A couple of weeks ago, both for business and for pleasure, I made several stops in Corning that required walking from one end of Market Street to the other, and back again. Since Market is half a mile long, I did a mile walk.
*If you’re doing that walk for exercise or pleasure, you can enjoy yourself checking out all the varied architectural facades. You can take in the clock tower at the Centerway Square, and stop in next door at the visitors center in the Baron Steuben Building to use the rest rooms.
*You can get a Texas hot across the street, or smoothies down at the Soulful Cup coffeehouse. You can study the art at West End Gallery, or at the ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes. You should check out the “blade signs.” Corning is famed for these creative signs coming out at right angles to their buldings.
*There are quite a few other places around our region where you can walk a mile without having to leave the sidewalks – which can be a fun way to keep fit when the woods and fields are icy, soaked or snowcovered.
*Stand by the bandstand in BATH’s Pulteney Square, look up Liberty Street, then walk out of the park onto the Liberty sidewalk at your left (the west side). Keep walking up Liberty (crossing Washington) until you get to the Civil War statue. Walk back to the bandstand, and you’ve done a mile.
*Besides the bandstand and the statue, you’ll see the “three sisters” near the statue – three elaborate matching 19th-century homes, created in part to promote a lumber business. You pass the monumental 19th-century St. Thomas Church, across from the delightful contemporary Centenary Methodist Church.
*As on Market Street, enjoy the business facades, but recognize that many of Bath’s buildings are older, such as the 1860 county courthouse and the 1835 Bank of Steuben, almost directly across the Square. The green space in the Square has several monuments, and the dramatic First Presbyterian Church is on the south.
*In CANANDAIGUA if you use the courthouse as one anchor, the pier a mile away is the other.
*Susan B. Anthony was tried in that courthouse for the crime of voting, and fined a hundred dollars. She said she would never pay one penny of that unjust fine, and she never did.
*On your Canandaigua walk you’ll cross active railroad tracks (watch your steps), besides passing art galleries, a paperback book store, an embroidery shop, and even a comic book store. All of this depends on which side of the street you’re on, and Canadaigua’s Main Street has four lanes, plus a grassy median… so once again, watch your step!
*Also watch the “green” sidewalk features that Canandaigua has created to capture rainwater and naturally process it… a marvelous addition to the city. And, of course, if you walk north to south you just improve your view of the lake with every step.
*Start on Main Street in CANISTEO, walk up Greenwood (the old trolley route) to the elementary school and back, and you’ve got a mile. This also gives you a chance to see the famed “living sign” tree plantation spelling out the name of the village up on a hillside near the school.
*Also by the school is the very pleasant cemetery, including two 1920s gravestones appallingly inscribed with “K.K.K.” On a less horrifying note, there are also historic homes and churches on Greenwood Street, plus the businesses and churches down on Main Street and the village green area.
*So – want a little exercise, but at your own rate, with frequent breaks allowed and a good surface underfoot? There are plenty of one-mile walks available in our communities. We’ll look at some more, another time.