who is often critical of roccitynews.org CITY 23

ELECTION 2020 ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 136

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 138

Irondequoit, Brighton, part of the city of Rochester

Chili, Henrietta, parts of the city of Rochester

JUSTIN WILCOX

SARAH CLARK Sarahclarkforassembly.com Clark, a Rochester Democrat, serves as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s acting state director and previously held key regional and state level positions for former Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Part of Clark’s platform is the protection and expansion of women’s reproductive rights, paid family leave, affordable child care, and anti-sexual harassment and discrimination laws. She believes cannabis should be legalized and efforts be made to counter the harm strict drug laws have had on communities of color. She also supports the New York Health Act, a bill that would establish a singlepayer health care system in the state.

STEVEN BECKER No website available Becker is an optometrist from Irondequoit who is running on the Libertarian Party line. During an appearance on Radio Free NY, a local Libertarian radio program, Becker was critical of the debt taken on by the state’s public authorities, such as the Dormitory Authority.

While he said the state’s COVID-19 quarantine was excessive, he expressed support for a move made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to relax state regulations that require licensed medical providers from another state to get a New York license to practice here.

He added that he’d like to see the policy adopted permanently.

24 CITY OCTOBER 2020

No website available Wilcox, a Brighton Democrat and a Monroe County legislator, has the Independence Party line in this race, but he is not actively campaigning. In June, he lost the Democratic primary to Clark.

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 137 Gates, parts of city of Rochester

HARRY BRONSON bronsonforassembly.com Bronson, a Rochester Democrat, is seeking his sixth term in the seat after prevailing in a June primary race that focused heavily on the future of the Rochester City School District. He opposes a state takeover of the district and has instead supported implementing state academic and fiscal monitors that are to begin their work this academic year.

Throughout his campaign, Bronson has emphasized his progressive record of supporting gay rights, labor rights, and reforms in the criminal justice system.

PETE VAZQUEZ

DEMOND MEEKS votedemondmeeks.com Meeks, a Rochester Democrat and labor union organizer with SEIU1199, is uncontested.

The seat is a significant one for Rochester, having been held

by David Gantt from 1983 until his death in July. Meeks won the Democratic primary for the seat over Ernest Flagler-Mitchell, a protege of the influential legislator, in the June primary.

votevazquez.com Vazquez is a Henrietta Republican making his third attempt at unseating Bronson in the general election. He’s an Army veteran, small business owner, a Spanish teacher at the Charles Finney School, and president and CEO of the conservative Frederick Douglass Foundation of New York.

Legislation that would let the public put measures on the ballot, including those to recall elected officials, is part of his platform. He also supports legislation that would abolish the state Board of Regents and promote school choice.

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 139

MARK GLOGOWSKI

Hamlin, Clarkson, Sweden, Riga, Genesee County, most of Orleans County

glogowskiforassembly.com Glogowski is a retired Kodak researcher who is running for the 139th District seat on the Libertarian Party line.

His platform includes rescinding the state’s current firearms restrictions, repealing the SAFE Act, and legalizing cannabis. Glogowski says he believes the state budget should not be used to make policy changes and that abortion should be legal only to protect the life of the mother.

STEPHEN HAWLEY hawleyforassembly.com Hawley, a Batavia Republican, has held the 139th District seat since a special election in 2006. He is the past owner and operator of a farm and owns an insurance agency.

The deputy minority leader of the Assembly, Hawley emphasizes his focus on the agricultural industry and legislation he has authored that would expand agricultural property tax credit eligibility and exempt farms from the state Scaffolding Law, which makes contractors and property owners liable when a worker is injured in an elevation-related fall.

ELECTION DAY IS NOV. 3.

POLLS WILL BE OPEN FROM 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M.

THE LAST DAY TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS OCT. 14 AND THE LAST DAY TO APPLY FOR AN ABSENTEE BALLOT IN MONROE COUNTY IS OCT. 27.

THE APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN MAILED TO REGISTERED VOTERS, BUT IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE AND WANT ONE, YOU CAN APPLY AT MONROECOUNTY.GOV/ELECTIONS-ABSENTEE.

EARLY VOTING BEGINS OCT. 24 AND ENDS NOV. 1.

roccitynews.org CITY 25

ARTS

FREEHAND HISTORY

DAVE CHISHOLM HAS CHARLIE “BIRD” PARKER FLYING OFF THE PAGE

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

Anyone who knows anything about jazz sooner or later lands on the story of Charlie “Bird” Parker getting out of six months of detox and blowing the roof off a Los Angeles club with a legendary afterhours performance in 1947.

His show that night at Jack’s Basket Room was said to have been the saxophonist’s greatest of his life.

No photos were taken. No recordings were captured. And two years ago the building burned to the ground.

But there is lore — loads of colorful lore — and it is what Rochester graphic novelist and jazz

Graphic novelist Dave Chisholm.

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

26 CITY OCTOBER 2020

@DANIELJKUSHNER

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

trumpeter Dave Chisolm mined for his latest work, “Chasin’ the Bird: Charlie Parker in California,” a commission from the estate of Parker to celebrate what would have been the icon’s centennial birthday.

The novel, created with colorist Peter Markowski, comes out in October as a companion to the album “Bird in LA,” which features never-beforereleased recordings of Parker during his celebrated swing of the West Coast toward the end of his too-short life.

“It was such a serendipitous project to get,” says Chisholm, who is also an Eastman School of Music alumnus and an instructor at Hochstein School of Music. “Because I spent my life reading comics and making comics, and I’ve spent the greater part of my life learning about, obsessing over this great music that comes out of Black America that we call jazz.”

Chisolm’s publisher, Z2 Comics, approached him about the commission in August 2019. Chisolm had just finished a four-part, serialized comic book called “Canopus,” a psychologically surrealist story about a scientist who crash-lands on a distant planet with no memory of how she got there, which would be published this year to critical acclaim.

Parker’s estate encouraged Chisholm to take chances in telling his story — with a few caveats. It couldn’t be dull, come off like a documentary, or use a lot of esoteric music jargon.

It also couldn’t include explicit drug use — for which Parker was known. When he died at 34, he had advanced cirrhosis and the coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker to be between 50 and 60 years of age.

But Chisolm saw the limitations as freeing him up to eschew a strictly

historical account of Parker’s life and indulge his legend, while staying true to his essence and hitting all the notes about his monumental impact on music.

“Jazz fans don’t like people messing with their stories, you know what I mean?” Chisolm says.

“I would say that this book is very playful, in the way that the story is presented — very deliberately walking the line between fact and myth, between reality and legend.”

A novel about Parker that toes those lines opens at the only place it could possibly open, in that nexus of jazz on South Central Avenue called Jack’s Basket Room.

There, an eager audience waits in anxious anticipation for a rumored performance by the Bird after an extended, mysterious absence that in real life he spent at Camarillo State Hospital. Later that year, he would go on to record his famous “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” — a nod to his stint in rehab — for Dial Records.

When word spread that Parker was suited up and headed to Jack’s with an alto in tow, as many as 40 saxophonists, both local and transients

in town, reportedly rushed to the club for a chance to play for him.

“They all played and Bird sat there and smiled,” jazz musician and composer Buddy Collette wrote in his memoir, “Jazz Generations: A Life in American Music and Society.”

“Finally, Bird got up there and I don’t think he played more than three or four choruses,” Collette wrote. “But he told a complete story, caught all the nuances, tapered off to the end. Nobody played a note after that. Everybody just packed up their horns and went on home, because it was so complete, so right.”

In Chisolm’s version, everybody who was anybody in jazz was there that night. Dizzy Gillespie. John Coltrane.

Parker’s ex-girlfriend Julie MacDonald.

The eccentric artist Jirayr Zorthian.

The photographer William Claxton.

Dial Records founder Ross Russell.

One-by-one, they recount their respective relationships with Bird and their interactions with him before his sudden disappearance through a series of vignettes that Chisolm calls “choruses” rather than chapters.

With each successive perspective, Chisholm’s visual style adapts to reflect the personality and mindset of the narrator, and offers insight into the nature of his or her connection with Parker.

The story couldn’t be told without the contribution of Rochester-based illustrator and oil painter Dustyn Payette, who did the flatting for both “Canopus” and “Chasin’ the Bird.”

Flatting — the process of applying the initial, sometimes temporary, color scheme to the page and separating those colors — is a notoriously thankless job in the world of comic books and graphic novels.

“It’s definitely grunt work, and there’s no glory in it,” Payette says.

A panel from “Chasin’ the Bird: Charlie Parker in California” captures Parker’s legendary performance at Jack’s Basket Room in Los Angeles in 1947. ARTWORK PROVIDED

But it is critical work that, in this case, brings out details in Chisholm’s art by differentiating colors so the images aren’t monochromatic or diluted. With much of the legwork done, the colorist Markowski swoops in and executes the final color palette.

Payette says Chisholm’s musical background, coupled with his distinctive artwork, gives his books a songlike quality.

“He’s telling a story through pictures now, instead of maybe notes,” Payette says.

While Chisolm used multiple books about Parker as resources, he points to one in particular: “Bird: the Legend of Charlie Parker,” a collection of first-hand accounts of friends, relatives, fellow performers, and others who were touched by Parker’s legend. The book featured people who grew up with Parker, wives and girlfriends, and even the coroner at his death.

“It’s a really fascinating picture of a man,” Chisholm says. “I would say there’s probably a lot of legend in this book. I wanted to lean into that, so that book

was really helpful for me.”

Chisolm is keenly aware of his limitations as a storyteller in this case.

“I wanted to get it right,” he says.

“I wanted to make sure I was really aware of my blind spots as a white guy in America, telling a story about an important Black figure.”

He contacted several musicians — including Danielle Ponder’s music director Avis Reese, Salt Lake City pianist Isaiah Smith, and trumpeter Kris Johnson, the director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah — for perspective, clarification, and advice.

Chisolm recalls how an extended conversation with Smith enabled him to more fully realize Parker as a restless figure, a pre-Civil Rights-era Black man who was never afforded

the opportunity to let down his guard.

Parker struggled with impulse control, and had few outlets through which to escape. His compulsive personality steered him toward music but also contributed to his drug habit.

Empathizing with Parker to the extent Chisolm could, he says, was essential to making Bird soar.

“Sometimes that involves getting out of your own head and trying to get inside someone else’s head,” he says.

“And I suppose it’s easy for me to say that as the most boring, straight, white guy in the world.

“But to me, my job isn’t to just explore my straight whiteness, but it’s to empathize with other people, and try to understand other people, too.” roccitynews.org CITY 27

ARTS

MEDIA WATCH

1,400 DAYS OF “FAKE NEWS” AND C

Photographer Eric Kunsman has chronicled news headlines every day of the Trump presidency for his latest work, “Fake News.” The screenshots above represent March 6, 2020.

PHOTO BY ERIC KUNSMAN

BY JEFF SPEVAK

@JEFFSPEVAK1

Taking in photographer Eric Kunsman’s “Fake News” project, now showing at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, it is tempting to imagine his muse was the countless outlandish statements uttered by the president who popularized the term.

But the inspiration hit in 2016 when his first-grade son Bryce came home from school in Penfield and announced that he had voted for Donald Trump in a mock election.

“Hillary’s gonna make China great again,” Kunsman recalls his son saying.

That simple, innocent statement would send Kunsman down a convoluted rabbit hole of political discourse. He picked up his phone and took a few screenshots of CNN’s website to show Bryce how a mainstream news site might report election issues. In the days 28 CITY OCTOBER 2020

JSPEVAK@WXXI.ORG

and weeks that followed, Kunsman began adding screenshots from ABC, Fox News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

“I wanted him to be able to read how different approaches were taken,” Kunsman says. “It was once in a while, and then it turned into every day, then it turned into multiple times every day, and it has just continued to snowball.”

It snowballed into a Mount Everest-sized obsession that is now one of three projects to make up the “Trust, but verify” exhibit on display at RoCo. Sprawling along one wall of the East Avenue gallery is Octavio Abundez’s “A Fake History of Humanity.” The Mexican artist has created a series of tiles etched with dates accompanied by milestones of misstatements - sometimes

just slightly altered, sometimes outright lies. There is the slaying of the last unicorn. Another tile reads, “Kellyanne Conway opened a portal to a parallel dimension on live television.” On Oct. 8, in the year 2,445,109 BCE (Before the Common Era), “The first-ever lie ever told was believed.” Who knew?

On the far wall at RoCo is “Big Dada,” by Bill Posters and Daniel Howe. It is simply a large television screen showing celebrities endorsing a fictional, for now, soul-draining corporation called Spectre. “I really enjoy the power of manipulating people for money,” Kim Kardashian says. But not really.

Howe, a New York City artist and computer scientist, and Posters, an English artist whose work seems to be a contemporary version of the manipulative arts of George

Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” are demonstrating deep-fake technology - software that will very shortly make it impossible to tell if videos are real, or created on a computer.

But Kunsman’s exhibit is different. Because it is real.

“Fake News” is currently five massive books. And it is growing as you read this. Mounted on each page are three to six screenshots from Kunsman’s phone, all documenting the day’s news — every day. Volume One begins with Trump’s election and runs through his first year in office. The second volume picks up from there and goes until 10 days following the release of the Mueller Report.

“I assumed the next volume would be from that up until the next election,” Kunsman says.

Wrong.

COUNTING

“COVID hit and all heck broke loose,” he says. “Instead of doing the very first screenshots of the day for all the news channels, I had to scroll down because of how much was going on between COVID and the election.”

So Volume Four is just March and April of 2020 and runs 950 pages. “March 2, that really seemed to be a turning point for me,” Kunsman says. “The news was changing hourly.”

Kunsman is a lecturer in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Visual Communications Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and an adjunct professor for the School of Photographic Arts & Sciences. He is also a photographer and book artist

who owns Booksmart Studio, a book-publishing studio in Rochester.

But he is now consumed by “Fake News.”

“My wife hates it because when I wake up the first thing I do is take screenshots, the last thing I do before I go to bed is take screenshots,” Kunsman says.

“And all throughout the day.”

An average now of 200 a day.

Each page of the bound volumes can hold the images of six phones.

On the newsiest day, there could be 15 pages of screenshots.

“Those books, they’ll kill somebody,” Kunsman says of the five volumes of “Fake News.”

One could be forgiven for thinking he is talking about the CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

roccitynews.org CITY 29

Above: “A Fake History of Humanity” by Octavio Abundez is part of “Trust, but verify,” now showing at Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Below: Eric Kunsman's "Fake News" on display. PHOTOS PROVIDED

30 CITY OCTOBER 2020

content. But he’s actually talking about their weight. Volumes Three, Four, and Five are each 60 pounds.

Kunsman says he took pains to present his screenshots as a document of how each news outlet conveys the news. He contends “Fake News” is not passing judgment on their points of view, but rather chronicling their priorities.

On April 15, 2019, for instance, the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral was the top story of every news organization, except one. Fox News was focused on Bernie Sanders.

“That was fairly revealing to me,” Kunsman says. “It all revolves around what’s going on politically.

Even if it’s the forest fires, there’s some kind of statement either by Biden or Trump.”

He is simply aggregating the day’s news and putting it out there for debate. To that end, Kunsman is planning what he calls “Unglued Re-broadcasts,” in which anyone on social media will be encouraged to take images from “Fake News” and pin them on the internet.

“For me, this is not just about the books,” Kunsman says. “It’s also about making sure people have free access for the future. I’d love to get the books into different archives, different universities, but I also plan on every page lingering on.”

Kunsman intends to post all of it on a web site, fakenewsarchive.com.

Access, he says, will be free.

“It doesn’t belong to me, unlike my photography, is the way I feel about it,” Kunsman says.

After four years of proverbially climbing Everest, he is finally approaching the summit. Worn out by the divisiveness, and how “everybody is just standing their ground as to what’s right or wrong,” Kunsman says “Fake News” will not go on past Nov. 3, the presidential election.

“I can’t, that’s why this project’s done, no matter what happens with the election,” he says. “I’m done.”

OCTOBER HIGHLIGHTS INSIDE WXXI PUBLIC MEDIA | WXXI-TV PBS AM 1370 NPR | CLASSICAL 91.5 FM WRUR 88.5 FM | THE LITTLE THEATRE

Independent Lens: Feels Good Man Premieres Monday, October 19 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV Amid the tumult of the 2016 presidential election season, a popular cartoon frog meme emerged as the unifying symbol of hate for the alt-right. Feels Good Man recounts the harrowing journey of Pepe the Frog, the creation of artist Matt Furie, and his transformation from light-hearted comic book character to registered hate symbol.

After popping up in meme form on various fitness blogs, Pepe eventually started appearing on the anonymous online message board 4chan, where his image was quickly copied again and again and adopted as a symbol of misfits everywhere. Feels Good Man follows his surreal journey of being co-opted and twisted into an image of hate by extreme online communities through the eyes of his horrified creator, who finds himself increasingly powerless to stop this co-optation as it spirals out of his control. roccitynews.org CITY 31

WXXI-TV • THIS MONTH WXXI Live Forum: Racial Disparities in Rochester Thursday, October 1 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV, AM 1370 + streams on WXXINews.org The death of Daniel Prude after city police restrained him has brought a national spotlight on racial disparities in local policing and healthcare. Panelists will discuss the root causes of those issues and actions that should be taken to create systemic change. Repeats 10/3 at 5 p.m. and 10/4 at 3 p.m. on WXXI-TV and 10/3 at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and 10/4 at 6 p.m. on WXXI-WORLD. WXXI Live Forum: Racial Disparities in Rochester is made possible with support from the Greater Rochester Health Foundation and Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.

Age of Nature • Wednesdays, October 14-28 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV This three-part documentary series explores how an increased awareness of the natural world is leading a new chapter in the story of both humanity and the planet. With stunning photography, Age of Nature focuses on the resiliency of Earth’s ecosystems through stories of success, as scientists, citizens and governments act to fix past mistakes and restore the environment. With the current pandemic exposing the fragility and vulnerability of humankind, the balance of nature and our relationship with it is more important than ever. Uma Thurman narrates.

Vice Presidential Debate Wednesday, October 7 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris meet at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City for their one and only vice presidential debate. Susan Page of USA Today moderates.

Presidential Debate Thursday, October 15 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in their second of three debates at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida. Steve Scully of C-SPAN moderates.

PBS NewsHour’s managing editor and anchor Judy Woodruff and correspondents bring you special coverage and in-depth analysis of the first vice presidential debate and the remaining two presidential debates.

Presidential Debate Thursday, October 22 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV The final presidential debate will be held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Kristen Welker of NBC News moderates.

Home is Here • Wednesday, October 7 at 7 p.m. on WXXI-WORLD Aspiring documentary filmmaker and Rochester native Julien Sobel explores the life of Dolores, an undocumented farmworker in Upstate New York, as she talks about her experiences, the struggles she’s dealt with, and the work she is doing to help others in similar situations.

WXXI-TV Livestream Now you can livestream WXXI-TV on your computer and on any device that support these web browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge.

To begin watching a livestream of WXXI-TV on PBS.org, click the LIVE TV option at the top right corner of the site. Depending on your browser, you may instead see a menu icon (☰). Click this icon to open the menu where the LIVE TV option will also be listed. Once you’ve opened the live stream, click the Start Watching button or the triangular play button to start the livestream.

You can also watch WXXI-TV Livestream at: video.wxxi.org/livestream.

WXXI-TV l DT 21.1/cable 11 + 1221 CREATE l DT 21.3/cable 1276

32 CITY OCTOBER 2020

WORLD l DT 21.2/cable 1275 WXXI-Kids 24/7 l DT 21.4/cable 1277

FROM WXXI EDUCATION

WXXI’S EDUCATION TEAM SUPPORTS FAMILIES, STUDENTS, EDUCATORS DURING THE PANDEMIC

When COVID-19 hit the Rochester community in March and schools went remote-only, WXXI-TV responded with a weekday “Learn At Home” schedule to support families, educators, and students, while WXXI’s Education team provided connected learning resources for educators and caregivers to use with students while watching the “Learn At Home” broadcasts. The education team continued their work through the summer months with a weekday “Learn At Home” TV schedule to combat “summer slide” and the launch of a “Camp at Home” program, where they shared weekly fun, creative, age-appropriate activities for families to do at home.

Now as students have returned to school either in person, remotely, or a hybrid combination, WXXI’s Education team continues their work. We sit down with WXXI’s Manager of Educational Training & Family Engagement Cara Rager (pictured) to learn more.

Q: A:

Before COVID-19, what would your school year look like?

I spend most of my time out in our local community working with schools, community organizations, libraries, and so many more. One of my roles as part of the WXXI Education team is to create and facilitate workshops for local educators on how to utilize resources from public media in their learning spaces. In a “typical year”, I spend a lot of my time out visiting schools to offer and support family engagement efforts. For example, I might present at parent/caregiver mini-workshops or participate in Family Literacy/STEM Nights. Unfortunately, this year has brought its challenges and just like everyone else, I’ve shifted all of this work into different, safer versions.

My trainings and workshops are now being held virtually. My in-person family engagement efforts are being reimagined as easy-to-access digital materials and physical-do-anywhere activity kits. As an educator, I think the COVID-19 challenge has pushed me to find new, creative ways to continue to accomplish our goals and mission. That said, I’m constantly looking to my peers to see if there’s something else WXXI Education could be doing for our local community.

Q:

Can you explain the “Ready To Learn” work you are doing with Rochester Childfirst Network + Rochester Early Childhood Education Center?

A:

Ready To Learn is a cooperative initiative between the U.S. Department of Education, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, and local stations, like WXXI. The Ready To Learn (RTL) initiative is designed to support preschool- and elementary school-aged children, families, and educators, through the creation of educational media. The main goal is to promote early learning and school readiness, with an intentional focus on communities that lack access to high-quality early learning resources and opportunities. The program supports activities intended to promote national distribution of the resources, effective educational uses of the resources, community-based outreach, and research on educational effectiveness.

WXXI was selected to participate in this round of funding for RTL focused on the implementation of Family & Community Learning (FCL), a model for multi-generational hands-on family engagement designed to support science and literacy development among children and families. We are working with two community sites – Rochester Childfirst Network and Rochester City School District’s Rochester Early Childhood Education Center (RECEC) – to embark on a virtual family engagement experience using the PBS Play & Learn Science app and connected hands-on resources. Families will receive all the materials that they need to play and learn with us from their homes. We are very lucky to be collaborating with Nazareth College’s Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders on this implementation. Their speech therapy, music therapy, and occupational therapy students and professors are helping us create lots of meaningful virtual experiences for families – connected themed songs to sing and listen to, recorded and live story-times, ideas for connected family game nights, and more! Our partners are such a vital part of the work that we are able to do.

Q:

Over the summer you and your team put together activity kits and nature kits. Can tell us about them?

A:

We have been VERY busy this summer! WXXI was very appreciative to receive some local funding from ESL Foundation to support our “Learn At Home” efforts, as well as the creation of activity kits to distribute to local children and families. As a PBS station, we are lucky to have such amazing educational materials that are developed to support all of the different PBS KIDS series; so when creating these summer learning kits, I was able to look to some of our families’ favorite series to pull activities! I designed two versions – a general activity kit and a nature exploring kit. Both kits included simple do-anywhere printed activities from series like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Wild Kratts, as well as any additional materials that a child or family would need to do the activities, such as crayons, pencils, and magnifying glasses. The goals with these kits was to get simple, fun, learning activities into the hands of children and families, and find a playful way to sneak some learning into everyday moments.

We are lucky to have so many amazing community partner organizations who were also working hard to get learning materials to families this summer. So we reached out to our friends at the Rochester Public Library and Pioneer Library System branches; HealthiKids and their network of PlayROCs groups and neighborhood associations; Greater Rochester Summer Learning Association (GRSLA) and the Summer LEAP collective; as well as lots of other out-of-school groups to distribute our kits.

Q: A:

Can you talk about the school backpacks you are distributing?

Recently, we have shifted our summer activity kit creation to putting together some back-to-school supply backpacks, which include scissors, crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks, erasers, and pencils. The kits also include cards that share how families can utilize WXXI as a learning resource during the school year. These backpacks are going to some of our project partners, such as Rochester Childfirst Network and Rochester Early Childhood Education Center.

We are also creating a digital backpack full of resources for everyone in our region to utilize for back-to-school. The digital backpack includes information on where to find PBS educational resources, how to use PBS LearningMedia New York, where to watch, free apps, and more.

Q: A:

Anything else you’d like to share?

Our Education Team is doing loads more than I was able to share here – if you’re interested in learning more or finding more FREE educational materials, visit wxxi.org/education.

roccitynews.org CITY 33

TURN TO CLASSICAL 91.5 FOR MUSIC PERFECTLY TUNED TO YOUR DAY. Best of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on WXXI Classical, beginning October 6 The Best of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is a series of nine, two-hour programs devoted to one of the finest American orchestras, the Boston Symphony. Hosted and produced by Brian Bell, the series brings the Grammy winning recordings by their current Music Director Andris Nelsons, as well as his many predecessors including Seiji Ozawa and Charles Munch and acclaimed guest conductors, going back decades to the legendary Serge Koussevitzky.

PRISM 2020 Wednesday, October 14 at 2 p.m. on WXXI Classical The coronavirus halted many local performances in Rochester and beyond. WXXI Classical has partnered with the Greater Rochester Choral Consortium to present a virtual PRISM concert from recent recordings by a number of local ensembles. You’ll hear selections by Amadeus Chorale Youth Singers, Concentus Women’s Choir, Lyric Chorale, Mount Hope World Singers, First Inversion, GVOC, Musica Spei, Rochester Oratorio Society, Rochester Rhapsody, Taiwanese Choral Society of Rochester, Greece Choral Society and VOICES. This special repeats Sun 10/18 at 2 p.m. on Classical 91.5.

WFMT Summer Opera Series Saturdays at 1 p.m. on WXXI Classical Each summer the WFMT Radio Network presents performances from opera companies around the world to complement the Metropolitan Opera season.

Several opera companies are represented throughout the season, which runs through November 28th. This month, enjoy four operas from the Royal Opera House (UK) and one from the Hamburg State Opera.

10/3 Britten: Death in Venice (Royal Opera) 10/10 Donizetti: Don Pasquale (Royal Opera) 10/17 Massenet: Werther (Royal Opera) 10/24 Handel: Agrippina (Royal Opera) 10/31 Bellini: Norma (Hamburg State Opera)

Cocktails with Julia Collin Davison, host of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country Thursday, October 15 at 7 p.m. on WXXI Facebook Live Join WXXI for this virtual event with Rochester native Julia Collin Davison, executive editorial director and host of America’s Test Kitchen and host of Cook’s Country! Julia will guide you through preparing her favorite cocktails. She’ll be joined by WXXI’s Danielle Abramson and a guest from Rochester Cocktail Revival. During the event you’ll have a chance to become a WXXI member and receive a signed cookbook from Julia, plus other member benefits.

More about Julia: Julia began working as a test cook for Cook’s Illustrated in 1999 and led recipe development for America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks for more than a decade. Julia is a regular guest on The Dr. Oz Show, Hallmark Channel’s Home & Family, and QVC and has appeared on Fox & Friends and Today. She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1996, received an Augie Award from the Culinary Institute of America, and was inducted into the prestigious Disciples d’Escoffier Culinary Society in 2018.

To learn more about this event, visit: WXXI.org/events.

34 CITY OCTOBER 2020

AM 1370, YOUR NPR NEWS STATION + WRUR-FM 88.5, DIFFERENT RADIO NPR Special Coverage of The Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates NPR brings you special coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates starting at 8 p.m. on each of the debate nights. The debates themselves beginning at 9 p.m. Listen live on AM 1370 and streaming on WXXINews.org.

• Wednesday, October 7 Vice Presidential Debate The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT) • Thursday, October 15 2nd Presidential Debate Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (Miami, FL) • Thursday, October 22 3rd Presidential Debate Belmont University (Nashville, TN)

Sundays, October 11-25 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370 AM 1370 brings you three episodes of this national series that inspires courageous conversations, breaks down the barriers that divide us, and creates compassionate communities.

Profiles in Mental Health and Courage • 10/11 at 9 p.m.

Courage is the choice to act even when we feel afraid. It gives us the ability to address shame, stigma and silence—and to feel our own strength. This hour-long show is about how accessing our courage supports our mental health and well-being.

Saying Goodbye • 10/18 at 9 p.m.

How do we prepare to say goodbye at the end of someone’s life, and how does that goodbye impact our mental health as we grieve? This hour-long show is about the challenges and benefits of saying a good goodbye.

From Violence to Voice • 10/25 at 9 p.m.

The experience of violence is shaped by shame and silence.

We’ll hear stories about how silence and shame define the experience of violence for everyone involved: the victim, the perpetrator and the bystander, with a special focus on white bystanders and racist violence. We explore how violence is dehumanizing, and leads survivors to blame themselves.

Host Shankar Vedantam Photo Courtesy of NPR

Host Nick Spitzer Photo Credit: Francis Pavy

Hidden Brain Saturdays at 11 a.m. on AM 1370

American Roots Saturdays at 6-8 p.m. on WRUR-FM 88.5

Hidden Brain helps curious people understand the world – and themselves. Using science and storytelling, the weekly series reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, and the biases that shape our choices. Hosted by NPR social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam, the series links research from psychology and neurobiology with findings from economics, anthropology, and sociology, among other fields. The goal of Hidden Brain isn’t merely to entertain, but to give you insights to apply at work, at home and throughout your life.

American Routes is blues and jazz, gospel and soul, rockabilly and country, Cajun and swamp pop, Tejano, Latin… 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!

Please note: American Roots has replaced Live From Here with Chris Thile, which has been canceled by American Public Media.

Support public media.

Become a WXXI Member!

Whether it’s television, radio, online, or on screen, WXXI is there with the programs, news, and information – where you want it and when you want it. If you value PBS, NPR, PBS Kids, WXXI News, Classical 91.5 and so much more, consider becoming a member.

Visit WXXI.org/support to choose the membership that works for you. There are many membership levels with their own special benefits, including

becoming a sustaining member.

roccitynews.org CITY 35

BLACK LIVES MATTER

OUR STAFF SENDS BOTH LOVE AND SUPPORT TO OUR CITY’S COURAGEOUS INDIVIDUALS FIGHTING FOR RACIAL EQUITY AND JUSTICE. WE STAND WITH YOU.

This is a historic time in Rochester. The unjust killing of Daniel Prude in March, subsequent cover up, and unlawful abuse of peaceful protesters is simply unacceptable. Anger over the lack of justice and accountability is expected, but it’s the response from our incredible community that is the aforementioned historic part. Led by Free the People Roc, brave individuals have made their voices heard every night in downtown Rochester.

The Little has been a constant on East Avenue for 90-plus years, and that type of history comes with a responsibility to this community. We must show that Black voices matter, Black art matters, and all Black lives matter.

NOW PLAYING

RBG Available in The Virtual Little

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, and more

Bring The Little Experience home.

The same indie gems that normally get the big screen treatment are now available to stream from home, via The Virtual Little.

Lineup at thelittle.org.

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/CNN Films.

Hero. Icon. Dissenter.

In honor of the legend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RBG — the documentary that debuted in Rochester during the 2018 One Take Film Festival — will be available for purchase (to own, not rent) starting Sept. 25 in The Virtual Little (thelittle.org/virtual-little).

36 CITY OCTOBER 2020

KEEP LOCAL BUSINESSES

OPEN

Show your support for local business’s and support local journalism by purchasing a print or digital ad for your go-to restaurant, retail shop or non-profit.

Inquire for details and special rate information

ADS@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM | 585-730-2666 roccitynews.org CITY 37

ARTS

FILM

IMAGEOUT 2020 COMES DOWN TO THE FINAL REEL

BY JEFF SPEVAK

@JEFFSPEVAK1

The task of booking films for Rochester’s ImageOut LGBT Film Festival has been unfolding like a good thriller: It’s all coming down to the final reel.

The coronavirus pandemic’s chokehold on the arts has not ignored the film industry. For the most part, this year festivals have gone virtual, of course, with ImageOut running Oct. 8-18, in your living room.

One of the event’s centerpiece films has already won accolades at the Toronto International Film Festival. “It’s called ‘The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,’ and it’s like ‘Groundhog Day,’” says Michael Gamilla, referring to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray. “You know, where things keep happening over and over, but it’s about the struggle of a young man facing police brutality.”

In “The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,” the conflict is not a narcissistic weatherman’s existential struggle with himself, but a gay, Nigerian-American man’s tragic encounter with police.

“I think it’s very timely, especially with what’s going on in our own backyard,” says Gamilla, ImageOut’s program director.

Now in its 28th year, the festival’s acronym has unofficially expanded to LGBTQ+, reflecting a wider conversation on sexual identities in recent years. But the field of available films has contracted. Festivals are caught in the uncertainty of what films will be made available. Release plans are changing altogether.

“It feels like the filmmakers and distributors keep making up the rules every day,” Gamilla says. “Some films decided they’re not going to participate in virtual festivals after all, and they’re going to wait until next 38 CITY OCTOBER 2020

JSPEVAK@WXXI.ORG

“Sex.” COURTESY IMAGEOUT FILM FESTIVAL

year. When, hopefully, theaters are going to be open.

“Sometimes you have to work with what you have.”

In past years, there would be travel to other festivals, networking with other festival promoters, checking out the buzz films of the season. ImageOut’s selection committee would meet twice a week over a four-month period, watching films together, discussing them through e-mail threads. Or better yet, the committee would express thoughts as soon as the final credits had finished rolling.

The coronavirus pandemic put an end to most of that.

“This year we were limited to just doing things online,” Gamilla says. “There’s a difference in the interaction of people watching films together and discussing films afterward, than just watching things on your own.”

And virtual film festivals often aren’t as accessible as live festivals.

Gamilla points to the idea of “geofencing,” or “geoblocking,” where “the audience is limited to certain geographical areas, usually by state.”

Yet, despite geofencing, or films being pulled from release or consideration by some festivals —

“Tahara.” COURTESY IMAGEOUT FILM FESTIVAL

there are filmmakers who insist on their work being guaranteed premier slots — plenty of entries remain for consideration. Gamilla estimates that for this year’s festival, ImageOut screened its usual 600 shorts and feature-length films.

“Most of the films still have the same themes about coming out and love, activism surrounding LGBTQ issues,” he says. “We still have documentaries about historical figures and their struggles of being LGBTQ people that, in their time and era, these things are not acceptable. We still have all those, we have films for the youth, we’re still going to keep our Next Generation Series where we offer youth films for anyone under 25, especially those in high school and college, for free.”

A film that made the cut this year has a strong local connection.

“Tahara” was shot entirely in Rochester’s Temple Beth El, the synagogue attended by the film’s writer and one of the producers, Jess Zeidman, when she was growing up in Rochester. Zeidman wrote it as an assignment for a college course and worked with local crew and actors from western New York, as well as film students from Rochester Institute of Technology.

One film will not be presented virtually. “Ammonite,” starring Kate Winslet as a fossil-hunting woman in 1847 England, will be shown at a local drive-in theater.

And one film produced during the pandemic, “Hello Stranger,” is from The Philippines, and is actually an episodic series.

“It’s a window to how films will be made moving forward,” Gamilla says. “Like, people will have to shoot around being quarantined, you’ll see people wearing masks and concerns about COVID and being quarantined and isolated. And on the production side, the production team has to live in a bubble, and so they can’t go out and about because they’re shooting a film.”

It’s shot in the actors’ homes, sometimes with a phone camera or laptop computer. Zoom and video chats “have become part of the script, because that’s how people interact most of the time now, socially,” Gamilla says. “I wanted to show something reflecting how things are. Not just how we live, but how limited it is to make things in the film industry.”

The complete ImageOut schedule, as well as ticket information, is at imageout.org.

“Single Street.” COURTESY IMAGEOUT FILM FESTIVAL

“Hello Stranger.” COURTESY IMAGEOUT FILM FESTIVAL

“The Capote Tapes.” COURTESY IMAGEOUT FILM FESTIVAL

roccitynews.org CITY 39

ARTS

NEW BEATS

In a few short years, Sherice Barnes has overcome stage fright and self-doubt to become “She Rise.”

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

40 CITY OCTOBER 2020

A RISING VOICE R&B SINGER-SONGWRITER SHERICE BARNES EMERGES WITH “MOODY” MUSIC

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER @DANIELJKUSHNER DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

To hear the polished tone and see the charismatic delivery of Rochester singer-songwriter Sherice Barnes, it’s hard to imagine that just a few years ago, she was paralyzed by stage fright.

But in a short span of time, the 24-year-old Barnes shed the layers of insecurity holding her back to reveal the R&B artist She Rise. Her first EP “Moody” was released earlier this year via the local music label It’s Just Music, or IJM. “Even in the 'Moody' EP, you can see I was going through a lot of heartbreak, I had self-doubt, I didn’t know my worth — all of these things,” Barnes says. “So it was kind of just like, She Rise. I’m going to rise from this because once you reach the bottom, you can’t go any further down really. You just have to go back up.”

This month, She Rise ascends higher with “Moody Deluxe,” a new album that coincides with the release of a new music video for the song “Games.”

The “deluxe” album is an extended version of the EP, featuring new tracks, including “Moody” and “Last Fck.” On both tracks, Barnes achieves a sultry, sophisticated R&B sound while delving into the complex nature of romance, particularly when good chemistry drags out a dysfunctional relationship.

Barnes is the only female musician of four artists on the fledgling IJM label, which launched in April 2019. But she is emerging as the face of it.

“Her performance — it’s just different, it’s breathtaking,” says Larry “LJ” Ingram, who at 26 is the label’s owner and chief executive.

He points to Barnes’ ability to connect emotionally with listeners.

Barnes’ smooth musicianship and engaging, pithy songwriting at times appears to barely scratch the surface of her potential.

“I see her being very big,” Ingram says of Barnes. “She could really lead the label to corners that we wouldn’t be able to reach without her.”

As Barnes tells it, there were early signs that she was on the path to becoming a performing artist. As a pre-schooler, she would start singing for strangers in the supermarket. As she grew up, her cousin introduced her to CDs by obscure artists, singers like Amerie, who would balance out a mainstream pop diet of the likes of Raven-Symoné.

Barnes also sang in chorus in both middle school and high school.

Despite her precociousness, she grew to struggle with public speaking and stage fright. Somewhere along the way, she lost confidence.

It wasn’t until her junior year at Buffalo State College, as she recalls, while studying media production, that she began to regain the confidence she had in childhood.

She started going to the open mics at Clarissa’s Cafe Lounge in Rochester’s Corn Hill neighborhood, where the host, stand-up comedian Yolanda Smilez, was a constant source of encouragement.

“People believed in me all my life, but no one really knew that I had a fear of these things,” Barnes says. “I wanted to be a singer or an artist all my life, but I didn’t know how to pursue it because I was so fearful of rejection and all of these things.”

Also while in college, Barnes met the folk-based, local singersongwriter Kara Fink, who became an unlikely inspiration.

“I loved how raw she was, ‘cause that really speaks to me when someone’s raw,” Barnes says of Fink.

“And also, just the different sounds she was making. It’s amazing how our bodies can create these sounds and they are filled with emotions.

“We don’t even have to say words sometimes, and you can feel what that person is feeling.” roccitynews.org CITY 41

ARTS

CAPTURING CHAOS

PROTEST CHRONICLER MARTIN HAWK IS UNDER PRESSURE . . . AND FIRE

BY JEFF SPEVAK

@JEFFSPEVAK1

JSPEVAK@WXXI.ORG

Martin Hawk’s footage and photography of Rochester’s social unrest is being compiled in an exhibit called “Pressure Gradient.”

PHOTO PROVIDED

42 CITY OCTOBER 2020

Until this summer, the coat rack in Martin Hawk’s home was a spot to set his keys and wallet and other everyday personal items. Now, it’s a place for his gas mask.

“None of us were prepared for the tear gas and the pepper spray,” Hawk says.

Hawk is a photographer embedded in what he calls the “battleground” of downtown Rochester, documenting the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have rattled the halls of power and earned international media attention.

In some ways, the 28-year-old Hawk is like the scores of video journalists who take the streets nightly to capture the unrest. But Hawk has no media credentials, and could better be described as an artist and a concerned citizen who is, as he put it, treading the “intersectionality between arts and activism.”

“I felt compelled to be just another person with a camera, just understanding how important it is to capture all this,” Hawk says. “It’s a watershed moment not just for the world, but also for Rochester.”

Hawk is working with the State Street gallery UUU Art Collective to install an exhibit of his images and video footage in a chapter-by-chapter story of conflict called “Pressure Gradient.” He sees the work as a snapshot of a small American city at a time of transformation.

It is not just the acts of civil unrest that compel him. He is motivated by the underlying racism, whether overt or unintentional, built into longstanding systems — police departments, courthouses, City Hall — that make the country what it is.

“As a person of color, it’s interesting,” Hawk says. “A lot of my white friends, they feel activated now, and it means the world. But we get sent these videos, right?

Sort of like, ‘Can you believe this

A still from “A Litany for Survival,” a short film by Martin Hawk. PHOTO PROVIDED

happened?’ And you know, again, it’s shocking and it’s important for people to see these videos.

“But, I mean, we have to keep in mind that Black people have been watching these videos for . . .”

Hawk trails off, as though calculating countless outrages. “Years.”

The videos of which he speaks are, of course, the two that have circulated the globe many times over.

The first was that of the life being squeezed out of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on a street corner in broad daylight in May. That lit the fuse of the nation’s powder keg.

But two months earlier, Rochester police officers confronted a naked, belligerent, and distressed Daniel Prude, in the early hours of a freezing morning in March. They handcuffed him, placed a “spit hood” over his head, and then proceeded to restrain him on a wet street under light snowfall to the point of asphyxiation.

When video of that incident came to light last month, it sparked something in Hawk.

“In that instance I learned about it, boom, I ran right out of the door with my camera gear,” he says.

“Unprepared, but just willing to just, having to do something. I just knew that I needed to be a witness to it.”

In the opening chapter of “Pressure Gradient,” his audience bears witness to it as well. It is Cinéma vérité. Police cars glide like silent predators though the dark

PHOTO BY MARTIN HAWK

streets of Rochester, his camera seemingly gliding alongside them unseen. Demonstrators gather outside the home of Mayor Lovely Warren. The curtains remain drawn.

Pressure gradient is a weather term, a measurement of wind direction and force. Hawk applies it to his art as a measure of social change. “It’s the exploration of the shades between love, rage, and rebellion as a Black person surviving in America,” he says.

The work is a full-blown production that Hawk says he is self-financing, pouring money into a mini-production suite in his home.

It could take months to cull his footage — a duration for which the fast-moving story will not wait.

The compromise was to release his work in chapters, which he says could have the effect of galvanizing support for the movement.

Yet he views the movement he is capturing as a marathon, not a sprint.

“As black people, our entire existence is a marathon in resistance,” Hawk says. “As the ’60s went, as our struggle continues, there is no sort of resolution, right?

There is only the continuation, so if I can help showcase what happens in a once-gilded, rustbelt city like Rochester, I think that that can really lend, in many ways, a moreuniversal narrative to the populace at-large in America and the world.”

“We have in a way become the face of police brutality in America,” Hawk goes on. “Just the symbolism alone with the spit hood in the middle of winter, it’s a powerful image and I think ‘Pressure Gradient’ will, hopefully, show that struggle.”

Hawk is no interloper. Rochester is his hometown.

He grew up in Pittsford, graduated from Mendon High School, and briefly attended Nazareth College. He moved to New York City, toured with a musical theater company, then launched a career in electronic music. He records soulful vocals under the name “midnight” — lowercase

“m.” Having returned to Rochester in 2016, Hawk and his partner, a social worker in refugee care and adoption, live in the South Wedge, where Hawk indulges his passion for filmmaking.

Civil unrest is not new to Hawk.

As he tells it, he was maced in high school while attending a demonstration against the Iraq War in New York City, where he was studying for a time. When he worked in Los Angeles, he says, he attended a women’s march that drew hundreds of thousands of people.

But aside from showing up at a protest against a developer acquiring the weary Cadillac Hotel a few years ago, “Here in Rochester,” Hawk says, “ashamedly, I had never been a part of anything.”

Now, he has the battle scars to show for his involvement.

In early September, he recalls, he was shooting video of a woman being arrested by five officers outside the Public Safety Building during a clash between protesters and police armed with PepperBall launchers. One officer had her on the ground, Hawk says, a knee planted on her back.

“I turned around and a cop says to me, ‘A media badge isn’t a free pass,’ and he shoots,” Hawks says.

“I was about six feet away, and keep in mind these PepperBalls are supposed to be used as a last resort, they’re supposed to be hit off other objects so that their pepper spray can disperse. And it hit me directly at the base of my neck, which broke it open. Luckily one of the medics out there was able to wash away the blood. Before that it had broken open my skin and the powder had gone in.”

Later, Hawk posted on social media images of the battering he endured: eight massive bruises, with five of them on his left leg, and another on his ribs from what he believes was a rubber bullet.

In some ways, though, he is grateful, even if it means having to keep the gas mask on the coat rack.

“It finally took the George Floyd movement and everything for me to actually become activated within my own community that I live in,” Hawk says. “So I’m trying to make up for lost time.” roccitynews.org CITY 43

STUCK AT HOME? Visit our online calendar for a full calendar of virtual events and online happenings.

ROCCITYNEWS.ORG

MUSIC Acoustic/Folk

Flower City Ukulele Festival.

Blues

Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua.

481-1817. Sat., Oct. 3, 4-9 p.m. $15.

Contemporary Classical

Classical

Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Tue., Oct. 20, 7:30 p.m.

OSSIA New Music. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Thu., Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m.

Live at Lunchtime: Starkey’s Country Bunch. Cobblestone Arts Center, 1622 NY

332. 398-0220. Fri., Oct. 9, noon.

Back the Blues & BBQ. Lincoln Hill

Choral Department Concert. Eastman

School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/ Eastman/calendar. Fri., Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m. and Fri., Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m.

Classical Guitar Night. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org. First Sunday of every month, 7 p.m.

Eastman Philharmonia. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Mon., Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m.

ECMS Showcase. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Sat., Oct. 10, 3:30 p.m. and Sat., Oct. 24, 3:30 p.m.

ESM Symphony Orchestra. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester. edu/Eastman/calendar. Wed., Oct. 21, 7:30 p.m.

Faculty Artist Series: Marina Lomazov & Joseph Rackers, piano. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Fri., Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.

Eastman School of Music will give those clamoring for live piano music a free, live-streamed performance from Kilbourn Hall, featuring the Lomazov-Rackers Piano Duo. The pair’s sheer kinetic energy and exacting articulations when performing the works of such composers as Igor Stravinsky and Witold Lutoslawski need to be heard.

Geoffrey Burgess: Thorn of the Honey Locust. Pegasus Early Music, Online.

pegasusearlymusic.org. Fri., Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Oct. 18, 4 p.m.

Grace Wang, Aeolian pipe organ.

George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave. eastman.org. Sun., Oct. 11, 3 p.m. w/ museum admission.

Joe Blackburn, Aeolian pipe organ.

George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave. eastman.org. Sun., Oct. 4, 3 p.m. and Sun., Oct. 18, 3 p.m. w/ museum admission.

44 CITY OCTOBER 2020

Margaret Anne Milne, Aeolian pipe organ. George Eastman Museum, 900

East Ave. eastman.org. Sun., Oct. 25, 3 p.m. w/ museum admission.

RPO @ Home. Online. rpo.org.

Thu., Oct. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Normally, this is the time of year that local fans of symphonic music begin making their way back to Eastman Theatre’s Kodak Hall. But in the absence of live, in-person concerts, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra has the next best thing with online concerts available on demand. Music Director Ward Stare leads the ensemble in a versatile program that includes Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”), Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” and “Starburst” by contemporary composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery. Oct 4 & 11, 2pm: Chamber Ensembles. Oct 22, 7:30pm: Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony. Oct 24, 7:30pm: Ragtime Kings with Jeff Tyzik. $5-$10.

RPO Living Room Series. Saturdays, 6 p.m. Live on FB.

flowercityukefest.com. Oct. 23-24.

This two-day celebration of the littleinstrument-that-could is now in its third year, though 2020 marks its first virtual iteration. It's packed with a combination of concerts, workshops, Zoom play-alongs and hangouts, and an open mic. It’s free to attend the two concerts, featuring Rochester’s Sungmin Shin, as well as Stuart Fuchs and Awkward Marina. For access to all other festival events, there is a suggested donation of $20.

Virtual Sing Around. Golden Link Folk Singing Society, goldenlink.org. Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.

Americana

NEWS. ARTS. LIFE.

VISUAL & PERFORMI

Composers Concert. Eastman School of

Jazz

Eastman Jazz Ensemble. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Tue., Oct. 27, 7:30 p.m.

Eastman New Jazz Ensemble & Eastman Jazz Lab Ensemble. Eastman School of

Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/ calendar. Thu., Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Jazz & Contemporary Media Faculty Showcase. Eastman School of Music,

Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/calendar.

Tue., Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.

Jon Seiger: Piano Bar & Trumpet Happy Hour. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Live on FB. Laura Dubin & Antonio Guerrero.

Ongoing, 8:30 p.m. Live on FB. Saxology. Eastman School of Music, Online. rochester.edu/Eastman/calendar.

Thu., Oct. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Pop/Rock

Amanda Ashley: Afternoon Cocktail.

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 1 p.m.

Live on FB. With evolving NYS guidelines for live music, events are highly subject to change or cancellation. It’s wise to check with individual venues to confirm performances and protocols.

[ Opening ] Art Exhibits

Cobblestone Arts Center, 1622 NY 332. Group Ceramics Show (Main Gallery); Susan Link (Staff & Student Gallery). Oct. 8-Nov. 15.

Reception Oct 8, 5-7pm. Viewings by appointment. 398-0220.

International Art Acquisitions, 3300 Monroe Ave. Picasso: Imaginaries. Oct. 1-31. 264-1440.

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900.

Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop Works from the Bank of America Collection. Oct. 25-March 28.

Penfield Art Association, penfieldartassociation.com.

Virtual Show & Sale. Oct. 1-31.

Pittsford Fine Art, 4 N Main St. Pittsford. October Guest

Artist: Valerie Larsen. Reception Oct 2, 6-8pm. 662-5579.

The Village Gallery, 3119 Main St. Caledonia.

Don Grieger: Plein Air. Gallery talk Oct 11, 2pm. 294-3009.

Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince St. vsw.org.

Lee Cannarozzo; Underneath The Surface. Oct. 1-31.

The Yards, 50-52 Public Market.

DaShon Aubrey Hill: Combining Form.

Oct. 2-10. Viewings by appointment. attheyards.com.

[ Continuing ] Art Exhibits

Bertha VB Lederer Gallery, SUNY Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Brodie Hall

203. Geneseo. . Cicely Cottingham & Victor Davson: Book of Hours/Ours. geneseo.edu/galleries.

Bertha VB Lederer Online Gallery, SUNY Geneseo. Leslie Stroz Between

the Moors & the Sea. Through Dec. 12. geneseo.edu/galleries/lederer-onlinedigital-exhibitions.

Cobblestone Arts Center, 1622 NY 332. Painting With Fabric,

Different Perspectives (Main Gallery). Jacob Brown (Staff & Student Gallery). Through Oct. 4. Viewing by appointment. 398-0220.

Geisel Gallery, 2nd Floor Rotunda, Legacy Tower, One Bausch & Lomb Place. Working with Wax: Surfacing.

Mondays-Fridays. Encaustic paintings. thegeiselgallery.com.

George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave. eastman.org. Gathering Clouds:

Photographs from the Nineteenth Century and Today (to Jan 3). James Welling: Choreograph (to Jan 3). History of Photography (to Jan 3). $5-$15.

NG ARTS Main Street Arts, 20 W Main St. Clifton Springs. A Few Thoughts, 2020 | Figure/ Ground. mainstreetartscs.org.

Art Events [ SAT., OCTOBER 3 ]

R1 Studios, 1328 University Ave. Suite B. Kota Ezawa: Taking a Knee.

Naples Open Studio Trail. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Canandaigua Lake. Naples This autumn arts tradition continues with its 19th year, the visitors wind their way through through scenic Naples, Middlesex, and Canandaigua. Wearable art, ceramics, wood art, sculpture, painting, photography, and more await discovery, offering a chance to meet the artists and have the maximum Finger Lakes experience. naplesopenstudiotrail.com.

RIT City Art Space, 280 East Main St.

[ WED., OCTOBER 7 ]

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave.

276-8900. . The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Stained-Glass Art (to 9/13).

1940/2020: In Celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the Gallery Council (to 10/11). $6-$15; 1/2-price Thursdays after 5pm.

deborahronnenfineart.com.

Visible Voices.

Throughout the Black Lives Matter movement, artists have mobilized to express their solidarity. This exhibit features the messages, images, and artwork created by RIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni to support justice, inclusivity, and action, on display through October 25. cityartspace.rit.edu.

Rochester Contemporary Art Center, 137 East Ave. 461-2222. Andrew

Zimbelman: The Subway Series. Through Nov 14. $2.; . Trust, but verify. $2.

Rochester Folk Art Guild, 1445 Upper Hill Rd. East Hill Gallery:

Fine Handcrafts. Saturdays, Sundays.

Through Oct 18. rfag.org.

Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Ave., rmsc.org. Take It Down!

Organizing Against Racism. Objectively Racist: How Objects & Images Perpetuate Racism - And What We Can Do To Change It. Ongoing. $14-$16.

Tower Fine Arts Center 180 Holley St. Brockport.

Monroe & Vicinity Biennial Exhibition: Western New York. Through Oct. 25.

395-2805.

Virtual Genesee Country Village & Museum, Online. Mumford. Explore the Collection. Ongoing. gcv.org/explore/ online-collection.

Virtual George Eastman Museum, Online. Eastman Museum at Home.

Ongoing. eastman.org.

Virtual Memorial Art Gallery mag.rochester.edu. Explore the Collection. Ongoing.

Yates County History Center, 107 Chapel St. Penn Yan. . A Dangerous Freedom: The Abolitionists, Freedom Seekers, & Underground Railroad Sites of Yates County. By appointment only. yatespast.org.

Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door. 6 p.m. Virtual George Eastman

Volunteers needed: E-cigarette users

Museum, Online Registration required $5. eastman.org.

Two visits ($50 per visit).

The second visit will be 6 months after the first. There will be lung function test and blood draw (two tablespoons), saliva, breath condensate and urine collection at each visit.

[ THU., OCTOBER 8 ]

DeTOUR The Art of Breath. 6 p.m. Virtual Memorial Art Gallery, mag.rochester.edu Registration required.

Earn $100 by participating in our study!

[ THU., OCTOBER 29 ]

Gathering Clouds Panel Discussion, Part 1. 6 p.m. Virtual George Eastman

Museum, Online Registration required eastman.org.

Call our Research Coordinator at 585-224-6308 if you are interested or if you have questions. Thank you!

Theater

Blackfriars Couch Concerts. Tuesdays,

7 p.m. Livestream, Online. blackfriars.org.

Mystery Radio Theater. Oct. 16-Nov.

30. Virtual Bristol Valley Theater, Online .

Naples $5-$15. bvtnaples.org/fall

CROSSWORD PUZZLE ANSWERS PUZZLE ON PAGE 64. NO PEEKING!

Gloria: A Life. Saturdays, 8 p.m.,

Sundays, 2 p.m. and Thursdays, 7 p.m JCC CenterStage Theatre, Online The life and impact of feminist Gloria Steinem gets a live Zoom tribute in this new play by Emily Mann. Each performance will be followed by an interactive talking circle with community leaders and activists. $20 & up jccrochester.org/centerstage.

Film ImageOut Rochester LGBT Film Festival. Oct. 8-18. imageout.org.

Virtual Central Library, Online.

Women In Politics: Continuing The Work.

Mon., Oct. 26, 6 p.m.

Rochester Public Library presents a screening of “Election Day 2016” by Rochester Documentary Filmmakers, followed by a panel discussion with local women in politics. libraryweb.org.

Virtual Cinema Theater, cinemarochester.com.

Daily Virtual Screenings. Ongoing.

Virtual Dryden Theatre, eastman.org.

Daily Virtual Screenings. Ongoing.

Virtual Little Theatre, thelittle.org.

Daily Virtual Screenings. Ongoing.

M I S C M E D I C F R I S

A D U E

D E N T

E A S E S O A B D D Y E I T E O U N O R A N O B E D L E E E D

A I D S T R O R A A Y S S T A S A F R N I E T S D O H Y A M S M R O S

T A K E O U T C O O K I E S

S H E A T I N T O L N E E W N S A M X E L S

S C O R P A V E A S I D I D E O N W O M A L A M E C U T E R S D O T K A I S C U D N U T D E B I O R A L

E R O S N A P E S E S T S

roccitynews.org CITY 45

LIFE

Adrian Hale leads a demonstration march against police brutality and the city’s handling of the death of Daniel Prude.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

46 CITY OCTOBER 2020

PUBLIC LIVES

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Adrian Hale: The man the mayor thinks wants her job Two days before word of Daniel Prude’s death at the hands of police sent her political future into a tailspin, Mayor Lovely Warren was deflecting news stories about prosecutors preparing evidence for a grand jury that she violated campaign finance laws.

She called the allegations a “political witch hunt” and urged reporters to look into who was behind them — besides investigators for the state Board of Elections and the Monroe County district attorney.

“We are talking about something that happened, or alleged to happen, four years ago, and now, all of a sudden now, it’s coming to fruition right before I get ready to run for re-election?”

Warren said. “Ask yourself who’s running against me and who are they tied to.”

She was talking about Adrian Hale, a 31-year-old Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce executive with a pedigree that has political kingmakers salivating.

Who he’s “tied to” is Bob Duffy, the chamber’s president and the former lieutenant governor and mayor, whose successor Warren upset in an against-allodds Democratic mayoral primary seven years ago.

Hale has not publicly declared a candidacy. No one has filed the required paperwork to create a campaign committee, usually the first step to launching a run. So, does Hale have plans to run for mayor?

“Not right now I don’t,” Hale replied, like every ambitious person ever who either had no plans to run for office or planned to run but wasn’t ready to reveal that to a reporter sniffing around.

“That’s a big question and it’s a major undertaking and I think the undertaking just became a lot bigger with recent events,” he said. “That’s a question that myself and many other leaders . . . have to ask ourselves.

He spoke from his fourth-floor office at the Chamber of Commerce on State Street that looked south onto the Romanesque spires of City Hall, which a couple days later would be under siege by demonstrators, many of whom Hale had led through the

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

streets a week earlier.

When it comes to the checklist of universal traits of successful politicians, Hale checks all the boxes. He conveys confidence, charisma, and relatability, and has an almost mythical backstory.

It is as though he were manufactured on some sort of perfect-politician assembly line.

Hale grew up poor the youngest of three children to a single mother on some of Rochester’s toughest streets – Avenue D, Conkey Avenue, First Street — with a father who was in an out of jail and in and out of his life when he wasn’t locked up.

A physically imposing figure who is broad in the shoulders and narrow at the hip, Hale had childhood dreams of becoming an Olympian — he ran track and speed-skated — but enlisted in the Marine Corps after being moved by, of all things, watching “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore’s muckraking polemic of the use and abuse of power.

“I’m sure Michael Moore didn’t make that movie to get people to enlist,” Hale said with a laugh. “But my initial reaction was wanting to do something about the level of pain and hardship I saw.”

Over five years of active duty, he did two tours in Afghanistan with a helicopter combat support unit, mostly delivering material aid and food to Afghans in Helmand Province.

“I’m on these missions thinking I never saw this kind of effort in my neighborhood,” Hale said. “I

never saw this kind of outreach and intentionality and making sure my peers had opportunity or were being deterred from becoming young parents or joining a gang or getting involved in a shadow economy or being pushed out of school.”

Hale uses words like “intentionality” and “intersectionality” and “concretize” like they’re part of everyone’s lexicon, but somehow manages to do so without sounding pedantic.

He picked up that skill at Yale University, where he used the G.I. Bill to earn a degree in political science with a focus in police accountability and urban education reform — as though the assembly line prepared him to take on the dual ills of Rochester in 2021.

Hale spring-boarded to the Ivy League from Monroe Community College, where he became the literal posterchild of the MCC Foundation, a scholarship fund for underprivileged youth with promising futures.

It was while being showcased by donors who money the foundation that he was introduced to Duffy, who later hired him at the chamber, where Hale is now the senior manager of talent strategy, workforce development, and education initiatives — a way-too-long title that means he helps businesses diversify their workforces and poor people train for good-paying jobs.

Duffy, while effusive in his praise for Hale, said neither he nor the chamber were backing Hale or any other would-

be candidate. He acknowledged hearing the rumors about Hale, though.

“Adrian is a great leader with a great story who cares about this city,” Duffy said. “He has honesty, integrity, and passion, and he is the type of person that whatever he is going to do he will be successful.”

“That’s why his name comes up as a candidate,” he added. “I would say that anyone who’s concerned with who is going to run isn’t focused on the job at hand.”

For someone who isn’t running for mayor and someone who wouldn’t be his likeliest benefactor, Hale and Duffy have not been shy about criticizing the Warren administration. Both were recently featured prominently in a Politico piece about Warren’s political future.

“Rochester doesn’t need a mayor who is concerned with what’s the next office,” Hale said. “We need leaders who can deal with the problems of a city that The New York Times said is going to be the most adversely affected

by Covid.”

Rochester recently topped a list published in The Times of American cities to be hardest hit by the pandemicinduced recession.

“We need a leader who can deal with poverty from its causes, not its consequences, and understand the differences between the two,” he went on. “We need a leader who charts a vision and can galvanize the people necessary to move that agenda forward — not for self-interest, but for the public interest.”

The implication, of course, was that Warren is none of those things.

He went on, speaking eloquently and extemporaneously as great orators do. He stumbled over his words only when informed that it was he who the mayor was talking about that day when she spoke of “who’s running against me and who are they tied to.”

“Um, well, um,” Hale said. “That says a lot that they, wow, that they really think I, wow. That says a lot.

That says a lot.”

“You just let me know something, I guess,” he said. “Maybe I should think about it.” roccitynews.org CITY 47

LIFE

CHAMPION OF BREAKFASTS

James Brown takes his final bow at his namesake diner

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

James Brown sat in his usual spot, on the last stool at the lunch counter in his namesake diner on Culver Road, thumbing through a stack of bills and reminiscing about his time in the restaurant game.

“The customers and the neighborhood, they made it fun,” Brown said. “But you can’t do it forever. I physically can’t do it anymore.”

He swung a beefy leg onto the open stool next to him and rubbed his swollen knee. It was flaring up again.

“It’s like being a pro athlete,” he went on. “You love the game, you love the smells, you love the fans, you love your teammates, but you just can’t play anymore.”

This would be his last year in the game. Brown, 68, said that he had arranged for James Brown’s Place, his undistinguished but somehow unforgettable greasy spoon, to be sold in October.

His diner has been an egalitarian enclave beloved in equal measure by power brokers and people living paycheck-to-paycheck, and from his perch on his stool, Brown has watched them and the Culver-Merchants neighborhood ebb and flow over his 22 years in business.

Now he watched a young man and young woman behind the counter prepare for a Friday morning breakfast rush. Their mother, Amanda Joyce, had agreed to buy the place and Brown was training them to take over.

Every now and then he hobbled to the grill on that bad knee to demonstrate how to slice a sausage link down the middle or chop a sizzling pile of spinach and tomato with a spatula.

“The best way to learn is to get on the line,” Brown said. “When I took over in ’98, my cook taught me to short order. I thought I had it down; then he went on vacation.”

To get up to speed, Joyce had been waitressing, cooking, greeting customers, and getting to know the place. Of course, as a longtime neighborhood resident she had known 48 CITY OCTOBER 2020

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

James Brown occupies his familiar spot at the lunch counter of his namesake diner, James Brown’s Place. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

the place for some time — and the value of its name.

“We looked at every kind of business you could think of to buy,” Joyce said. “I saw a diner and thought, ‘I don’t know.’ They don’t tell you the names of these things before you sign [a non-disclosure agreement]. Then I got the paperwork and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s James Brown’s Place.

We’ve got to have it.’ That was it.”

Joyce and Brown expect the sale to close the first week of October. She said the name and recipes would remain the same for at least a year, possibly longer, and that Brown would still hang around.

“He’ll have a permanent seat right there,” Joyce said of his stool.

Brown had no experience as a restaurateur when he opened James Brown’s Place in March 1998.

He had spent the previous 22 years

in sales, peddling everything from pharmaceuticals to costume jewelry and watch bands across a wide swath of the country. A native of Indianapolis whose career landed him in Columbus and Milwaukee for periods of time, Brown settled in Rochester when he took a job selling blue jeans for Levi Strauss & Company.

But he made, as he put it, “really, really, really good ribs,” and was flirting with the idea of starting a barbecue joint when John Savino, the former owner of Johnny’s Irish Pub — where Brown was something of a regular — told him that the diner next door to his bar was for sale.

The storefront had housed diners for 40 years, beginning with Jim’s Clock Luncheonette in the 1950s and most recently Mike’s Family Restaurant. With no spouse or children to support, Brown took a leap of faith

and bought the place.

“I got tired of having money and time on my hands,” he quipped, then waited for the rim shot and the laugh with a comedian’s timing.

Brown, a squat and stocky man with an outsized personality, is quick like that. He has a vast portfolio of tried and tested one-liners he honed over a third of a lifetime on the road and another third schmoozing with diners.

An array of them are reserved just for people who ask him if he sings and dances like the Godfather of Soul with whom he shares his name. Brown, an affable man who’s otherwise quick to laugh, doesn’t find it funny.

“They all think they’re the first to say it,” Brown said. “You’re more like number 1,781.”

Over the years, he constructed a menu that blended classic American diner fare with innovative interlopers, like the carne adovado tacos and Cajun-influenced dishes inspired by his mother, who was from New Orleans.

A couple months before the pandemic forced him to close for a stretch, Brown introduced vegan versions of his traditional menu. He had gone vegan earlier and lost 80 pounds after his doctor warned him of the cruel irony that his eating from his own menu was killing him.

That James Brown’s Place was trading hands wasn’t being advertised, but there were signs that something was afoot. The most telltale among them was that nearly all of the New York Yankees paraphernalia that hung on the walls was gone.

The cream-colored walls were bare save for a couple of framed news articles featuring his restaurant that were published over the years. One of them was silver plated. Of all the memories Brown has of his place, the story behind that article was the most special to him.

Brown has stories. Lots of them.

You just have to pull them out of him, which wasn’t difficult to do on a gray morning before he opened, when he

was feeling sentimental about selling his place.

He figured he had told the story about the silver-plated article a thousand times and cried every time.

He warned he would tear up again in just a few minutes; and he did, too.

The article wasn’t even about James Brown’s Place. It was more of a roundup of restaurants printed in CITY Newspaper the week of Thanksgiving in 1998 under the headline, “Grits, cakes, and eggs overeasy: the best breakfasts,” and included a blurb on his place.

At the time, as Brown told it, he had been in the restaurant game for eight months and had worked every day of them with little to show for it. Business was slow and he was doubting himself.

“I began to wonder if I made the right decision because I’ve never failed at anything in my life,” Brown said, his eyes already starting to well up.

The newspaper was published on a Wednesday in those days, and that evening, after he closed up shop for what would be his first day off on Thanksgiving Day, he went to Johnny’s for a drink.

His spirits were buoyed when he saw his diner mentioned in the paper, but he still felt low and did through the holiday until he opened on the weekend.

“It was like they lit a bus outside; we were just packed, we were overwhelmed,” Brown said, choking back tears. “They had seen that article.”

His crew of three — himself, a waitress, and a busboy who doubled as a dishwasher — couldn’t keep up. It was a make-or-break moment for his place, and he didn’t have enough hands to make it.

Brown paused here in his retelling to shuffle around on his stool and compose himself, pursing his lips and swallowing hard.

“And then, the neighbors and the people in the restaurant started bussing tables, pouring coffee,” he said. “One guy got on the line with us. He said, ‘I’m not good, but I’ll try.’ I said, ‘If you can make toast we’ll be okay.’”

The waterworks were flowing now.

“That was when I felt like I was finally part of the neighborhood,” he said.

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

PHOTO BY DAVID ANDREATTA

roccitynews.org CITY 49

LIFE

WHAT ALES ME

Earl Grey Gose from Young Lion Brewing Company in Canandaigua. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

Canandaigua fast becoming a brewing destination

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

Nowadays, when a business closes in a bustling part of town, a question often asked is, “When is a brewery going there?” And why not? It happens all the time.

That was the case of Frequentem, Canandaigua’s fifth brewery, which opened in September at the site of a gutted Byrne Dairy that shuttered in 2018 and conveniently offered plenty of cooler space.

The 10-barrel brewery owned by the husband and wife team of David and Meagan D’Allesandro is the newest addition to a booming beer scene in Canandaigua.

“I think having more of these breweries here that are getting a lot of recognition is only encouraging more people to come here,” David D’Allesandro said. “It’s helping people get out there and explore what there is 50 CITY OCTOBER 2020

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

to offer.”

Canandaigua is a small city of about 10,000, which puts it on the map as having an outsized number of breweries per capita. For scope, Portland, Maine, with a population of about 66,000, was cited last year by VinePair for having the most breweries per capita of the largest 500 cities in the nation, at 1.8 breweries per 10,000 people. Canandaigua more than doubles that ratio.

At Young Lion Brewing, just down the road from Frequentem on South Main Street, owner Jen Newman said there has been a sea change in brewing culture in the region since she opened in 2017.

“I think that the culture of the Finger Lakes overlaps very well with the culture of the brewing community,” Newman said. “It’s a very down to

earth and very supportive community that is a little more laidback. When we put these things together, it makes for a wonderful incubator for brewing.”

Newman serves on the board of the ROC/FLX Craft Beverage Trail, an organization officially formed in 2017 through the Finger Lakes Visitor Connection Center. The goal is to promote the Finger Lakes region as a beverage destination, from wine to beer and spirits.

President and CEO of the Connection Center, Valerie Knoblauch, said there is a thirst right now for anything local.

“The more local it is, the more human it becomes and the more interested you become in the stories behind it,” Knoblauch said. “That’s what’s all melding behind the trail, it’s the stories that tie into everything.”

Each brewery in the region has its own unique backstory.

Newman was a former tech entrepreneur who moved to beer after a series of successes allowed her to pursue a passion project. D’Allesandro is an engineer who picked up homebrewing after a little liquid courage moved him to pick up a brew-in-a-bucket kit. Naked Dove, the first brewery in Canandaigua, was founded by two Genesee Brewing Company coworkers, Dave Schlosser and Don Cotter, in 2010.

Those breweries have wildly different origins, but they all share a common goal: brewing great beer.

“We’re in a good place being here in Canandaigua,” Meagan D’Allesandro said. “The more breweries we have here, the more of a destination it’s going to become for beer drinkers.”

DRINK THIS NOW CHERRY PEACH SOUR ALE from Frequentem Brewing 254 South Main Street, Canandaigua This offering is brewed with Norwegian Kveik yeast, a relatively recent form of fast-fermenting yeast.

While yeast is not the darling of tasting notes compared to boutique hop varietals and the balance of malts, it provides more subtle flavor characteristics of fruit and spice. And, of course, without it, beer is nothing more than sobriety-preserving sugar water. This sour leaves an ultra-crisp finish complemented by a moderate presence of stone fruit and sweetness.

CITROSE from Young Lion Brewing Company 24 Lakeshore Drive, Canandaigua This small batch gose first popped up on Young Lion’s taps when the brewery opened in 2017, and I immediately began begging for it to be put in cans.

My pleas were met in July when the brewery made it a production beer. It’s a simple, low-alcohol, and delightful sour blended with lychee and blood orange.

At the brewery, look for more rotating gose varieties. Past iterations have included a version with Earl Grey tea, and another brewed with cuttlefish ink. Seriously.

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUT from Naked Dove 4048 State Route 5 and 20, Canandaigua Naked Dove turns 10 in November, and has been consistently pumping out this barrel-aged triumph on a seasonal basis. A welcome respite from the modern, ultra sweet “pastry stouts,” Naked Dove’s Russian imperial is deep and rich, bursting with complex notes of roasted coffee, bourbon, cocoa, and preserved fruit.

MOON PERFUME from Peacemaker Brewing Company 39 Coach Street, Canandaigua Two things have remained consistent in my time writing about beer: IPAs remain king, and they unfailingly have great names. Moon Perfume is a double dry-hopped IPA ripe with floral notes and tinges of tropical fruit. It’s bitterness stands halfway between the old school, super-hopped West Coast IPAs and juicy New Englands. Not too soft, not too astringent, Moon Perfume is just right.

ABOUT TOWN Activism

2020 Virtual Interrupt Racism Summit. Oct. 20-21, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

urbanleagueroc.org/summit.

Lectures

5th Annual (Virtual) LGBTQ Historic Walking Tour. Sat., Oct. 3, 5:30 & 7 p.m. landmarksociety.org.

Amended: Telling Untold Suffrage Stories. Mon., Oct. 19, 7 p.m.

Online. Presented by historian Laura Free. Registration is required genevahistoricalsociety.com.

Mourning in the Morning: East Avenue in Its Gilded Age. Sat., Oct. 10, 10:30

a.m.-noon. Online. calendar.libraryweb. org/event/7065360.

Outside Rose Hill: An Exploration of Landscape & Architecture. Thursdays,

11 a.m.-noon. Rose Hill Mansion, 3373 NY 96A . Geneva Reservations are required $6-$10. (315) 789-3848.

Rightfully Hers: Building the Foundation for Freedom, Suffrage, & Equality Webinar Series. Wed., Oct. 21, 7

p.m. and Wed., Oct. 28, 7 p.m. Virtual Genesee Country Village & Museum.

Mumford Centennial celebrations for the passage of the 19th Amendment continue with a series highlighting historic successes and struggles, every Wednesday evening at 7pm through Nov 18. Melinda Grube, a descendant of Seneca Falls abolitionists, launches the series with “Beyond Suffrage: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Radical Reform in Western New York” on Oct 21, followed the next week by “A Chat with Harriet Tubman” on Oct 28, presented by historical interpreter Deborah Washington. Single sessions: $10 ($8 for members); whole series: $40 ($32 for members). Registration required. gcv.org.

Rochester’s Rich History: Playing Politics With Natural Disaster. Sat., Oct. 17, 1-2:30 p.m. Online. Presented by Dr. Timothy Kneeland libraryweb.org.

Rosemary Irwin:. Dr Seuss in World War II. Tue., Oct. 20, 7

Literary Events & Discussions Cave Canem Poets: makalani bandele & Joy Priest. Thu., Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m.

Online. wab.org.

JCC Lane Dworkin Rochester Jewish Book Festival. Oct. 25-Nov. 1. Online.

rjbf.org.

Viral Pandemics: From Smallpox to Covid-19. Sat., Oct. 3, noon. Online.

Writers & Books and Rochester Academy of Medicine team up to launch a timely new book by Rae-Ellen Kavey MD, MPH and Allison B. Kavey, PH.D. The work delves into the last century of viral pandemics, and offers an informed proposal of a global response. The authors will be joined by by infectious disease specialist Dr. Lawrence N. Chessin. Registration is required wab.org.

WOC Art Monthly Book Circle. Mon., Oct. 5, 6:30 p.m. “Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds” by Adrienne Maree Brown. Live on FB.

Kids Events

Chickadee Kids. Sat., Oct. 17, 1 p.m.

Helmer Nature Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave Registration required 336-3035.

Storytime Club: Marvelous Monsters.

Mon., Oct. 5, 10:30 a.m., Mon., Oct. 19, 10:30 a.m. & Mon., Oct. 26, 10:30 a.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. w/ museum admission. ($16).

Kids Exhibits Ongoing

Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Ave. (rmsc.org). Live

Science. Electricity Theatre. Saturdays, Sundays.; Flight to Freedom: Rochester’s Underground Railroad. Ongoing. $14$16.

Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay.org). PopUp Midway. $16.; Fairy Magic. Ongoing. $16.; The Lost World of Dragons.

Through Sep 7. $16.

p.m. Online. Registration required perintonhistoricalsociety.org/events.

Recreation

Spirit Photography: History & Creation.

Eastman Park, Zoo Rd. Registration required. Meet at parking lot on Lakeshore Blvd between Zoo & Log Cabin Rds. rochesterbirding.com.

Leaf Peeping Tree ID. 4 p.m. Helmer Nature Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave $5.

336-3035.

Fri., Oct. 23, 1 p.m. Virtual George Eastman Museum. Registration required eastman.org.

Suffrage, Race, and Quakers: Principles vs Pragmatism. Sun., Oct. 25, 2 p.m.

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion, 151 Charlotte St . Canandaigua An outdoor event presented by historian Judith Wellman. farmingtonmeetinghouse.org.

What to the Black Woman is the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment?.

Mon., Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m. Online. Dr. Susan Goodier, Assistant Professor of History at SUNY Oneonta. 420-8439.

Birding Field Trip. 9 a.m.-noon. Durand

Special Events

50th Anniversary (Virtual) House & Garden Tour. Oct. 9-18. $14-$25. landmarksociety.org.

Agricultural Fair. Oct. 3-4, 10 a.m.-5

p.m. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford Space limited; registration encouraged. $10$18. gcv.org.

Food Truck Friday Pop-Up. Fridays, 2-8 p.m Towne Center at Webster, 1028 Ridge Rd . Webster (315) 663-2100.

Harvest Day. Sat., Oct. 3, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Hunt Country Vineyards, 4021 Italy Hill Rd (County Rd 32) . Branchport Hunt Country updates their Harvest Festival for 2020 with a day of wine, food, music, tours, grape-picking, and even axethrowing. Tours feature Q & A sessions with co-founders Art and Suzanne Hunt on their 50 years of growing grapes and evolving sustainability practices.

Reservations are required for tours, but space is wide to explore the vineyard huntwines.com.

Moonlight Mazes. Fridays, Saturdays, 6-9 p.m Long Acre Farms, 1342 Eddy Rd (315) 986-4202. longacrefarms.com.

RMSC After Dark: Science On The ROCs. Thu., Oct. 22, 7 p.m. Livestream, Online.

Cocktail hour with a scientist, live on FB.

Women in Games 2020 Virtual Celebration. Oct. 19-23. Virtual Strong National Museum of Play, Online museumofplay.org.

Halloween

Haunted Forest Drive-Thru. FridaysSundays, 7-10 p.m Becker Farms, 3724 Quaker Rd Gasport $40. beckerfarms. com/.

Historic Palmyra’s Famous Cemetery Tour. Sat., Oct. 17, 6:30-9 p.m. Palmyra Village Cemetery, 272 Vienna St .

Palmyra Registration required $10/$15. historicpalmyrany.com.

“Not So Spooky” Spooky Story Book Walk. Fri., Oct. 16, 4 p.m. Helmer Nature

Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave Registration required $5. 336-3035.

Silly Monsters. Sat., Oct. 31, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay.org) On Halloween, families can scare up some sillies with more-silly-than-scary monsters at the Strong’s Sesame Street exhibit. Activities include a screening of “The Monsters at the End of This Story,” Monster Bingo, monster crafts, dancing to monster music, and more. w/ museum admission ($16).

Spirits of the Past: A Walk in the Dark.

Fridays, Saturdays, 5-9:30 p.m. and Sun., Oct. 18, 5-9:30 p.m Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford Not recommended for children age 12 & under. Reservations required; bring a flashlight $18/$20. gcv.org.

Trick-or-Treating in the Village. Fri., Oct. 30 and Sat., Oct. 31. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford gcv.org.

roccitynews.org CITY 51

2020 BEST OF ROCHESTER

MOST RESILIENT

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

Perhaps more than any other year in recent memory, 2020 seems like an odd and unsettling time to be celebrating what’s “best” in our community. While there is certainly much of which to be proud about the Greater Rochester area and the people who call it home, the death of Daniel Prude and the effects of COVID-19 have made things particularly sobering here in the Flower City.

And yet our resiliency — as demonstrated by many winners of CITY’s 2020 Best of Rochester readers’ poll — gives me hope. Rochesterians have spoken out against the loss of Black lives and police misconduct, led in part by activists such as Free the People Roc (Best Local Activist Group) and Danielle Ponder (Best Local Humanitarian, Best Solo Musician). Shawn Dunwoody (Best Local Artist, Best Muralist, Best Art Exhibit of 2020) helped to make the rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement impossible to ignore through his public art.

Our community has also carried on in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Arts organizations such as Geva Theatre Center (Local Theater Company That Best Weathered the Pandemic) adapted to the reality of empty stages and created quarantine-friendly content, and local businesses such as Park Ave Bike Shop (Best Bike Shop), Talking Heads Hair Parlor & Curio Shoppe (Best Place to Get a Haircut), and Dogtown (Best Cheap Eats, Best Place for a Rochester “Plate”) have continued in their roles as fixtures about town.

In addition to the results from your “Best of ” ballots, we’ve got CITY’s own picks for local places and activities that are worth spotlighting.

Kate Stathis provides an overview of pizzerias named after “Tony,” Renée Heininger writes about outdoor activities that are conducive in the COVID era, and Leah Stacy highlights the nature wine pop-up store of Aldaskeller Wine Co. Thank you to the more-than-10,000 readers who submitted their votes for Best of Rochester. We hope you enjoy this snapshot of the people, places, and things that make us proud to be Rochesterians.

CATEGORY NAVIGATING THE WINNERS

WINNER

LOCATION; ONLINE/SOCIAL

Why they stand out (by Frank DeBlase) RUNNERS-UP

52 CITY OCTOBER 2020

BEST FOOD & DRINK BEST PIZZA PONTILLO’S

SEVERAL AREA LOCATIONS; PONTILLOSPIZZA.COM

BEST FISH FRY

CRITICS PICK

TAP & MALLET

AND THE TONY GOES TO…

381 GREGORY STREET; TAPANDMALLET.COM Bill Gray’s | Palmer’s Direct to You Market | The Old Toad

BEST PLACE FOR A ROCHESTER “PLATE” DOGTOWN

691 MONROE AVENUE; DOGTOWNHOTS.COM Nick Tahou Hots | The Red Fern | Steve T. Hots & Potatoes

Fresh dough made daily since 1947.

Man, that’s a lot of dough.

Mark’s Pizzeria | The Pizza Stop | Salvatore’s

BEST BURGER

Restaurant Good Luck

Good Smoke BBQ | Sticky Lips | Texas Bar-B-Q Joint

BEST WINGS JEREMIAH’S TAVERN

SEVERAL AREA LOCATIONS; JEREMIAHSTAVERN.COM

Wings are like sex: Even when they’re bad, they are still good. Jeremiah’s Tavern will make love to your taste buds.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Q | Duff’s Famous Wings | Windjammers Bar and Grill

CAPTAINTONYS.COM

With just a few stools in front, the real action at this no-nonsense stop is behind the counter. These guys hustle, slinging pan-style, Chicago-style, NY-style, whole wheat pizzas, and lots of specialties. To avoid the fuss, order The Big Tony and fuhgeddaboudit.

There is no shame here. Tony’s lineage traces back to the original Proietti’s on Goodman, and the walls are painted a bright shade of Irondequoit. Slices are huge (or "Huuuge!!!!!" as seen on the box), and the crisp, even crust is easily devoured.

Bill Gray’s | The Gate House |

You don’t need directions to get to this joint.

Just follow your nose.

385 NORTH WINTON ROAD.

IRONDEQUOIT. 266TONY.COM

They aren’t kidding. Juicy, juicy, juicy… napkin-worthy if you add grilled onions to your order.

99 COURT STREET; DINOSAURBARBQUE.COM

CAPTAIN TONY’S PIZZA & PASTA EMPORIUM,

2 TON TONY’S PIZZA, 545 TITUS AVENUE,

820 SOUTH CLINTON STREET; THEPLAYHOUSEROC.COM

DINOSAUR BAR-B-QUE

MOST NEIGHBORHOOD TONY

MOST PROUD TO BE TONY

SWILLBURGER

BEST BARBECUE

Readers came through with so many nominees for Best Pizza, we had to take a closer look. But where to start with all these great shops? I’d bet any pizzeria worth its sauce connects to a Tony somewhere, and as a direct descendant of a Tony myself, I know they deserve an award. A non-comprehensive list of winners:

BEST BAGEL BALSAM BAGELS

288 NORTH WINTON ROAD; BALSAMBAGELS.COM

Wanna get me to shut up? Just feed me an everything bagel with lox and walnut cream cheese.

Bagel Land | Brownstein’s Deli & Bakery | Wegmans

BEST FRIED CAKES/ DOUGHNUTS RIDGE DONUT CAFE

1600 PORTLAND AVENUE; RIDGEDONUTS.COM Boxcar Donuts & Fried Chicken | Donuts Delite | Misfit Doughnuts & Treats CONTINUED ON PAGE 54

MOST ROCHESTER TONY TONY’S BIRDLAND & PIZZERIA, 3860 DEWEY AVENUE (NORTHGATE PLAZA).

TONYSBIRDLAND.COM

Once a staple on the scene, the many Birdlands of our local fast food heyday have since flown the coop. That’s why it’s a classic move to order “Tony’s sauce,” even with the pizza.

TONIEST TONY TONY D’S, 288 EXCHANGE BOULEVARD. TONYDS.NET

This night-on-the-town Tony is the class act of the family. A dinner destination complete with cocktails, Tony D’s boasts a menu of Italian entrees and fancy artisan pizzas. The Margherita and Bianca are mainstays, while inventive chef ’s special pizzas rotate weekly – all made with fresh ingredients.

— BY KATHERINE STATHIS roccitynews.org CITY 53

BEST CARIBBEAN RESTAURANT PEPPA POT

522 EAST MAIN STREET; EATATPEPPAPOT.COM/MENU

Authentic Jamaican cuisine for those who like a little heat with their meat. Sweet and savory.

A great spot for goat or oxtails.

Carribean Heritage Restaurant | D’Mangu | Livie’s Jamaican Restaurant

BEST ASIAN RESTAURANT HAN NOODLE BAR 687 MONROE AVENUE; HANNOODLEBAR.COM

“No fusion. No gimmicks,” Han’s website touts.

And it ain't kiddin'.

Chen Garden | Flavors of Asia | The King & I

BEST FOOD CART/ FOOD TRUCK

BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT

BEST VEGETARIAN/ VEGAN EATS

LE PETIT POUTINE

OLD PUEBLO GRILL

THE OWL HOUSE

Everybody raves about the poutine, but have you tried their lemon squares? They bring the tarty to the party.

Best north-of-the-border fare.

They do huevos rancheros right.

Hearty fare served in an intimate setting.

You won’t miss the meat when you eat here.

Monte Alban Mexican Grill |

New Ethic Pizzeria & Cafe | The Red Fern |

Kocina Stingray Sushifusion | Macarolliin’ |

Neno’s Gourmet Mexican Street Food |

Voula’s Greek Sweets

Neno’s Gourmet Mexican Street Food

Salena’s Mexican Restaurant

LEPETITPOUTINE.COM; @LEPETITPOUTINE

BEST DINER HIGHLAND PARK DINER

960 SOUTH CLINTON AVENUE; FACEBOOK.COM/HIGHLANDPARKDINER

A diner with all-American fare, and one of the strongest cups of coffee in town.

Jay’s Diner | The Original Steve’s Diner | South Wedge Diner

BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT RESTAURANT FIORELLA

5 ROCHESTER PUBLIC MARKET; RESTAURANTFIORELLA.COM

First-generation Italian-American chef Gino Ruggiero brings Italian dishes from farm to table.

Mr. Dominic’s | Guido’s Pasta Villa | Rocco

55 RUSSELL STREET; OLDPUEBLOGRILLROC.COM

BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT NAAN-TASTIC

100 MARKETPLACE DRIVE, HENRIETTA; NAAN-TASTIC.COM

Offering a melange of Indian food you can assemble as hot or as not as you wish.

Amaya Indian Cuisine | India House | Thali of India

BEST CHEF JOE ZOLNIEROWSKI

AT NOSH (47 RUSSELL STREET; NOSHROC.COM) AND OLD PUEBLO GRILL (55 RUSSELL STREET; OLDPUEBLOGRILLROC.COM)

A native of Tucson, Arizona, Zolnierowski delivers a taste of "home" here in Rochester.

Mark Cupolo (Rocco/Rella) | Dan Martello (Restaurant Good Luck) | Richard Reddington (REDD)

BEST MEDITERRANEAN RESTAURANT

BEST COFFEE

ALADDIN’S NATURAL EATERY

16 GIBBS STREET; JAVASCAFE.COM

646 MONROE AVENUE; 8 SCHOEN PLACE, PITTSFORD; MYALADDINS.COM

If you remember just one thing, save room for the baklava.

Cedar Mediterranean | Sinbad’s | Voula’s Greek Sweets

54 CITY OCTOBER 2020

75 MARSHALL STREET; OWLHOUSEROCHESTER.COM

JAVA’S

Not only is the java jumpin’ here, but this joint is a cool hang as well.

Fuego Coffee Roasters | Glen Edith Coffee Roasters | Ugly Duck Coffee

BEST OUTDOOR DINING (COVID-INSPIRED OR OTHERWISE)

GENESEE BREW HOUSE

25 CATARACT STREET; GENESEEBEER.COM/BREWHOUSE

Part brewery, part museum. The outside dining area gives you a primo view of High Falls, while you sip suds and sample culinary selections from the beer-friendly menu.

K2 Brothers Brewing | Restaurant Good Luck | Tap & Mallet

BEST CHEAP EATS DOGTOWN

691 MONROE AVENUE; DOGTOWNHOTS.COM

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the dog in the bun. The Caribbean Wild Dog comes highly recommended.

Aladdin’s Natural Eatery | Cedar Mediterranean | John’s Tex Mex

BEST PANDEMIC-INSPIRED INNOVATION BY A RESTAURANT OR BAR COCKTAILS TO-GO/ COCKTAIL POUCHES

Brandon Opalich pours curated wine selections at an Aldaskeller Wine Co. pop-up tasting event in 2019.

PHOTO BY JASON CAMPBELL

CRITICS PICK BEST OUTDOOR POP-UP: ALDASKELLER WINE CO. AT MARTY’S ON PARK Natural wine started gaining mainstream traction a few years ago, but no local food and beverage outlet has taken hold of the trend-turning-fixture like Aldaskeller Wine Co., a pop-up that pairs natural wines and cuisine in found (or hired) venues.

ROAR online drag shows |

Co-founders Tim Benedict (cuisine), Brandon Opalich (wine) and Erin Francisco Opalich (operations) believe in education along with enjoyment, so every event has a bit of culinary learning built in as well. The trio spent summer 2019 popping up at Swan Dive on Alexander Street during the week, offering a la carte pairings with grilled snacks on the patio. Beginning this past July, the Aldaskeller crew took over the charming Marty’s on Park alley - outfitted with twinkling string lights and potted plants - to present curated natural wine and snack pairings like charbroiled oysters and summer kimchi every Saturday and Sunday. aldaskellerwineco.com

Swiftwater online ordering and beer drive-thru

— BY LEAH STACY

MANY LOCAL BARS AND RESTAURANTS

Lux outdoor seating and Luxables |

BEST REGIONAL WINERY LIVING ROOTS WINE & CO. 1255 UNIVERSITY AVENUE; LIVINGROOTSWINE.COM

Taking the best of wines from both the Finger Lakes region and Adelaide, South Australia, and bringing them to you.

Casa Larga | Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery | Three Brothers Wineries & Estates

BEST REGIONAL BREWERY

BEST REGIONAL DISTILLERY

THREE HEADS BREWING

BLACK BUTTON DISTILLING

3HB exudes dedication and passion for beer and those who drink it. And don’t forget its commitment to local music.

Founded in 2012, Black Button Distilling is the first grain-to-glass craft distillery to open in Rochester since prohibition ended in 1933.

Genesee Brewing Company | Rohrbach Brew-

Honeoye Falls Distillery | Hollerhorn Distilling

ing Company | Swiftwater Brewing

| Iron Smoke Distillery

186 ATLANTIC AVENUE; THREEHEADSBREWING.COM

85 RAILROAD STREET; BLACKBUTTONDISTILLING.COM

CONTINUED ON PAGE 56

roccitynews.org CITY 55

BEST BAKERY SAVOIA PASTRY SHOPPE 2267 CLIFFORD AVENUE; SAVOIAPASTRY.COM

An Italian meal just ain’t finished until it’s washed down with some coffee and this bakery’s delicious cookies.

Get Caked | Leo’s Bakery & Deli | Scratch

BEST BAR FOR CRAFT COCKTAILS THE REVELRY

1290 UNIVERSITY AVENUE; THEREVELRYROC.COM

Elixirs and potions at the ready for whatever ails you. Try a Nihilist or a Muddy Waters.

Cheshire | Cure | The Spirit Room

Bakeshop

BEST CANDY/ CHOCOLATE SHOP HEDONIST ARTISAN CHOCOLATES

674 SOUTH AVENUE; HEDONISTCHOCOLATES.COM

This is Disneyland for your tastebuds. Don’t forget to try the shop’s ice cream, especially its take on salted caramel.

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR LUX LOUNGE

666 SOUTH AVENUE; LUX666.COM

If Screamin’ Jay Hawkins were still alive and lived in the South Wedge, he would be found at the end of Lux Lounge’s bar, sipping Alligator Wine.

Dicky’s Corner Pub | Marshall Street Bar and Grill | The Spirit Room

Andy’s Candies | Laughing Gull Chocolates | Stever’s Candies

BEST BAR FOR BEER TAP AND MALLET

BEST HAPPY HOUR

BEST GOODS & SERVICES BEST BIKE SHOP PARK AVE BIKE SHOP

300 HIGH STREET, VICTOR; 600 JAY SCUTTI BOULEVARD, HENRIETTA; TOMSPROBIKE.COM

You can get your old bike tuned up or repaired, or you can get one built from the ground up.

Either way, you’ll be rollin’.

DreamBikes | Full Moon Vista Bike & Sport | Towpath Bike

NOSH

47 RUSSELL STREET; NOSHROC.COM

BEST VIRTUAL FITNESS WORKOUT

Acme Bar & Pizza | Lux Lounge | ROAR

M/BODY

381 GREGORY STREET; TAPANDMALLET.COM

1048 UNIVERSITY AVENUE; MBODYROCHESTER.COM

Best bar for a beer… or two, or three. Plenty of brews, microbrews, IPAs, and fried chicken on the menu.

You can work out to M/Body’s streaming workout without leaving your house. It may be a virtual workout, but the sweat will be real.

MacGregor’s Grill & Tap Room | Rochester

JCC | Mike Stanbrough / Coach Mike Online |

Beer Park | Swiftwater Brewing

Positive Force Movement

BEST PLACE TO GET A HAIRCUT TALKING HEADS HAIR PARLOR & CURIO SHOPPE 179 ST. PAUL STREET; TALKINGHEADSHAIRPARLOR.COM

BEST BARTENDER BEST BAR FOR WINE LIVING ROOTS WINE & CO. 1255 UNIVERSITY AVENUE; LIVINGROOTSWINE.COM

Taking the best of wines from both the Finger Lakes region and Adelaide, South Australia, and bringing them to you.

Apogee | Flight | Solera

56 CITY OCTOBER 2020

ANTHONY HAYWARD

LUX LOUNGE, 666 SOUTH AVENUE; LUX666.COM

It’s smiling faces like that of Hayward, as he sets up the drinks behind Lux Lounge’s bar, that makes it more of a “deluxe lounge.”

Donnie Clutterbuck (Cure) | Tami Paladino (ROAR) | Jacob Rakovan (The Spirit Room)

There are taxidermied animals and other creatures on display, as well as funereal ephemera and curious curios. And, of course, a knowledgeable staff that knows its way around a head.

Barbetorium | Chi Wah Organica | Joe’s Upscale Barbering + Beauty Loft

BEST FLORIST KITTELBERGER FLORIST & GIFTS

263 NORTH AVENUE, WEBSTER; KITTELBERGERFLORIST.COM

Since 1928, Kittelberger Florist & Gifts has kept Rochester — the Flower City — looking and smelling pretty.

Arena’s | Rockcastle Florist | Stacy K Floral

BEST SECONDHAND STORE LITTLE SHOP OF HOARDERS 131 GREGORY STREET; SHOPHOARDERS.COM

More than a mere vintage clothing store. Here you can pick up one-of-a-kind artwork along with that “Keep On Truckin’” shirt you’ve had your eye on.

Abode | The Op Shop | Greenovation

BEST PLACE TO BUY KITSCH PARKLEIGH

215-235 PARK AVENUE; PARKLEIGH.COM

It hasn’t been a pharmacy since 1986, but it’s still got plenty of kitschy cool for whatever ails your hipster soul.

Archimage | Greenovation | Record Archive

BEST TATTOO ARTIST

CRITICS PICK BEST NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVITY IN THE PANDEMIC ERA: NORTH WINTON VILLAGE FAIRY FINDER SCAVENGER HUNT Being a good neighbor has looked a little different in 2020. For many Rochesterians, it’s meant sharing in mutual aid groups. For others, it was buying Black Lives Matter lawn signs in bulk for the whole block, or waving to graduates in makeshift parades. In the North Winton Village, neighborhood children and their families spent long summer days looking out for much smaller neighbors: fairies.

While fairy houses aren’t new to the neighborhood, their creative abodes seemed to duplicate by the day this spring, likely due in part to many residents looking for crafts to fill Visit the enchanting fairy gardens in the North Winton Village. time at home. When the school year came to a PHOTO BY RENÉE HEININGER close, Alia Evans, a non-fairy resident and mom of two school-aged children, realized that there were enough fairy friends living in the neighborhood to put a proper scavenger hunt together. Fellow North Winton Village resident Jan Friend made collectible cards for would-be investigators to find at each fairy house. On July 10, the North Winton Village Fairy Finder Scavenger Hunt was born.

Evans says that as long as the weather cooperates, the hunt continues. Maps with clues can be found in the Little Free Libraries on Amsterdam Road and Colebourne Road.

— BY RENÉE HEININGER

BEST RECORD STORE RECORD ARCHIVE

33 1/3 ROCKWOOD STREET; RECORDARCHIVE.COM

WHITE TIGER TATTOO, 466 WEST RIDGE ROAD; WHITETIGERTATTOO. COM, INSTAGRAM.COM/CATACOMB.KID

This place has anything and everything for the serious record audiophile, toy collector, novelty nerd, and people like you and me. There’s a wine and beer bar, too.

TeeJay Dill (White Tiger) | Kyle Downs (Old

Bop Shop Records | House of Guitars |

Friends) | Adam Francey (Love Hate) |

Needle Drop Records

Brianna Nichols (Pyramid Arts) | Hannah Rose (Pyramid Arts)

BEST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT STORE

BEST PIERCER

HOUSE OF GUITARS

EMMA SCALA

BEST PET-RELATED BUSINESS LOLLYPOP FARM HUMANE SOCIETY OF GREATER ROCHESTER 99 VICTOR ROAD, FAIRPORT; LOLLYPOP.ORG

I’m warning you now: Don’t make eye contact with any of the furry little creatures here. You’ll wind up falling in love, and with a house full of cats and dogs you can’t say no to.

Bones Bakery | Park Ave. Pets | Tuxedo’s K9 Training Camp

NICK GIORDANO

645 TITUS AVENUE, IRONDEQUOIT; HOUSEOFGUITARS.COM

Tom Gottschalk (Dorje Adornments) |

Billing itself as the “Largest Guitar Store in the World,” House of Guitars keeps an extensive collection of new, used, and vintage instruments.

Jason Morningstar (Primitive Impressions) |

Atlas Music | Bernunzio Uptown Music |

302 NORTH GOODMAN STREET; NOXCOCKTAIL.COM

John Signorino (Icon Piercing Studio)

Sound Source

Just Games | Millennium Games

DORJE ADORNMENTS, 60 PARK AVENUE; DORJEADORNMENTS.COM

BEST GEEK-FRIENDLY BUSINESS NOX COCKTAIL LOUNGE

roccitynews.org CITY 57

BEST OF WHO WE ARE

BEST LOCAL PODCAST FOOD ABOUT TOWN FOODABOUTTOWN.COM

This podcast celebrates Rochester’s diverse culture by way of its myriad flavors and food.

It’s a kitchen window into the heart and soul of the city.

Anomaly Presents | Hell Weekly | Loud Feelings Podcast

MOST IMPORTANT LOCAL NEWS STORY OVERLOOKED IN 2020

BEST LOCAL HUMANITARIAN DANIELLE PONDER DANIELLEPONDER.COM

Best known for her powerful singing voice, Ponder is also a leading voice of the local Black Lives Matter movement.

BEST LOCAL MEDIA PERSONALITY

Iman Abid | Shawn Dunwoody |

SCOTT HETSKO

Sister Grace Miller

BEST LOCAL ACTIVIST GROUP FREE THE PEOPLE ROC

TWITTER.COM/SCOTTHETSKO; FACEBOOK.COM/SCOTT-HETSKO

The beat goes on for this popular meteorologist five years after his high-profile heart transplant.

Adam Chodak (News 8 WROC) | Evan Dawson (WXXI) |

FACEBOOK.COM/FTPROC; INSTAGRAM.COM/FTP_ROC

Brother Wease (Radio 95.1 FM)

A necessary and effective grassroots movement, this group has taken to the frontlines in protests against police brutality and systemic racism following the death of Daniel Prude.

BEST LOCAL TV NEWS STATION

Hope Dealers BTC | Metro Justice |

13WHAM.COM; @13WHAM

Project AIR

SPORTS TEAM WE MISSED THE MOST IN 2020 ROCHESTER RED WINGS MILB.COM/ROCHESTER

C’mon, it’s America’s pastime and we’ve got Fred Costello on the organ, too. Play ball, please!

Buffalo Bills | Rochester Americans | Rochester Roller Derby

BEST LOCAL RADIO STATION 1370 WXXI

WXXINEWS.ORG 88.5 WRUR | 90.5 WBER | 104.3 WAYO 58 CITY OCTOBER 2020

13 WHAM

The anchor team of Don Alhart and Ginny Ryan has long been a local favorite, and Jane Flasch’s investigative reports are not to be missed.

8 WROC | 10 WHEC | WXXI Television

POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY AND MISCONDUCT

In light of the death of Daniel Prude, the calls for justice are only getting louder, and more attention is being paid to this story.

All things COVID-19 | Black Lives Matter | Climate change and the climate emergency

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD GARDEN HIGHLAND PARK

MONROECOUNTY.GOV/PARKS-HIGHLAND

Highland Park’s Garden’s beauty can be credited to its designer, F.L. Olmsted (18221903). Highland Park, known for its lilacs and the festival that bears that flower’s name, is one of 500 commissions that Olmsted completed over his career.

490 Farmers | First Market Farm | Maplewood Rose Garden | Sofrito Garden

BEST SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT

BEST CORNER STORE

THE INNER LOOP BLOG

Offering quality, freshly-prepared food and products that you won’t find a typical corner store.

Can’t find it? They’ll do their best to get it for you.

INNERLOOPBLOG.COM; INSTAGRAM. COM/INNERLOOPBLOG; FACEBOOK. COM/INNERLOOPBLOG

If there is only one good thing coming from these “difficult times,” it’s the wisenheimers who run this blog. You'll squirt milk out your nose.

Explore Rochester | Rochester Red Wings | Sir Rocha Says

HIGHLAND MARKET HIGHLANDMKT.COM

999 Market | Nathaniel Square Corner Store | R’s Market

BEST ARTS &

BEST LIVE DJ DJ MIGHTY MIC DJ Chreath | DJ Darkwave | DJ Naps

BEST LOCAL AUTHOR PUBLISHED IN 2020

ENTERTAINMENT

DAVE CHISHOLM

BEST LOCAL ORIGINAL BAND

An illustrator who moonlights as a music teacher, Chisholm is quickly being recognized nationally as a prominent graphic novelist.

DAVECHISHOLMMUSIC.COM; FACEBOOK.COM/DAVECHISHOLMMUSICANDCOMICS

DANIELLE PONDER AND THE TOMORROW PEOPLE

Georgia Beers | David Cay Johnston | Sejal Shah

DANIELLEPONDER.COM

This band focuses around the tireless energy and light of its leader, Danielle Ponder. It’s soul and hip-hop like you’ve never heard.

BEST BOOK OF 2020 WRITTEN BY A LOCAL AUTHOR

Joywave | The Invictas | Teagan and the Tweeds

BEST LOCAL SOLO MUSICIAN

“ANXIETY...I’M SO DONE WITH YOU” BY JODI AMAN

DANIELLE PONDER

A teen’s guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness.

JODIAMAN.COM/BOOKS

DANIELLEPONDER.COM; FACEBOOK. COM/DANIELLEPONDERMUSIC

Danielle Ponder is a force of nature. This lady is an activist, advocate, and artist, before you peg her as merely a musician. She’s utterly righteous.

Jackson Cavalier | Paul Strowe | Teagan Ward

“ART From the SOUL” by Israel Ortiz | “Canopus” by Dave Chisholm | “Hold On:

BEST LOCAL ALBUM OF 2020

PHOTO BY KEVIN BENNETT

“POSSESSION” BY JOYWAVE JOYWAVEMUSIC.COM

Regardless of its hometown address, Joywave is a simply sensational band that flirts with electronica elements in its catchy power pop songs.

“Human BBQ” by Harmonica Lewinski | “Two//Four” by Jackson Cavalier | “Vol. 2” by The Weight We Carry

BEST LOCAL HIP HOP ACT

BEST LIVE MUSIC VENUE

MOSES ROCKWELL

BUG JAR

MOSESROCKWELL.BANDCAMP.COM

Moses Rockwell mixes insightful spoken word with harder-hitting hip hop. It’s smooth, it’s infectious, it’s real gone.

MdotCoop | Donny Murakami | Tugboat

219 MONROE AVENUE; BUGJAR.COM

Featuring the best touring acts such as Screaming Females, as well as up-and-coming local talent like The Stedwells. Diverse and eclectic.

The Story of Our Friend Eddie Money” by Dresden Engle | “Jaw” by Al Abonado | “The Pandemic of Creation” by Gaelen McCormick and Dr. Sraddha Prativadi | “Prairie Lotus”

by Linda Sue Park | “The Problem With Zero” by Frank Edwards | “This is One Way to Dance” by Sejal Shah | “When Buffalo Sat Atop the Sports World” by Sal Maiorana

BEST LOCAL POET RACHEL MCKIBBENS @RACHELMCKIBBENS; RACHELMCKIBBENS.COM

A poet, playwright, and activist, McKibbens is a prominent member of the poetry slam community whose work is recognized nationally.

Andy Conley | Charlie Cote | Jacob Rakovan CONTINUED ON PAGE 60

Abilene Bar & Lounge | Anthology | CMAC

roccitynews.org CITY 59

BEST LOCAL MURALIST SHAWN DUNWOODY

DUNWOODE.DESIGN; INSTAGRAM.COM/SHAWNDUNWOODY

Dunwoody’s art is as big and bold as his ideals.

The city is his canvas.

Aerosol Kingdom / Mr. PRVRT / Justin Suarez | Sarah C. Rutherford | Brittany Williams

BEST ART EXHIBIT OF 2020

BLACK LIVES MATTER AT MLK JR. PARK, SHAWN DUNWOODY AND THE ROCHESTER COMMUNITY DUNWOODE.DESIGN; INSTAGRAM.COM/SHAWNDUNWOODY

Artist Shawn Dunwoody led the painting of “Black Lives Matter” to illustrate the size of the conflict and abuse felt by people of color.

6X6 2020, Rochester Contemporary | Master of Art Nouveau: Alphonse Mucha, Memorial Art Gallery | PHOTO BY QUAJAY DONNELL

BEST LOCAL ARTIST SHAWN DUNWOODY

DUNWOODE.DESIGN; INSTAGRAM.COM/SHAWNDUNWOODY

Shawn Dunwoody is unquestionably at the top of his game.

John Magnus Champlin | Jason Dorofy | Sarah C. Rutherford

LOCAL THEATER COMPANY THAT BEST WEATHERED THE PANDEMIC GEVA THEATRE CENTER GEVATHEATRE.ORG

To quarantine or not to quarantine. That is the question — and apparently the answer, too.

Geva keeps it going with a reimagined 2020-21 season, starting off with an audio play titled “Recognition Radio: an Audio Play Festival Featuring Black Voices.”

BEST LOCAL COMEDIAN/ COMEDY TROUPE NUTS & BOLTS

NABCOMEDY.COM; FACEBOOK.COM/NABCOMEDY

Started by two high school friends who were tired of making each other laugh, this ensemble has something for everyone.

Ilhan Ali | Polite Ink. | Malcolm Whitfield

BEST LOCAL DANCE COMPANY GARTH FAGAN DANCE 50 CHESTNUT STREET; GARTHFAGANDANCE.ORG

Not only is the world-renowned Garth Fagan recognized for his splendid choreography, but he’s done it for 50 years, with most of those years rooted right here in Rochester.

The Pantone Series, Stacey Rowe

LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHER WHO BEST CAPTURED 2020 JOHN KUCKO

FACEBOOK.COM/JOHNKUCKODIGITAL/PHOTOS; INSTAGRAM.COM/ JOHNKUCKO

A self-described “longtime TV guy who loves shooting with the camera,” Kucko captures some of Rochester’s most recognizable landscapes.

Gretchen Arnold | Quajay Donnell | Jim Montanus | Gerry Szymanski | Aaron Winters

MOST MISSED LOCAL FESTIVAL OF 2020

ROCHESTER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL ROCHESTERJAZZ.COM

By far the most-hyped festival in town, this event packs the East End and draws international attention.

Biodance | Frazee Feet Dance |

Lilac Festival | Park Avenue Festival |

Blackfriars Theatre | OFC Creations |

PUSH Physical Theatre |

Rochester Pride

WallByrd Theatre Co.

Rochester City Ballet

60 CITY OCTOBER 2020

BEST LOCAL FAMILY-FRIENDLY ATTRACTION STRONG NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PLAY

1 MANHATTAN SQUARE DRIVE MUSEUMOFPLAY.ORG

Remember being a kid and going to a museum and not being able to touch anything?

Yeah, that doesn't happen here.

Rochester Museum & Science Center | Seabreeze | Seneca Park Zoo

BEST LOCAL DRAG PERFORMER DEEDEE DUBOIS

FACEBOOK.COM/DEEDEE.DUBOIS INSTAGRAM.COM/DEEDEEDUBOIS

You’ll bust a gut from DeeDee Dubois’ raunchy humor. You’ll have so much fun, they’ll have to drag you away (sorry, not sorry).

Mrs. Kasha Davis | Kyla Minx | Wednesday Westwood

BEST

NIGHTLIFE BEST PLACE TO GO DANCING

BEST PLACE TO TAKE A FIRST DATE RADIO SOCIAL

20 CARLSON ROAD; RADIO-SOCIAL.COM

Life-sized Jenga, billiards, arcade games, cornhole, awesome chow, top-shelf booze, and bowling. Mark it an eight, Smokey.

Highland Park | Swillburger/Playhouse | The Little Theatre

BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE WATCH PARK AVENUE Need we say more?

Ontario Beach Park | Cobbs Hill | Wegmans

BEST

OF THE OUTDOORS BEST DAY HIKE

LETCHWORTH STATE PARK

1 LETCHWORTH STATE PARK, CASTILE; PARKS.NY.GOV/PARKS/LETCHWORTH

At about an hour’s drive away, it’s a hike.

But there are beautiful waterfalls and places to picnic. And it’s good exercise.

Chimney Bluffs | Corbett’s Glen | Mendon

LUX LOUNGE

Ponds Park

ROAR | Vertex | Vinyl

BEST BIKING TRAIL

666 SOUTH AVENUE; LUX666.COM

BEST JUKE BOX MARGE’S LAKESIDE INN

4909 CULVER ROAD, IRONDEQUOIT; MARGESLAKESIDEINN.COM

The best thing about this jukebox is its override switch behind the bar. It’s there so you’re not stuck singing “Escape (the Pina Colada Song).”

Lux Lounge | Salinger’s | Skylark

ERIE CANALWAY TRAIL Genesee Riverway Trail | Irondequoit Bay Park West | Tryon Park

BEST PLACE TO SWIM OUTDOORS CANANDAIGUA LAKE Durand-Eastman Park | Hamlin Beach State Park | Ontario Beach Park

PHOTO BY JIM HASCHMAN

CRITICS PICK MOST UNDERRATED QUARANTINE WORKOUT: ROLLERBLADING It’s no secret that COVID shook up our warm-weather workouts. Gyms?

Closed. Races? Canceled. Adult sports leagues? Forget it. But it didn’t take long for Rochesterians to figure out what Roc City Roller Derby has known for years. Putting wheels on your feet is really fun. Yeah, I’m talking about inline and roller skating.

Troy Rank of East Rochester, a longtime rollerblader, spotted the shift. “It is kind of dramatic to see the difference, he said. “Before, it was an anomaly to see someone new at the skatepark, now there’s always someone new.”

As spring emerged in the early days of the pandemic, and with local rinks like Skate Luvers closed, nature called.

Roller (or “quad”) skaters were all over Instagram treating flat paved surfaces like their own personal disco. Mid-summer, Cib Crew Rochester popped up online and at the local skate parks.

Skating has the makings of the perfect quarantine workout. Unlike jogging with a pal, it necessitates more personal space. Also, it’s arguably much easier on the lungs — and joints — than a run, so masking up is no sweat.

— BY RENÉE HEININGER

CONTINUED ON PAGE 62

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BEST PLACE TO CROSS-COUNTRY SKI

BEST TOBOGGANING HILL

BEST PICK-UP BASKETBALL

MENDON PONDS PARK

COBBS HILL

COBBS HILL PARK

MONROECOUNTY.GOV/PARKS-MENDONPONDS Durand-Eastman Park | Ellison Park | Harriet

CITYOFROCHESTER.GOV/COBBSHILL Ellison Park | Highland Park | Mendon Ponds Park

Hollister Spencer State Recreation Area

BEST GUIDED OUTDOOR TOUR

FRIENDS OF MT. HOPE CEMETERY TOURS OF MT. HOPE CEMETERY FOMH.ORG

Take a stroll through the 196-acre grounds where Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, among other local icons, are laid to rest.

Cummings Nature Center | Friends of Mt. Hope Cemetery tours of Mt. Hope Cemetery | Genesee Country Village & Museum | Lower Falls Foundation tours | Sam Patch | Wild Wings

BEST FISHING SPOT IT’S A SECRET Genesee River | Irondequoit Bay | Oatka Creek

BEST WEEKEND GETAWAY ADIRONDACKS Finger Lakes | Ithaca | Skaneateles

BEST PLACE FOR STARGAZING COBBS HILL

CITYOFROCHESTER.GOV/COBBSHILL Mendon Ponds Park | Ontario Beach Park / the Charlotte Pier | Webster Park

62 CITY OCTOBER 2020

CITYOFROCHESTER.GOV/COBBSHILL

Eager ballers will have no trouble finding a game from spring through fall at one of Rochester’s premier parks.

Basil Park, Greece | The court at Atlantic and Merriman | Good News Church | Humboldt R-Center | Mt. Hope Avenue courts | Norton Village R-Center | YMCA

BEST PLACE FOR A LONG RUN OR WALK (DON’T SAY A SHORT PIER)

ERIE CANALWAY TRAIL Cobbs Hill | Genesee Riverway Trail | Mendon Ponds Park

THE END

Thanks for voting. Thanks for reading!

CROSSWORD

Answers to this puzzle can be found on page 45

Snack food choice Puzzle by J. Reynolds

Across 1. ___ mistake (blew it) 6. "___ De-Lovely" 9. Baseball tally 14. Brainstorms 15. "Well, lah-di___" 16. One of a road crew 17. Summer ailment 19. "Like me" 20. Et ___ 21. Absorb, as a cost 23. Middle of March 24. Final authority 26. Charged item 28. Biblical kingdom 31. Actresses standin 36. Singers Nelson and others 38. Castaway's site 39. Docs' org.

40. "Agnus ___" 41. It's south of Eur. 43. Born, in France 44. Green hole 45. Mineral suffix 46. Flower girl, sometimes 48. Short-winded 50. Marks the new year 53. Specks 54. "___ la la!"

55. Japanese port 57. QB Tarkenton 60. Go on and on 62. Error 66. Court wear 68. This puzzle's theme 70. Do-nothing 71. Actor Gibson

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Down 1. Catchall abbr.

2. Together, musically 3. Fender blemish 4. Passes gingerly 5. Latin stars 6. Bachelor's last words 7. Chinese, e.g.

8. Where the Mets used to play 9. Health resort

64

65

69

70

72. Bank statement entry 73. Tournament favorites 74. C.I.A. predecessor 75. Certain exams

49 53

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10. Slot spot 11. "Metamorphoses" poet 12. Counsel, old-style 13. Cupid, to the Greeks 18. Tanners catch them 22. Sir or madam 25. Showed fascination 27. Little hooter 28. "M*A*S*H" extra 29. Start to some poem titles 30. French farewell 32. "Haven't heard a word" 33. Prefix with economics 34. Not to be missed 35. Neck sections 37. ___ Domingo

ONLINE ORDERING AVAILABLE! TACO TUESDAY EVERY WEEK!

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No. 653

42. Suspicious 47. Gingersnaps, e.g.

49. "Rich Man, Poor Man" Emmy winner 51. "Don't bother" 52. Identify 56. Buddy 57. End-of-wk. times 58. Was a passenger 59. ___-bodied 61. BBs, e.g.

63. Havana's home 64. Gas, e.g.: Abbr.

65. Ballpark figs.

67. 12th graders: Abbr.

69. Some T-shirts

and so much more!

TUES-SAT 11-9 • SUN 11-7 642 MONROE AVE • 978-7210 NENOSMEXICAN.COM FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA!

roccitynews.org CITY 63

64 CITY OCTOBER 2020