Rochester: Western New York State’s Kingdom of Kitsch

Photo: Courtesy Visit Rochester
Posted October 10, 2024
A New York state of mind can mean many things. In the case of Rochester, think of a vastly underrated city with vintage hospitality, fantastic under-the-radar attractions, and an annual world-class fringe festival. Let’s get right to a few of my favorite moments in “ROC.”
Artisan Works
Artisan Works is like no museum I’ve ever experienced. The stadium-sized event space and wild wedding venue, also a former canon factory, reveals a kaleidoscopic collection of a half-million works of art including vintage cars, musical instruments, paintings, groundbreaking photography, antiques, and a Rochester Front Street reenactment. This feat of eclectic eccentricity resembles an endless series of movie sets. The bewildering 15-themed-room odyssey includes a Casablanca room and a replication of New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street. The recently passed inspiration and owner, Louis Perticone, was a humanitarian who rescued everything—including people. His legacy is a self-funded not-for-profit 40,000-square-foot art galaxy that doubles as a private but joinable club. Oh yeah, everything here is also for sale at the ultimate kitsch and memorabilia empire.

Record Archive owner Alana Alderman showcasing Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow album cover Photo: Bruce Northam
Record Archive
Greetings from Rochester’s rock ‘n’ roll halo—Record Archive—a sip-n-shop vinyl warehouse with a quarter-million records. It’s the first record store in New York to score a beer and wine license. A music-scene staple since 1975, VP/owner and local hero Alayna Alderman (showcasing Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow album cover) also created its adjoining bar-concert venue, the Backroom Lounge, which regularly attracts VIP bands and early happy-hour devotees. Frequent jams include an occasional ukulele orchestra and monthly Son House blues nights (third Thursday of each month) honoring the legend who called this friendly city home. This vintage gem is a magnet and a must for real music folks, cool merch nerds, and anyone pining for vintage Americana.

The Strong Museum of Play Photo: Bruce Northam
Strong National Museum of Play
The bi-level Strong National Museum of Play will snap anyone out of a bad mood. Its history of games and toys, including Monopoly, GI Joe, Rubik’s Cube, and the evolution of Barbie is just a start. You learn that many games and toys were invented in the mischievous 60s and cleverly marketed. There are a ton of truly fun hands-on experiences and a kiddie supermarket experience where toddlers and kids can make-believe shop and check out groceries. This is an exceptional example of an all-ages pleaser and more than a city block long of it! Add: National Toy Hall of Fame and the World Video Game Hall of Fame. It’s one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of a museum where adults have as much fun as their kids.

The George Eastman Museum inspires—inside and outside Photo: Courtesy of Visit Rochester
George Eastman Museum
Founded in 1949, the George Eastman Museum—the Kodak king’s former home—is the world’s oldest photography museum. Before taking it all in, sample the Open Face cafés lasagna sandwich! Then, visit the gallery, which includes the 1967 lunar orbiter camera that was used to map out NASA’s 1969 moon landing. The museum is housed within Eastman’s alluring 1905 Colonial Revival mansion (tours available), alongside historic gardens. With a collection of more than 400,000 photographs from 14,000 photographers dating from the origin of the medium, it is also home to the Eastman Dryden Theater, where hometown hero, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, was a patron and a performer. My favorite photo was actor Jeff Bridges’ capturing “Robin Williams riffing” while shooting The Fisher King in 1991.

Mount Hope Cemetery Photo: Bruce Northam
Mount Hope Cemetery
With or without an organized tour, don’t miss Mount Hope Cemetery, America’s first non-segregated first municipal Victorian cemetery. Equally as dazzling as its 196-acres with 375,000 gravesites is this urban getaway also enjoying international arboretum status—trees rule. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, two historic freedom heavy-hitters, are laid to rest here. Anthony, a Quaker suffragist, toured 10,000 miles per year in speaking mode for her cause in trains and horse-drawn carriages. Orator and statesman Frederick Douglass was the most photographed man of the nineteenth century, and for good reason. A perfect annex to this tour is visiting the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House, where she was arrested in its front parlor after voting in the 1872 Presidential Election.

Rochester’s Public Market Photo: Bruce Northam
Rochester’s Public Market
Part of the City’s Department of Recreation and Youth Services, Rochester’s Public Market has served the community since 1905 for 52 weeks a year. It has a pleasing state-fair vibe. Local vendors offer their fresh produce, ethnic delicacies, and specialty items, while an array of independent local businesses are anchored on Market grounds and in the surrounding Market District. Here, you truly get a sense of Rochester’s multiculturalism.

Rochester’s annual Fringe Festival is America’s third largest Photo: Bruce Northam
Fringe Festival
Rochester’s annual 12-day Fringe Festival is the largest multi-genre arts festival in New York and the third-largest fringe festival in the country. This growing-every-year festival is known for an eclectic mix of performances and events with hundreds of performers via a mix of ticketed and free events. There’s something for everyone, with immersive and unique pop-up art experiences. I enjoyed Daedalum – Architects of Air, a wander through a comfy otherworld—a luminous inflatable artwork with tunnels and cavernous domes, featuring a range of color, light, and sound. Next door, a huge, glammy circus-like popup tent in the midst of downtown showcased Cirque du Fringe, a dazzling international variety show with comedy, trapeze, unicycles, thrilling acrobatics, and a mind-bending contortionist.
Eat And Drink Your Way Through Rochester
Don’t miss Sinbad’s for fantastic Middle Eastern cuisine on lovely Park Ave. Swan Dive is a curious but pleasing mix of a trendy lounge, mellow sports bar, and pizza shop. The Skylark Lounge is a classic local live-rock-music bar with a meatball-focused menu.

Hampton Inn’s Lila’s makes its lobby a hotspot and living room for the city Photo: Bruce Northam
Where to Stay:
Hampton Inn & Suites Rochester Downtown, across the street from the Strong National Museum of Play, is a great place to hang your hat. Situated in the heart of the city, it’s walkable to many shops and restaurants (and the annual Fringe Festival!) Also, rounding out this pleasant mix is the hotel’s hearty (free) breakfast, an indoor pool, and Lila’s, a spacious and hopping lounge-style lobby bar and restaurant with a Hollywood glam aesthetic.
Fifteen Minutes From Downtown Rochester
There’s also plenty to do 15 minutes from downtown Rochester. The Erie-Canal-hugging suburb of Fairport boasts a dozen bustling live music joints, inviting eateries, and a pickleball club, all within walking distance. B-Side, does both in an intimate setting, while The Cannery district’s roomy Iron Smoke Distillery features two live music stages—built within the former site of the American Can Company warehouse and manufacturing facility. This nifty village was the hometown of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Iron Smoke Distillery has two live music stages Photo: Bruce Northam
Experience the Erie Canal Cruise on the Sam Patch in Pittsford, NY, which passes through century-old lock 32 (out of 35 total between Buffalo and Albany). Critics of this mega-world project called it (New York State Governor) Clinton’s Folly or Clinton’s Ditch. The Sam Patch is a replica of an 1800s packet boat.

Woodcliff Resort Photo: Bruce Northam
A Lodging Option Outside the City
Also, 15 minutes from downtown Rochester, the hillside Woodcliff Hotel & Spa has an amenable resort vibe. Adjacent to a USGA-rated nine-hole golf course, the woodsy, far-reaching views from the rooms are accessible via more than 70 acres of hiking trails that also rim the property. At night, downtown Rochester twinkles in the distance.
The seasonal outdoor pool’s fun-in-the-sun lounge areas include a huge, lofty firepit, while the indoor pool and whirlpool are open year-round. Its award-winning Horizons Modern Kitchen + Wine Bar offers atrium-like seating with tree-line views.
The elevated scallop appetizer is supreme: pea-mint puree, pickled blackberries, popped quinoa, squid-ink tuille. This unhurried, splendid dining experience includes live music. I didn’t dive into the spa, but my wellness editor partner Heather loved the spa’s tranquility space and signature facial. Many people get married here, which says a lot. This Rochesterian crossroads is where wedding parties, parents chaperoning young traveling sports teams, and romantic anniversary-celebrating couples mingle.
Conclusion
Rochester’s affordable world-class attractions will entice you, and the Rochester-style embrace of hospitality will stay with you. Get started via Visit Rochester. To get cued into Rochester’s impressive music scene, check out getyourgigon.com.