2011 Grad. Bored at work. Will answer questions.

<p>So, potatoman, are you saying there are no nice areas of Rochester, the city/area? Any favorite hangouts in or near the city? Places known for college kids hanging out? After all, there are a ton of college students in the area (and not just UR and RIT).</p>

<p>There are no campustown types areas in Rochester. None. Not near any of the colleges. </p>

<p>RIT has a new multi-use development near its campus with shopping and restaurants, and there are plans in the works for something simiiar to be built on the other side of th UR med school–but although city approval & funding has finally been obtained, it will still be years before it’s finished. Ground hasn’t even been broken yet.</p>

<p>Across the river near Riverview Apts and Staybridge Hotel, the university has been trying to develop some coffeeshops and casual dining spots on property it owns. The empty storefronts are there, but the businesses just haven’t come. (And some have come and gone out of business.) D2 said that there were plans to do some new business jumpstarts, but I’m not sure if it’s happened.</p>

<p>Students who want a nice meal out will walk to The Distillery, or maybe take the bus to the Park Ave. area.</p>

<p>Students who are old enough to drink sometimes hang out in the South Wedge pubs and bars. (There are some nice ones.)</p>

<p>You can buy a humongous, beautiful, renovated house off Park Avenue for not much money. Like $300k. But real estate taxes in NY State are very high, so you’d be paying nearly $2k a month just for those. The high real estate taxes, IMHO, are a large problem for NY going forward. Not for the city so much as for the rest of the state: they drive people out of areas that need to retain and attract people better.</p>

<p>I thought Rochester had several nice neighborhoods with some good restaurants/bars/some nightlife…not necessarily campus-like, but still decent areas to spend an evening or afternoon. Any nice spots on the riverfront in or near downtown? Where is the music scene often referenced? Why does Rochester get rated so highly in liveability surveys? Are there any other smallish cities you would compare Rochester to in terms of size/vibe/offerings?</p>

<p>Yes, Rochester has areas but they aren’t in walking distance. Park Ave has been mentioned. There are clubs, particularly downtown. UR organizations - e.g., sororities - will rent out a restaurant or club for parties. </p>

<p>Rochester is somewhat funky. I don’t know what I’d compare it to because places are so different. The area has 1 million people so there are huge malls and lots of areas with shopping - both mall and strip centers and more old-fashioned, like downtown Brighton. (Like most things except the actual largest malls, Brighton is a few minutes away.) I suppose I’d compare it to a part of a larger city that isn’t otherwise great. That is, the parts of Rochester that you go in have the same kind of vibe as relatively funky to relatively nice revived sections of older cities. So you have the entire area that runs from UR up to Eastman - South Wedge and Swillburg (yes, that’s a name) - with a mix of stores, restaurants, etc., some scattered, some in commercial districts. If you lived in it, you’d be fairly happy with what it offers, at least in comparison with much of the US. (And my scale runs from Detroit, where I grew up, to Boston, where I live. So from the pits to the penthouse. Rochester is in between. Where exactly is a matter of debate and a lot depends on why you care.)</p>

<p>But unless you’re moving to the area for a job, the real focus is the school.</p>

<p>well, define NICE. Ultra hip elegant new york city lobbies with hot models in skin tight jeans and leather corsets sipping martinis? -NO.</p>

<p>I DID have tons of favorite hang outs and there were tons of great restaurants / bars / coffee shops for college kids to hang out in. Near the Eastman campus there were a couple of coffee shops UR kinds hung out, serving delicious sandwiches and hot tasty drinks. </p>

<p>There’s this independent movie theatre called The Little, which has a coffee shop in the back, and free live music on the weekends, and is pretty awesome. They also serve alcohol but most def. card. Some of my favorite spots were Spot Coffee, the distillery, and The Little. Also, UR kids love the cheesecake factory, because, well, it’s awesome.</p>

<p>There’s a bar scene, but again, imagine your typical college/fraternity type bar with your typical girls in too short dresses and guys wearing baseball jerseys. No guys wearing full suits and expensive italian shoes obviously. </p>

<p>There are huge, great malls that kids go hang out in with their friends. Look, UR will definitely give you the REAL, legit, college experience. Like I said, you will find in college what you look for in college. There are also (very few) high end restaurants, which usually house an older crowd, but you can usually find one or two very rich (or asian, lol) UR kids in there. </p>

<p>Music venues, there’s blue cross arena, but I can’t remember any big names playing there. I also saw Martin Sexton in this adorable music hall that reminds me on New York’s music halls, water street music hall.</p>

<p>Also, kids make friends at RIT, and UR kids do go hang out AT RIT. Brandeis def. has more variety in the type of entertainment if provides, but you would have to go to Boston, which is pretty far away I understand. </p>

<p>I visit Boston every year, it’s an amazing city, and I’m sure you can find more ‘high-end’ distractions.’ But people aren’t looking for this in college. Most of your friends will be, well, poor, kids working and kids that took out huge loans to attend a private university. The kinds of things your friends will want to do with you will be things like the distillery, cheap dingy bars and the like. and it will be awesome. I promise. </p>

<p>Rochester gets ranked high in liveability because it’s a GREAT place to raise kids. Prob. not a great place to be a teenager, but. The reason I know this is because my SO’s family on his mother’s side actually lives in Rochester. Think about it, you can buy a beautiful HUGE house for no money, have a giant backyard where your kids can run around in. The nicer areas are very safe and have great public schools. And it’s just inexpensive, safe, and your kids get plenty of fresh air. It must be a very sheltered place to grow up, but it’s probably what every middle-class American wants for their little kids.</p>

<p>Nice job potatoman…had a flash of depression after your first paragraph and wanted to get in my car and head to NYC. But you (or I) recovered. When we visited we took in the Geva Theatre, which was great.</p>

<p>Is the thing about feeling more midwestern than new englandish/northeastish true? Could Rochester be viewed as a mini-Pittsburgh, mini-Cincinnati?</p>

<p>Lergnom, thank you also. We are also in the Boston area…south of Boston.</p>

<p>I have family in Cincinnati, lived there years ago, know it pretty well. I would choose Rochester over it because of the depth of problems there. Cincy has more to offer - and a surprisingly resilient core - but Rochester is easier to live in, to get around, to experience. And frankly there is as much culture in Rochester given Eastman, the art museum (which is very good) and other institutions. I do like the street pigs in Cincinnati. I was there for a family wedding when the original show filled the streets. </p>

<p>I recommend to kids that they spend a summer in Rochester. It’s a nice place to be then. Farmers markets and street fairs. </p>

<p>I don’t know Pittsburgh well enough to comment in detail but I’d say it’s better. </p>

<p>As for midwestern, yes, it is significantly more midwestern. The line seems to be somewhere closer to Albany, maybe around Syracuse, maybe even east of Rome. Rochester is nice. People are midwestern friendly. Culturally though it connects to the east coast so it isn’t a midwestern city but rather lacks some of aspects of what people think of as eastern. It’s a kind of openness and attitude that’s midwestern.</p>

<p>Thanks for the extra description Lergnom. The suggestion for kids to live there for a summer might be something my son would consider.</p>

<p>Somebody somewhere described Rochester as being midwestern-like in that the city is spread out over a lot of area. We are also from Boston area, and Boston itself is very compact–Roc is much more spread out.</p>

<p>Dinosaur BarBQ is awesome–but we usually did take out to avoid long lines. Diners include bikers, B & L engineers, and families all coming together in the name of great barbecue.</p>

<p>House of Guitars is supposedly the biggest guitar store in the country (tour buses pull in at all hours of the night and they open up for the artists). Must see stop for any budding rockers. Basement contains more CD’s, albums, and cassettes (!) than you have ever seen.</p>

<p>Rochester Farmer’s market is AMAZING. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Can easily get enough fruit and vegetables to feed a family for a week for about 10 bucks.</p>

<p>If I understand this correctly … you can use a debit card type food plan system. The wonderful girl we had as our tour guide said STARBUCKS is the most popular eatery on campus. All the food money is spent there.</p>

<p>If you eat a breakfast and lunch at STARBUCKS with a menu of say:
Breakfast: Orange juice, bagel( with peanut butter), yogurt
Lunch: Barista drink, turkey sandwich and KIND bar</p>

<p>Do you have enough money for this on a daily basis.
Remember the naked juice and odwalla OJ is $2.50 and the beverage from the barista could be almost $4.00.
Do I need to send a enormous box of KIND bars or is it hard to run down the food dollars???
What do you think??</p>

<p>As the meal plan works currently, you get $X for the entire semester to use as your declining dollars (that’s what the debit-like card is called). Plus you get unlimited or X number of meals at the cafeteria–depending on which meal plan you buy.</p>

<p>As dorm student, your choice of meal plans will be limited by which dorm you live in. The freshman (and some upperclassmen) dorms are required to take the Blue Unlimited Plan, which gives $350 in declining for the entire semester.</p>

<p>That means you cannot eat breakfast and lunch at Starbucks everyday and have enough $$ to last the semester. You could do it occasionally, but you’ll need to budget your declining because it runs out fast. You can add $$ to your declining during the semester, but you’re essentially paying cash for anything you buy with declining once you do that. You cannot convert unused cafeteria meals into declining. </p>

<p>[Welcome</a> to CampusDish at Rochester!](<a href=“http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSNE/Rochester/MealPlans/MealPlans.htm]Welcome”>http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSNE/Rochester/MealPlans/MealPlans.htm)</p>

<p>Declining can be used at other on-campus dining venues beside Starbucks as well as some off-campus restaurants and stores. IIRC, you can even use declining to pay for pizza delivery.</p>

<p>Declining also, as I remember, carries over from fall to spring but not from spring to fall. </p>

<p>BTW, Sticky Lips BBQ is more of a Rochester local place. Similar quality of meats, not as good IMHO in sides. Rochester has a number of good restaurants, particularly around Park Ave and in downtown. </p>

<p>The Saturday public market is a sight. Huge. Indoor and outdoor. All the specialty stores - like the cheese place - are open. Entertainment. There are other smaller markets in the summer. There is, for example, a good one near school in South Wedge behind Boulder Coffee and the artisan pizza place whose name I forget.</p>

<p>I haven’t been able to convey the sense of the place very well so let me give an example. I go from near UR to Boulder Coffee, which takes 5 minutes max. I then go to Balsam Bagels, which is a treasure for bagel lovers. That’s maybe 10 minutes tops, up in the Winton neighborhood in the east part of the city. Maybe I stop on Park Ave. I then go a few blocks south into Brighton center and hit a few stores. (Brighton is a nice suburb that’s nestled against Rochester.) I then head out Monroe to the giant Wegman’s. That takes maybe 10 minutes, though traffic can back up at one light. I can then come back into the city, stop in Swillburg or head in on Monroe and be back at UR in another 10-15 minutes tops. In other words, it’s really easy to get around and you can park anywhere you go.</p>

<p>BTW, Oxford Street, which crosses Park Ave, has a small center green space that’s planted with block after block of Chinese and Japanese magnolias. It’s really beautiful in the spring. I think it dates to the 1880’s.</p>

<p>I’m going to third the public market. Unlike the Pike Place in Seattle, which is nice on its own merits, the ROC market has a nice array of inexpensive produce and other goodies. No markup for the tourists!
If anyone is in the ROC in late June the jazz fest is world class and a lot of stuff is free…</p>

<p>I have a daughter who graduated from Rochester in 2010 and a daughter who graduated from Brandeis in 2007. Both schools attract similar students and both offer open curriculums. Older d who attended Brandeis was also accepted to Rochester but Brandeis was a better fit for her and her chosen field of study.
Both did study abroad. Younger d did have a car her senior year and she lived off campus, close in 19th Ward during her senior year. Send me a PM and I can answer any questions although neither of my daughters were business majors or pre-med, or econ majors. Older was initially double bio/art major at Brandeis but she hated the freshman honor chemistry class she placed into…</p>

<p>In mid-May the Lilac Festival at Highland Park is amazing. Frankly, I love Highland Park year-round. Designed by Olmstead as a horticultural park. We in MA pride ourselves on Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum, but Highland Park has more lilac plants than the Arnold Aboretum. And the festival lasts 2 weeks.</p>

<p>In terms of geography, if you cross the street to the hospital complex, that’s Elmwood. Head out Elmwood and the first cross street is Mount Hope. That corner is where UR is planning a huge development. Highland Park is almost there. And the city of Brighton, where a lot of staff lives, begins right there as well. Huge green areas.</p>

<p>Me and most of my friends finished the entirety of our declining solely due to Starbucks. Being able to pay for Starbucks with declining was AWESOME. I lived in Starbucks. </p>

<p>Well kids, I had the time of my life at UR. The quality of education is top-notch, the campus is gorgeous and the dorms and food are, in retrospect, probably much much better than in most all other campuses in the nation. </p>

<p>Good luck to all applicants and I hope you will consider UR!</p>

<p>Thanks for taking time to answer questions potatopancakes. Good luck in law school!</p>

<p>And this is the most recent status of the college town project Lergnom spoke of
<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=5162[/url]”>College Town Moves Forward With $4 million Funding : Rochester News;