Tag Archives: Rochester NY

A Day With the Dinosaurs, at Rochester Museum and Science Center

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How far would YOU go to see robotic dinosaurs?
We had to go from Bath to Geneseo for an appointment last week, so we just kept on goin’ afterward, up to Rochester Museum and Science Center.
I love dinosaurs, and I was just about to write that I think MOST kids do, when I remembered that I’m 70 years old, and arguably not a kid any longer.
Except when it comes to dinosaurs. I think we’re all kids with dinosaurs.
I got a glimpse of this right in the lobby, where you meet your first dino, AND you can control it by using a panel of buttons. Raise and lower neck; swing neck side to side; turn head; open mouth; swing tail; roar. It was loads of fun, and by working several buttons simultaneously I could make it raise its neck, open its mouth, and roar all at once. A little girl, probably not quite two, was enthralled, showing no signs of fear at all. Dinosaurs are scary, but not frightening. (Even if we’ve seen Jurassic Park.)
The main exhibit is on the third floor, and we had scarcely gotten off the elevator when my wife laughed, and called my attention to the first informational panel. There was my childhood hero, Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews – the man who discovered the first dinosaur eggs, and many previously-unknown species, on the Central Asiatic Expeditions for the American Museum of Natural History. With his high boots, broad-brimmed hat, high-powered rifle, gun belt with pistol and cartridges, and expeditions to exotic and dangerous places, he was obviously an inspiration for Indiana Jones.
This third-floor space had multiple dinos, interspersed with artifacts, photos, diagrams, films, and explanatory panels – not only on dinosaurs and their lives, but also on the finding and interpretation of the beasts. You can operate the spike-tailed stegosaurus and the horned triceratops. But the albertosaurus – a smaller (only three or four tons) cousin of tyrannosaurus rex – operates on its own, either set to a timer or activated by motion sensors when someone approaches. The velociraptors, on the other hand, operate and squawk constantly. They could get on your nerves.
(There’s some artistic liberty – nobody knows how dinosaurs actually sounded, or what colors they were.)
The dinosaurs are great, but RMSC also dedicates much of its space to the story of Rochester and its people. There’s a huge diorama of the city as it was two centuries ago, and a mocked-up country store with historic post office boxes – from Ingleside, in the Town of Prattsburgh!
We walked our way through extensive exhibits on Native American life in the Rochester area, and in the United States at large. I made a stop, as I always do when we visit, at a large panel dedicated to Austin Stewart, who walked away from slavery in Bath when he was 22 years old, got legal help to assert his freedom, learned to read, and became an entrepreneur in Rochester. He was honored in the first class of inductees to the Rochester Business Hall of Fame.)
Austin Steward was also an activist fighting for abolition, a comrade of John Brown and Frederick Douglass. Local people asked him to give an address celebrating the end of New York slavery in 1827, and he lived long enough to see it ended throughout America. The exhibit incudes a late-life picture, from the frontispiece of his memoir… perhaps the only picture we have of a person who had been enslaved in Steuben County.
There are also hands-on science and technology exhibits, but our schedule precluded them on this particular day. The dino show goes through May 1. RMSC goes back to 1912, and it has over a million artifacts. You might like it. We sure do.

Like Nature, but Better — Olmsted Parks, and Where to Find Some

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Sometimes one person leaves a mark on the landscape… a mark that, for good or ill, shapes the land, and society, for generations… even if the person, and the person’s name, are forgotten.

Frederick Law Olmsted was such a person.

Despite severe health problems he worked as a journalist, the operator of a large farm, a crewmember on a sailing ship to China. He made extensive tours of Britain, and of the slaveholding south, and wrote of them in depth. With a partner, he planned the design and development of Central Park in New York City, but left that off to form and lead the Sanitary Commission, which first created and then operated Union army hospitals in the Civil War. When he finally quit, exhausted, he was 41 years old.

When he returned to New York City, he threw himself into parks, becoming an early avatar of the landscape architect. Central Park was still taking shape, but he now designed a park system for Brooklyn (then a separate city)… and Buffalo… and Rochester… and Niagara Falls… besides having a hand in designing a campus for the new Cornell University, where he was a trustee.

Besides being a pioneer in the “nuts and bolts” – such as sinking the cross streets in Central Park, so as to preserve the long vistas and minimize accidents – Olmsted could be said to have created settings that looked like nature, only better. REAL nature means brambles, brush, and poison ivy. Olmsted’s nature is tree-shrouded, to be sure. But it’s also open and rolling, perfect for rambling or wandering. REAL nature leaves boulders wherever the glacier dumped them. Olmsted’s nature places boulders where they look the best, or where you need one to sit on.

Olmsted gives you not so much an illusion of nature as an idealized nature.

He (and his company) did private commissions, such as the Wadsworth estate in Geneseo. But the closest place to get a good experience of his work is in Rochester.

Here, in the 1890s, he created not just parks, but a SYSTEM of parks. Between them, Seneca Park and Genesee Valley Park preserved much of the shoreline of the Genesee River, gifting the city with long swaths of green. After his retirement his sons would design the University of Rochester campus, while Mount Hope Cemetery would evolve in line with Olmsted’s principles, expanding the green footprint based on the river.

The campus and the cemetery join Genesee Valley Park with Highland Park, which Olmsted planned not only as a park but as an arboretum, showcasing tree and shrub species in natural(-like) settings.

Look back at November’s entries in this space and you’ll read, “Streets and trails in Highland wend and wander. The ground heaves up and drops down. Practically every step creates a new space, a new vista, a new delight. In the days of flu and COVID, Highland is a fine spot for the kids to run around, or for the old folks to ramble.
Highland Park is forested, but it’s not the forest that our forebears cut down. It’s a curated forest, an arboretum, designed in part to delight the visitor.

Mission accomplished.” And thank you, Mr. Olmsted.

My Heart’s in the Highland (Park)

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If you’ve been to the Lilac Festival, you’ve been to Rochester’s Highand Park.

And if you’ve been there, you’ve noticed that it brings a swath of nature right into the center of a great city – easy to drive to, easy to walk to, easy to take the bus or the bike to.

Frederick Law Olmsted, the 19th-century landscaping guru, created the space, just as he created Rochester’s Seneca Park, and Manhattan’s Central Park. Streets and trails in Highland wend and wander. The ground heaves up and drops down. Practically every step creates a new space, a new vista, a new delight.

In the days of flu and COVID, Highland is a fine spot for the kids to run around, or for the old folks to ramble.

Highland Park is forested, but it’s not the forest that our forebears cut down. It’s a curated forest, an arboretum, designed in part to delight the visitor.

Mission accomplished.

Highland started out on 20 acres donated in 1888 by Ellwanger and Barry, tree nursery entrepreneurs, and is now up to 150 acres, operated by Monroe County Parks. John Dunbar (“Johnny Lilacseed”) started the lilac collection in 1892.

Highland Park is famed for its statue of Frederick Douglass, who made his home (and an underground railroad station) nearby. With its many hidden folds, the park has become the site of numerous other monuments and memorials. On a recent 90-minute visit, I stumbled across two monuments that were new to me.

One was a small stone at the base of a very large tree, honoring members of the National Women’s Service Corps. Our older son told me that this was a female companion to the Civilian Conservation Corps, or C.C.C., during the New Deal. (The women’s installations got to be called She-She-She camps.)

A little later on my ramble I thought, “Ah! THIS is where the Rochester Vietnam Memorial is.” Flowing easily along the lay of the land, the centerpiece of the Memorial is a paved patio, with the national flag, the M.I.A./P.O.W. flag, and the flags of each service. A winding Walk of Honor is lined with 280 uprights, each bearing the name of a Rochester-area person killed in the conflict.

Some parts of the park, like the Sunken Garden and the Warner Castle, I’ve never explored. But I HAVE repeatedly spent pleasurable hours in the 1911 Lamberton Conservatory – definitely a shelter in the time of storm, for I’ve enjoyed its semi-tropical warmth even as the snow and sleet beat down upon the windows. I also like spotting other turn-of-the-century architecture, in bricks rather than glass, for some of the park’s installations.

In addition to the Greater Rochester Vietnam Memorial, Highland Park is home to the AIDS Memorial; the Victims Rights Memorial; and the Workers Rights Memorial. It also has sledding, ice skating, geo-caching, concerts, athletic fields, and Shakespeare in the Park. Highland fits every mood, and every season. And admission is free.

A Trip to the Seneca Park Zoo

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Well, there I was, sort of stranded in Rochester. I’d dropped my wife off at Strong Hospital for surgery, but what with coronavirus and all, they won’t let you in until she’s back in a regular ward, which in this case meant about eight hours. So since movies, museums, and malls were pretty much out, considering my goal of avoiding the virus as much as possible, I needed something else to do. So I went to the zoo.

Think about it. It’s outdoors, it’s interesting, and it’s easy to maintain your social distance. You can whip right through if you like, or idle along if you prefer. Perfect destination for times like these.

You can learn a lot at the zoo. I learned that I am only of passing interest to snow leopards, and a subject of wary watchfulness for gray wolves. Red pandas, on the other hand, think I’m fascinating.

Nowadays, as with most places, admissions are capped to maintain proper distancing. So it’s smart to call ahead and book your arrival time, but I had no trouble arriving around 10:30 on a Thursday and buying a ticket at the gate.

Seneca Park Zoo, like many another, is constantly rebuilding and reinventing itself. That can be a little annoying in some ways, but I like to see thinking and improvement going on. Right inside the entrance a new Tropic Adventure Zone is under construction, soon to form a habitat for animals from the Congo, Borneo, and Madagascar – all creatures that don’t suit our climate at all, and so need highly-specialized habitat. (Old-timers may miss the 1931 Main Building, but better lives for the animals has to be the goal.)

The Cold Asia Zone is already in place, for animals that enjoy a climate roughly similar to ours. It was here that I met the pair of snow leopards, pacing their rough habitat just as they would in the mountains of central Asia.

Right next to them were the red pandas, who at least at the time of my visit were far more active, even a little hyper-active. (The zoo web site says that red pandas spend 13 hours a day foraging.) They were each constantly tracing his or her preferred route through their habitat, including climbing uprights and walking branches. Each time they passed me, though, they stopped to visit for a minute or so, peering through the glass at the strange visitor from another planet. The pandas and the leopards are both endangered species.

The Rocky Coasts area is home to penguins (African black-footed), sea lions (California), and polar bears. ALL of them like the water immensely. I was reading some label copy stating that the polar bear likes hanging out by the window lookout, and was wondering just what location they meant, when I looked down and saw her pacing back and forth almost under my feet. You’d think it would be hard to miss a polar bear, but I almost managed it.

Giraffes and zebras are sharing the African savanna habitat, just as they do in the wild. Zebra feeding stations are, unsurprisingly, at ground level – zebras are grazing animals, after all. But giraffes are browsers, and THEIR feeding stations are on the second floor of an adjoining building – which makes perfect sense, but still looks like something out of a cartoon.

Of course I stopped in to see the river otters, they being some of my very favorite animals… I love to see them sport and play. The otter would swim to one end of his tank, then flip onto his back and zip over to the starting point – every time. And the sea lions were doing the same. Perhaps it’s a Rochester custom.

Anyhow, if you’re looking for something outdoors to do – try the zoo! And there are also zoos in Buffalo (Buffalo Zoo), Syracuse (Rosamund Gifford), and Binghamton (Ross Park). I’ve been to them all.

“Golden Legacy: 65 Years of Golden Books” at Memorial Art Gallery

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Most of us who are reading this today grew up with Little Golden Books. With their sturdy covers, gold spine, and bright vivid colors, they seized the attention of their intended audience – the child. On top of that, they were perfectly child-sized… just right for the child to read, to cling to, to pore over, to hide under a pillow. They cost a quarter when they first appeared in the dreadful wartime year of 1942. They must have been a comfort in that time of tragedy, dislocation, and terror. Just as they have been ever since.
Rochester’s Memorial Art Galley is now hosting a traveling exhibition, “Golden Legacy: 65 Years of Golden Books.” On Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend we made the trip to see original art from the stories our parents and grandparents read to us, and that we read to our own kids in their turn.
We weren’t the only ones. Plenty of fans were visiting. One of our sons (now in his thirties) came with us. In fact, he insisted on it.
I couldn’t have articulated it, but even as a kid I could tell that some of the Golden Books just had a different air to them. This exhibition made clear how many of the early artists were European, even refugees. But that’s America, incorporating all that comes to it. A Hungarian-born and Hungarian-trained artist like Tibor Gergely can create such American standards as Scuffy the Tugboat and Tootle the Train.
So – here I was, well more than half a century after I first enjoyed them, inches away from Tibor Gergely’s original brushstrokes. And here I got my first surprise, learning that much of the original art – at least that shown here – was created in the same size as the illustration on the printed page.
Comic-strip and comic-book art have traditionally been made larger than the published size, and N.C. Wyeth created huge canvases that became color plates in books. But those early Golden Book artists worked pretty much 1:1, which must have called for meticulous, painstaking labor. Any detail had to be created in its exact tiny published size.
Tibor Gergely was exacting enough in his details to pull off a little joke in an illustration for “Five Little Firemen.” With a caravan of speeding fire vehicles sweeping out from the underpass and up the on-ramp, Gergely added to the city scene a billboard advertising Little Golden Books.
One of the best-selling authors in the history of the world – Richard Scarry – got his start in Golden Books. His take on “Chicken Little” includes a lounging Foxy Loxy, smiling as he watches the parade of panicked victims come to HIM. He doesn’t even need to exert himself, and in the epitome of optimistic opportunism, even dangles salt and pepper shakers from a strap around his neck.
Counterpointing the exuberant, almost cartoon-like “Chicken Little” are four lovely Richard Scarry pieces from “I Am a Bunny.” Each presents one of the seasons – the happy bunny enjoying a beautiful snowfall, sheltering under a toadstool in a gentle spring rain, lolling in a field of summer flowers. In fall the bunny dances in page of falling leaves – just leaves. No background, no scenery, no horizon line. Just the bunny, the leaves, and the fall. It’s my favorite among the Scarry pieces.
Most of us have encountered the work of Alice and Martin Provensen – among other things, they created Tony the Tiger for Kellogg’s. When I was in high school they did the covers for the Washington Square pocket paperback editions of Shakespeare’s plays – something between cubism and Renaissance illumination. They won the Caldecott Medal for most outstanding illustration in children’s books. And they did several Golden Books, including “The Color Kittens.”
I was moved to find their original art of Hush and Brush on their adventures, because I read that book during the Eisenhower years, making my own drawing of it for first-grade open house and showing it to my father. This memory is very vivid because I was thunderstruck by the little fantasy, which seemed to take place in a world right next to ours – rooted, perhaps, in ours, but bringing forth undreamed-of fruit in another. That imaginative leap – that sense that there was more to this world, and more to my life, than met the eye – has underlain my life ever since. Sometimes people are asked to name the most influential books in their lives. After visiting the exhibit I realized that the first such book for me was “The Color Kittens.” I can truly report that a Little Golden Book changed my life.
Most of the artwork, going back to 1942, is in watercolor and/or gouache. But even though we haven’t been closely engaged for the last quarter-century or so, Golden Books continue to thrive and to grow. We got to meet the work of such newer artists as David Diaz (“Ocean’s Child”), with art done on computer – a new departure in a classic series.
There’s much more to the exhibit, including Swedish-born Gustaf Tenggren’s original art on “The Tawny Scrawny Lion” and before-and-after art from Eloise Wilkin (born in Rochester). She updated one of her books to show a world of children that actually reflect the world’s races, and another to make the expectant mother biologically plausible. There are several hundred Golden Books, with comfortable space to sit down and enjoy them – making new friends, and keeping the old. The exhibit runs through January 4; check beforehand for days and hours of operation. And enjoy your trip.