Author: Paul

When someone asks for suggestions for things to do with out of town guests I always recommend parking somewhere in the High Falls district off of State Street and walking across the Pont de Rennes Bridge (named after Rochester’s sister city) for a spectacular view of the falls that put Rochester (the Flour City) on the map with all the mills that harnessed the power of the river to turn their stones. And at the other end of the bridge is one of Rochester’s oldest breweries, Genesee, with a restaurant and a great gift store for iconic souvenirs.

Between the gift shop and the room where they make the specialty beers is a huge arial photo of downtown Rochester, like maybe 15 feet long, with approximently twenty buttons to push, one for each decade of Rochester’ beer history. The buttons each illuminate locations on the aerial photo of the breweries in operation during that time.

As popular as breweries are today you would think we were at a peak but if you pushed “1870-1880” twenty four locations light up. Rochester hit its high mark in working breweries during this time and the city vied with others for recognition as the nation’s preeminent brewing city. Emil Reisky and Henry Spies ran one of the breweries near the city’s High Falls. They sold the brewery to Mathias Kondolf and he renamed it “Genesee.”

1850-1860 Rochester benefited from an influx of industrious German immigrants. The city’s brewing industry also benefited from this migration and from the growing theory that beer was healthy. (It was sometimes referred to as “liquid bread”.) This frustrated temperance advocates. Lager beer was brewed and sold in Rochester for the first time in 1852. The Germans’ technique of aging beer often produced a lighter and smoother alternative to traditional ales. 

1880-1890 The brewing industry employed the developing technology of refrigeration. This allowed bigger brewers to transport beer more effectively and to farther locations, eliminating many small local breweries. Bartholomay emerged as the largest of Rochester’s breweries, employing 150 workers, producing 300,000 barrels a year and utilizing 75 horses to deliver beer throughout the city.

1910-1920 The battle over Prohibition continued as the U.S. went to war against Germany. Politically compromised, large brewers (mostly of German descent) were easily vilified. My grandfather and his partner changed the name of his bar on Thurston and Chili Avenue from “Munich Tavern” to the “Dodd Miller Restaurant.”

1920-1933 While alcohol was illegal, consumption did not stop. Estimates indicate that Americans’ overall consumption of alcohol decreased by only 30 percent. My grandfather ran a speakeasy during this period..

1950-1960 Genesee’s entered the world of television advertising with its most memorable campaign. The “Jenny” girl made her first appearance in 1953.

Bob Smith, for twenty five years the host of “1370 Connection,” used to say, “Follow the money.” By starting there he could explain almost everything. It does sort of make the world go ’round. Lately I’ve been starting with the Business Section of the NYT instead of the A section and I’m finding the articles there, grounded in business practices as they are, bring a certain amount of clarity to the topics that can produce rage in the A section. Tariffs, the Big Beautiful Bill, War in Ukraine, China, Crypto and AI.

When I went away to school I was asked to choose a major. Up until then I had not given a thought to that subject. I really had no idea what my father did at Kodak. A Mechanical Engineer working as a Design Engineer, the lens projects were top secret at the time. I put down “Business.” I guess I was thinking about my grandfather behind the counter in his small grocery store. Turned out my roommate, already a junior, was also a business major. His father owned a jewelry store on the town square in New Castle, Indiana. My first semester I took Business Admin 101. Classes were held in a big auditorium just down the street from my dorm. All I remember about it was the IU football players coming in late, en masse, like someone was shepherding them through the academic phase of their careers. People called it a “pud course.” I switched majors in the first few weeks.

Our president got his BS in bs from Wharton Business School, went into business with his dad and was quickly sued for racial discrimination. He is a talented snake oil salesman with an insatiable appetite for attention. How much money can you make on perfume? Capitalism has its aberrations but I believe it is as good an organizing principal as any. I just wish Trump was a better business man.

China already has global dominance in high-tech industries like batteries, robotics and drones. They control the supply chains for rare earth minerals used in electric vehicles and they have the best electric vehicles on the planet for the best price. If you follow the money you see how the Big Beautiful Bill funnels money to the top, the tired “trickle down” theory. The Chinese government provides financial support for aggressive innovation. Trump is crippling green energy initiatives. China is going to have our lunch.

The building above, on Mustard Street near our old neighborhood, may have been part of the old French’s food processing factory. Once one of the iconic Rochester companies, they left town in the late seventies. I grew up with the stuff and remember how good that yellow streak looked on the hot dog pictured in the billboard behind the center field wall in the old Red Wing stadium.

I poked in front of this build while did my interview with Cal Zone on his WAYO Record Geek show. We video-chatted with Rich and Andrea today and Rich asked if I intended to do any more radio work. (Rich has a wildly succesful podcast series on Elmore Leonard’s books.) I laughed at the idea and said something about the interview and my song taste being kind of mild-mannered. When we hung up Peggi asked why I badmouthed my show. I am really happy that Peggi liked it.

During dinner tonight we found a news story from the Detroit News about Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster and Cosa Nostra boss who disappeared in 1975. Peggi had taken me by the Red Fox, the restaurant on Maple and Telegraph Road where he was last seen, when we were visiting her parents back in the day. They never found his body and didn’t even declare him dead until 1982. Now fifty years later someone is selling $30 tickets to a multi media presentation on July 23 at Macomb Community College where they will reveal where the body is buried. .

I parked in front of this window on my way to a yearly dermatologist appointment. I like being his first patient of the day and this window looked especially nice in the early morning light. Do I have skin cancer yet? He didn’t see any.

Our neighbor, Rick, is out front on his unicycle. He has a clown gig at the harbor this weekend and he’s warming up. He told us he’s having trouble with his “quick mount,” getting up on the bike from a standstill. At seventy-five with a knee replacement I would say he’s doing great. We played horseshoes for the first time this year and we both fell apart midway in the third round. It was tied with a match apiece and we were neck and neck to the last throw but it took forever to get there.

Local strawberries are on the shelves. The season lasts only a few weeks so it needs to be pounced upon. We picked up three quarts at the Brighton Farmers Market and heard Debby Kendrick Project at the same time. They sounded great in the open air. We bought some exotic mushrooms (the proprietor called our attention to the primordial underside) and some locally made mushroom pasta as well. It made a perfect dinner.

Last month’s big protest at Cobb’s Hill was reaffirming. But it was someone’s brilliant stroke to organize yesterday’s demonstrations in so many parts of the city, in so many cities. Of course it made attending convenient and surely brought out more people. The local sites included “Lakeshore at Durand Eastman.” That’s more than a mile long. Where, we wondered?

We walked from our house through the park (with others) to the lake. We could hear the cars honking and the crowd cheering. The crowd lined Lakeshore Boulevard from Zoo Road to Rock Beach Road. Someone gave us a small upside down flag. “It’s a distress signal,” they said. Most people had homemade signs, not the mass produced signs you see at a Trump rally. We saw many of our neighbors. I told the women holding this sign that I liked her graphics. We came home with the flags. I feel like we are starting to reclaim it.

The crews who go around the world covering up graffitti can’t seem to settle on the right Pantone color for the job. And we are all the richer for that. I love these abstracts. Here’s a few recent captures – one two

Peggi and I were shopping at Wegmans yesterday when a man, somewhere near our age, wheeled by in one of those electric shopping carts. We heard him coming. He was chanting, in a sing-song manner, “Trump is a nazi” over and over again. We first saw him in the produce department and then over by the yogurt. As we headed up to the check-out we crossed paths again. Same song, over and over again.