The Web site is a bit waterfall-intensive. The pictures are from a walking tour that I took with my family, from the Lower Falls up to the High Falls and across the Pont de Rennes pedestrian footbridge over the Genesee. (Yes, we had lunch at the Brewery afterward.)
The tour reinforced my opinion that the gorge in the heart of Rochester would be a terrific place for Amazon to site their new development. The waterfalls are modest generators of clean electricity, but they are also picturesque. If Amazon sites their buildings near the gorge, the employees will enjoy spectacular views. Many of Amazon’s buildings in Seattle have beautiful views of Lake Union and the Space Needle, so it’s not a consideration to discount.
Here are the Lower Falls, about 2 miles downstream of the High Falls. The Lower Falls drive a hydroelectric facility that was refurbished about ten years ago:
This shot of the Driving Park Avenue Bridge and the hydroelectric facility was taken from the same vantage, looking northward (downstream).
Here is a distant shot of the Middle Falls, taken from the Lower Falls path a bit upstream:
Finally, we ventured up to the High Falls, which is walking distance to the Kodak Tower. There is a pedestrian footbridge over the Genesee River that gives a beautiful view of the High Falls:
A panoramic shot of the vista from the footbridge provides a tableau in which to reimagine Rochester’s skyline:
Considering Amazon’s Rufus 2.0 development features three buildings that are each 25% taller than the tallest building in Rochester, you can imagine how dramatically such a development would affect the skyline.
