Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard – 14 of 14

by usathroughoureyes

Hello everyone and welcome to part 14.  There are so many places to see in Rochester, NY as you have gleaned from our series on this great region. 

 Some additional places you may want to check out include: 

  • The sword in the stone across from the E-Z Industrial Park self-storage facility on Howard Road.  It’s a real sword and it is stuck inside a stone that has no earthly business being where it is,
  • Rochester’s own piece of The Berlin Wall … Sort Of.  Bausch & Lomb acquired a genuine piece of the Berlin Wall after it was torn down. Unfortunately for them, a misunderstanding led to the slab being sandblasted completely clean of all graffiti before it even arrived. Since Bausch & Lomb hoped to put an authentic piece of history on display for the people of Rochester, they hired an artist to recreate the graffiti using photographs. It’s not exact, but close and still cool,
  • The grave site of the suspect thought to have killed Jack the Ripper.  His name is Francis Tumbelty and was the leading suspect in the killing.  He moved from his home in London to Rochester where he worked as a cleaner at Lispenard Hospital before dying of natural causes in 1903.  He is buried in Riverside Cemetery and was never charged with the murder, which remains unsolved to this day,
  • The Abandoned Underground Subway which was once a fast and convenient way to get around the city and it rivaled most other cities,
  • The elusive Lady In White which supposedly haunts the Durand-Eastman Park around sunset.  This infamous apparition is believed to be roaming the park as a grieving mother searching for the people responsible for her daughter’s disappearance,
  • Warner Castle in Highland Park which was built as a private residence in 1854 then turned over to the city and is a park for touring. The sunken garden is rumored to have a sealed off entrance to the above-mentioned Illuminati catacombs, but since no one has been able to find it, evidence remains a rumored mystery,

We hope those of you fellow travelers going through the states may have seen something in our posts that piqued your interest just a bit so as not to just drive by but rather take one of the exits marked Rochester and stay a minute or two.  If you are in the area please reach out to us and we’ll share a cup of coffee, swap stories and let us be your personal tour guide for the day.  After all, isn’t it fun meeting new friends on our travels especially ones  that share the same love?  Until then be safe.

Here are some of the “best of the rest” photos that we really liked but didn’t make it into previous posts.  Hope you enjoy them.

If you missed one of the previous parts just hover your cursor over one of these series on “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard part 1” , “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard part 2”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard part 3”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard part 4”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard part 5”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 6”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 7”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 8”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 9”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 10”, “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 11” or “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 12” or “Rochester, NY – Our Back Yard part 13” and you’ll be up to speed. 

 Don’t forget to check out Audrey on Instagram.

Tags:
usathroughoureyes

~ USA Through Our Eyes ~ Stories Told Through Words, Photographs, Videos and Sound

65 thoughts on “Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard – 14 of 14”

  1. Pingback: Rochester, NY – Our Back-Yard Part 16 ~ By Tom and Audrey ~ | "USA Through Our Eyes"

  4. Today our weather was 60 f (15 C) but its still chilly due to the dampness. This is so great you taught yourself English. We find your English writing great. It is so difficult to learn foreign languages.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. The French lanquage is very nice, but I evenso can’t it. My English writing is sometimes not so good, but I learn it myself without lessons, al little German, and I don’t like it to speak. Spring is now in the Netherlands, everywhere the trees become green, and a lot of flowers, butterflies, and other insects. I hope the winter is also over by you, have a beautiful day.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. This is so good that the language is being passed along to the children so it will remain active. I so wish I had taken advantage of the French language as I was growing up. Back then they didn’t encourage you to maintain a second language. English was the only one they wanted you to speak and forget the rest.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. My son is born in Friesland and speaks it well, Sanne, my granddaughter not a word LOL. Geert my son is auctioneer, appraiser and antiquaar, always busy, but I love him very much.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Oh my gosh Elizabeth. What a nightmare this had to have been. Thank God for His protection of you. I can relate to facing death and it changes you in so many ways. We are the lucky ones to be able to walk away and share it.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. This is so interesting to read where you were born and your heritage. We have never heard of “Friesland”. Are you still fluent in your native language? We are so pleased you found our “backyard” series fun. We sure did like doing it and re-learning the area.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Dear Audrey and Tom, I was born in Noord-Holland in the place Alkmaar and later I was moving to Friesland, the Frisian language is difficult to learn, but it is a real language and no dialect. Little Netherland has a great history and I like it. And in a short time a love Rochester, thanks for all the information about the town and around it.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Why would anybody power wash an artifact. Lordie!

    They were very creative young men, that’s for certain. I have lost touch with the beau, but I doubt he kept up with them either. West Germans, if memory serves, who had relatives and friends stuck on the other side until The Wall came down.

    Walls are NEVER a good idea!!

    The boys would certainly be middle aged at this point – and it would be fascinating to know about the rest of their travels and how/where they lived once they got a bit older.

    I crafted an Art Doll many years ago when I was out of work so had tons of time – The Rune Master – a St. Nicholas type (which I’d always wanted but couldn’t justify the cost). He wears a burgundy velvet cap atopped by a “priceless” jewel keeping his long hair from blowing in the wind, a long beard partially tucked into his matching burgundy robe, with his fox familiar draped over his shoulders. He holds aloft a crystal and raven feathered-topped staff in his leather gloved hand, and lives on the mantle in my office next to a smallish but life-sized crystal ball on a stand beside him.

    In addition to his bag of Runes and a carrier for tiny Angel Cards, pulling aside his robes reveals a leather pouch of magic power objects he uses in his “spells.” In that bag you will find that piece of The Wall, an old subway token from my father’s trip to NYC to be on To Tell the Truth (as himself), some tiny dice that were my mother’s as a child (found in her jewelry box after her death), etc. The Rune Master keeps little things safe for me during the day, and uses them to weave his magic to protect me while I sleep. lol 😉

    Except for art dolls, I am not particularly fond of them, for the most part – and a trunk of several went missing during one of my many moves (along with a life-long collection of Clauses that only came out in late November for the Holiday season) – but have held on to 2 more of the art-doll variety: a homeless woman and a costumed anthropomorphized frog beautifully crafted by the maiden aunt of another ex-beau (with long dangly legs allowing it to sit on the edge of a shelf).

    All have their stories of how they came to live with me, and are priceless only in my eyes – miniature portals to my past.
    xx,
    mgh

    Liked by 1 person

  36. You raise a great question Elizabeth. We’re not sure. Some of the articles we came across had him as suspect but since your response we have been looking more and we see he was also suspected of being “Jack” himself. One thing for sure is he certainly was a unsavory character.

    Liked by 2 people

  37. Yes, wasn’t it. As we studied it the detail was fabulous. We gotta say knowing some may contest it but somethings built back then were done so with longevity in mind. So much of what is built today is throw away.

    Liked by 1 person

  38. That is so neat to have been able to obtain such an artifact. Bausch and Lomb must have been grief stricken when they discovered their piece of history was washing clean. What a great story behind the piece of the wall. Wonder where those boys (now men) are? They certainly had the entrepreneurial spirit didn’t they.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. Thank you Ann. We discovered so much once we started digging into our “backyard”. Rochester like so many other places has its beauty and history. Its exciting to learn more about the “Frisian” language and the history of the Dutch.

    Liked by 1 person

  47. WOW, er is a lot to see in Rochester, beautiful photos and mabey was King Arthur in Rochester 😉 Interesting to read about Jack the Ripper, In Friesland is also a big sword from Grutte Pier, only people how speaks the Frisian language stay in live in the battle against the Dutchman. Greetings Ann.

    Liked by 3 people

  49. The Wall was the one that caught my attention. Tho’ still in NYC when it fell, I have a teeny piece of it myself. I will always treasure this little piece of history as a testimony to the power of prayer. I think millions of us had been praying for it to come down.

    My little piece was brought to the US. with a bag of others by two German teens hoping to fund their US trip by selling them for whatever people were inclined to pay. A beau at the time allowed them to sleep in his tiny office in the Toy Building and, right before they moved on, they parted with one as a gift to each of us.
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
    ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
    “It takes a village to transform a world!”

    Liked by 2 people

  51. Thank you Robbie. So true what you wrote. There is always so much good in the places we live and visit if only we would learn to look at it instead of rummaging around for that little morsel that may not be good and exaggerating it to extremes, lol.

    Liked by 2 people

  56. I don’t know how anyone reading your posts about Rochester could pass it by. The pictures are lovely. I don’t know why but that picture looking up the staircase at Eastman School of Music, is just speaking to me 🙂 God Bless you 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

  57. So many interesting places and you always have the most interesting facts and info about them. Like the grave site for the Jack the Ripper killer suspect, never knew that part of the story! I really enjoyed the tour of Rochester, thank you!

    Liked by 4 people

  64. Wow, these are beautiful! Especially the “Barn In Distress”. Powerful and moving 😊❤️
    Cheers!
    ~The Silent Wave/Laina 🌟🌟

    Liked by 3 people

Please Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.