thumbnail of Speaking of Rochester; 205; Erie Canal Edward P. Curtis
Transcript
Hide -
This transcript was received from a third party and/or generated by a computer. Its accuracy has not been verified. If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+.
How you do ladies and gentlemen. This program is speaking of Rochester and I'm Barbara comical and this program we explore our remarkable city. See why it's here going to its history and look a little into the future as well. The day that we have is our guest Ted Curtis Ted is the scion of an old old family here in Rochester a matter of fact his great great grandfather came here in 1917. He's This is a saying which family his father was one of the top men of Kodak. He was an ace and World War One he was a chief of staff for instance of the Strategic Air Force and World War Two. And so of Ted's a man that a lot has been expected of and he's had many many jobs here in the city. All is dedicated to the interest of the city and the now involved in the current helm navigation as chairman of that it's an organization that that operates on the waterways here of Rochester
Iraq jesters here because of the water the air the Genesee River the Erica now rushing forth and Lake Ontario. It probably wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for these water resources and that's what we're going to explore today. Dad welcome to the program we're happy to have you. Barbara it's very good to have you on board as we have on a bulletin board with us going on Barclay and I were standing in front of a boat called the same patch same patch oh over everybody noses at Patches Savvas the famous Battle of the jersey jumper. Who in 1829 and way back then way back then a serious work of development is going on in Rochester that exactly is not what you think of daredevils as as a way of avoiding the boredom of modern life. Oh no this is this is part of the act because I didn't want it I was only 4 years after the canal it opened. Yes I don't watch as you have become you recall the first moment on the front here they gung ho lion of the West that was us. I do-I Sam Patch the jersey chopper made a living out of jumping off high places and
big bodies of water not a very good living. Oh well he was done a lot better than no work in the woolen mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island like he used to he made a dying of it here in Rochester over the Niagara Falls a couple of them gone over diner for long sad survive and he was on his way back and they said Why just stop in Rochester and jump the High Falls of Tennessee and he said Sure I will. And he came here with his pet bear your membership in early November I don't think the bear enjoyed the bear only did one drop acid but salmon partly good too. Friday November 6th 1829 salmon the bear jumped I thought that one hand and paw above historian told me he pushed the bear and jumped afterwards and I come on the Oreos found out all they both came up on that one. Oh I said was unhappy because there was none of the crowd is a bad people had done a good enough job. So I said I'll do it again next week. Friday November 13th 1820 I did the third thing I did the 13 and it was a cold blustery day and some SES have been great and. And he
went into had a platform built 25 feet above the Falls was a hundred and twenty feet straight out. That sense it is going well quite a step. Idea was a big step one dryad step for mankind but he went off sort of tumbling instead of straight down like he was that one hit with us and disappear didn't come back up. But he set off Sam you know he's smart he's from back on the Falls or he's gone downstream and we'll see him again and all that water across front here yeah we saw seven Buffalo we saw 7 Cleveland we went all the way down to China. HALL I doubt it so I don't know what the following St. Patrick's Day. Here's farmer watering his horses down slot. I've been a bad one or a lot of ice and here comes a great big piece of ice with Sam stuck right in the middle of it. Well I think he's probably spending more time on Sam. Yes Israel that's not what he was a colorful stamp bag company was like all of our stuff and he belongs to the river and that's why we need about that's right. Deadlocks the member permanent like white right. Well you're going to have another ball here and Oh and I don't know why all right but I doubt it.
Mary Jemison the white woman of the tendency when I was right. Yes how we go we get all we can say and all want to talk about Sam Patch Mary Johnson. Well let's get aboard and I did see some of the area here from the point of view of why good water is so important to Rochester. Barbara I'd be delighted and it's one of the main reasons and you'll see it on this one that we did this is because Rochester looks totally different from the river. Are you still still ahead of the convention bureau Ted No no no no no what you did that I did not have three years yet as you know in the CIA. I was in the CIA from Williams College. So you actually were one of the one of the people at one of the managers at Eastman Kodak and chairman of Federal Affairs and I'll let you know. So you've done a lot of things I don't forget I was registered foreign agent for the province of Ontario people online. Yeah all right well let's go there we go. In the United States
where there's been a lot of Rochester this is the landing. Some kind of marina here or your boat of your trash and I guess for the increased traffic we expect to have the Erie Canal. If you just got there but you will be able to deal with that part. We just came out of park far as units of
luxury housing low down houses apartments very attractive without were moving up to the University of Rochester I've lived in the Genesee way there. This area used to front a lot. Oh I thought I'd go and tell the boss Morris Dam was built in the 1930s. TRIOLI On the eve of the spring floods this presents the news that a lot of damage here be ugly but it's useful to know that Trayvon Martin was there. Lower the river so you got all over the river level of handing control all these cattle up river and it's controlled some down river by damn cars heartstring that love no yeah but you're like that is the structure of the entire range that it saves us you know you'll see that book that got the city a story ended and let me help a little bit ironic grazing. Another picture of the frontispiece is the flight of
1865. Ah take out the Andrews Street Bridge. Darnell we're not we are regrettable floods all remember the first resident here Ebeneezer Allen that was a hell of a lot of that had a great track which later became the center of the city Rochester and in return he had to build a grist mill and I can day yes song it's all Bill that's because the water bar was terribly apart at the outset of the city Rochester are you get is a little premature he got in he came here when there are only something like 24 people there west of the Genesee. He was ready years before Izhar and the result was he did not succeed. Hed been the property back at all only human lands and now that you know Rochester was a dollar. That's right. And by 1820 Ebeneezer was here in 1790 the night to buy 18 20 like you know a car in the city of Rochester was a was a burgeoning and bustling place. Sure my AS us wherever our packet arrived in 1817 out that's built first Predator first.
But he was a banker publisher a lot of other things. But you're right. Like I didn't want to I was starting a whole lot about what really that is the home was the opening of the ghetto you know maybe 25 cars and other cars crosses the Genesee River. And one of the sources of canal water is the Genesee get it all out on a chance you ever get those days across the river is now the one Street Bridge hearing it and I'll certainly mourn the righteous well as all the option of the door the river the law what happens harbor over the Chelsea Valley. You feel a great weight granary small early America. It was widest point in the world through there. Now the farmers would get all the way they'd harvest there when they floated down river to the mills. There will be ground at a very high quality flour
flour. Why did that take you six weeks to get all that and that it would cost you. 60 70 bucks a barrel to shove that lot was what I would be awake out of the Canelo. Thank you twenty five thousand barrels of flour when he said all that he got there in a daze. I don't research much about. I made a big difference. I was an economic explosion carved into all that it really began to get out of those days. Got a bag of Batavia today of a dump for all I know even Alexander were flourishing communities in Rochester a little to. Get back along the river but not a lot rougher a lot a lot. Well. I think it's interesting that this area went for away hauling wilderness stuff. How about eighteen hundred cows. The land of milk and honey in thirty years. Thirty one hand and that was largely the result of the canal was it not you that was the single most important factor the resident agent of the Heartland Cavaney went on three and a half
million acres in the west of Georgia I was just about like it and he had a very strong lobby. The canal thing indeed he wanted to get out because his company's lands with a good sound. Now there was another factor and that was the thing at the Sullivan expedition by telling others to come through the burning in hours during the revolution and they'd seen magnificent horn some of them said I think a little hyperbole 16 18 feet tall. But I'll have it here were people who worked in scrapping a living joy out of a rock pile of a New England they saw this and they said Why when that I've got all that's remains. Yeah so the whole area just exploded really did get into it into a development that of course is what the where the canal was going to run that was more politic at that that lobbying and all that I thought originally it was going to go out into Lake Ontario and I'd go and come back. To the six mile point up like you know Niagara and cross the
Niagara start when they're out that Rochester of what it would we'd still been up flyspeck on the Dennis Johnson I get of the Heartland company had something to do with helping Rochester L.A. even though we didn't already land here is either Admiral Bell at Bell is that yes that's what I just read that look at square up in Buffalo dug our way of looking at what a loser and he was I don't know why you guys are often a grumpy old fellow house all three and half million acres of land that you know about right here. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. About all right now we're we're passing the area of the University of Rochester and I'll get your just on our right where the water tower is one of those buildings. Here is the original headquarters the Mobil Oil Company are holding you about whatever that was that was that was part of the high Rockefeller empire. Odd it was that but it was started it hardly under my covers plummet it was Standard Oil of New York's so-called honey. Yeah but I was like you boil the article you bought up the Souls are going to mark them out. There's an article that I kill that begins to go to Mobile in the highly
volatile and then finally it had to be split out from the oil dressed today because of a Teddy Roosevelt So not only are the break up or break up Iraq I was a little less. Those are fun but that's what I was taught that not even the river here thought Paul. It varies for probably 15 20 25 feet. Anywhere fairly deep that all the other going out. By. Law by got to my feet it. Was minimum 10 feet deep. Most of the top you know 10 feet it started out in four feet. Forty four feet deep just had scholars going up and down it carrying you all right I'd send them to the Senate. If you fell overboard all you do is that up that I don't know that about 70 feet maybe. Now it's been on top of people out of 10 feet. Now why do we still have the canal. It isn't really a major avenue of commerce there. Thank God a lot of people were asking that question 10 to 15 years ago. Oh I think you know why don't we feel as though with thing I think it's just part of the Islamic law that all of a
sudden starting about oh 15 years ago by all that the guy who led the charge was there helping her while you were well guess that's good for getting at least a bit like navigation that he was the guy who really got started using the car as a recreation. That I ever saw as the natural beauty of. Not parks Naw long as there are parts along not all of us like tracks something I bought my crocs. Why not. The fact that the Thruway Authority took over the harbor reservation in 92 93. Made a huge difference. It was always a poor relation. They'd probably have to put some real money and it's real interesting. That they are developing now a major harbor along the canal with Rochester's want. So I'll be a water resource recreational for tourism.
Yeah just. Like a lot of canal Europe and France and Holland a little more history here Aaron Sell OK we get it I grasp you know we bring schoolkids here other parties will get to travel but as we get to this point we tell of what they're there is there are now the most important thing you're going to say today is that great blowout. On the radio because it's no longer the sewer It used to be. When you see the great. Stuff. Hurt his back because the fish or the fish are back because the rivers running late again and that's not all that's all I want to break here. Kodak had a good deal to do with cleaning up the lower part of the river what about the rest of it. The EAD Marconi pure waters are the state of the fats. What. If you total it all up a floaty what Kodak amounts monarchy in a point that you're talking to well over a billion dollars to clean up the tunnels remember the Tennessee river otters to Victoria it was a
place of great natural pollution even there for whites were here because a lot of vegetation in this water moving out into into Lake Ontario. But about it. But it became a matter of man's pollution that very quickly after that the surgeon part of it they should go there you notice here is not the beautiful blue that you want to start out as a digital body of me there is the beautiful blue paint is that you like that. So it's not it's not clear that it is played. Out. This is just good old Tennessee Valley still coming up. Yeah so the old the old vegetable matter. But you still think you'll get three days off in the spring after a hard winter. That's an awful lot of the break up that we can see the beautiful buildings of the university rally are left over here as we go up the river from the gyno landing. There is a great institution near Rochester and a beautiful place never caps melt. Sixty years ago in our 1926 I think I was around 70 years ago.
It's a long standing in any of their cars over here on this chart almost equally fast. This is where all the all South railroad tracks and all the hearing it like a lot whatnot it had a tendency to build railroads along water. They really were that way which is why the was the zone so that its solid railroads all like. What they have out of the railroad harp on the point I was at the city just let this drop so there are it's almost certain parts right at the middle of the say Rochester there's a lot of housing that went in there. Is there any expectation that he will be made of that as a new OS. There are probably more housing outearn a linear park along here. The timer on the side. No reason why it shouldn't be a beautiful addition to the set of it I guess he developed or not. In terms of all the revitalization of city neighborhoods mileage is the next major push to get say will be the area between the Tavern on the river right over here all the way back up to what. Tops out of there.
Now we're approaching a park up here a little ways away but let me get on they'll have a brick. And whatever bridge and then tell us a little about the park itself. Oh a lot of the Armstead parks and all of that park. To be added and all of Frederick Law Olmstead as it was it was a landscape designer of some there some pardons in the United States and he can't for instance he designed the west side of the Capitol in Washington. I did not know that. Yes he did. We did sir there are several. Mark in your study but he also came into Rochester and it's a very large very hard set of Maplewood at just about like. That is the valley that it was his favorite park. There yet just think think there's a there's a conference coming up here later on this month. The National Association of homes that Parks is made here in Rochester is so famous that they have a national association over the halls that are they doing. And indeed he went right across got me did quite a lot of the West.
I were talking on the same path particularly to Shaw just fell apart. Now that. You're cutting out already one house who is the last Galveston. Put out we got back there a marvelous little pathway. They all said parts of Rochester. Have my favorite picture that about the. Ceiling that. Doesn't get out there. Here's a picture of a flock of sheep and just a valley park. You're better off said Matt at all said wanted to have the grass got out of the ground it actually really best way to do that you know that as well as this well was 1881 a part of my understanding now that this is storytelling our market is not history. My understanding is that Morrow County had a couple of shepherds of the day wrong as late as 1940. That a flock of sheep to go on it but we're 1940 the war caveman days. Shepherd got drafted a draft of the shepherd need the basics. By now they don't know yet but still a great story. Well we'll see bars we get out there. There's a great story about the
heart happy everybody was what they proposed to put the canal for the park. Why I can't remember all the way it would damage damage the on my heart. Yeah it also put the park in 1880 and it was 30 years later. That they came along with the knowledge already set you a lot when you came along with you going to explain that because you said the canal was built in 1925 and I know you don't want 1880. I am indeed I don't talk about the letter 900 when they proposed to do the final rebuilding an area and make it much wider much deeper than are you do that they had to pull it out of all of downtown going to get Syracuse Rochester about logic because it would be like just taking up too much space stuff. So here in Rochester. They just dug at the edge of the three balls all the time. Or rather right across the grade level grade crossing of the channel say well when they propose there's a lot of people to like you a lot for that filthy pestilential ditch full of dead mules through our beautiful park as well though. I hired you to give a high I was mayor of those that.
He sent back to the office that Frederick Law was was long gone but his nephew had his I believe it's money. And he said tell but come back to Rochester. And designed for us the most beautiful river canal crossing paths you can imagine. I will see when we get up there those three arms that bridge. Beautiful all of the dark bridges were sort of the centerpiece of this and it is indeed one of the single most beautiful spots along the whole thing is this when they started calling it the barge canal that was what they call the barge going out when they get there now allegedly at the time there was a proposal. There are some guys who want to build a ship canal. Challenger ocean going vessels can come right up they hearts and all that he had to take a left and keep right on going only to buffalo grass they didn't need that after they got the St. Lawrence Seaway out with his 50 years before the sailor but the ship canal really was a little out of the question. If you stop and think the ship tends to be relatively tall. It had to have lived with all of us all that. So instead of a ship it out they built a barge canal and it became known and the official name of the BRC
park and I was for the Erie Canal. I do well and what happened was you ever got a Johnny burger not Pittsburgh who did so much work on the canal. He was the guy who got caught in the replays of every side going wrong you know you say much now to be considering all that or that what the Thruway Authority to go. Are they officially changed the name for the next day by going out in the New York State canal system. Comprising the theory the Oswego the cue the setting of the family now there are. The star is going to get out of the north and south are there not our army and then that becomes part of what does not call the good houses the canals of the night. Once again there's very little commercial value to these canals. The recreational value is what will be going to the last scheduled commercial traffic anywhere that I'll call was the oil barges the gas part of the U.S. Gulf and they have a fineries New Jersey up the Hudson up the white part that like an all white all up like Chaplin of the bank
SAC base that last paragraph I had out there. Oh I got shut out. That was no reason for going to sell ever said Hall which is now probably a good 10 15 years it's been horrible. There's the chapel here that a lot of that out of the interface chapel at the University of Rochester courtesy of the good of all of us right there on the back on the banks of the Genesee River but is that all. You'll never see the top of that I got. LS rather ever. The fascinating thing about you was. When it became obvious that they were going to play the river up again. They sort of had to do something like. This is maybe. 15 almost 20 years ago the south river card. City the county the university heavily involved. They did all this redevelopment along at a very. Mild complaint about the top of the card playing. As long.
As not. At all or working with the banks. A lot of us adults and if you got a revving up something like a ball. Center. That will see as we get up here. It's now a. River. Home or. Long rowing. Kayaking. And knowing. The competitive rowing. Out of the takes place here not right up here. Having a bridge yes. You'll notice not all of it. Calling her green. CARD The Charles you know. Leave the writer for. The brain to. Stop. The sorry away right away. Green The right is starboard the left. Can't get like top right on the canal. I cannot get a cab it's like. Cause God will not give me one. Because I cannot tell that green your color blind all of life. They
insist great at it. That's not unreasonable. Here we see red and green boy green boy to mark where the deep water is between the boys you know you got to leave that thing. You'll recall we all roll boys a rag right returning when you're coming back in the park. Leave the Red going on you're right but of course I don't ever and I'll wring a whole bunch more. Knowing you're going to call the roll is always upstream is returning. Green banks are part of the Olmsted park right. These. Trees you see here are the ones that hold the planet back in 89. Twenty years on. They're absolutely beautiful. Whatever. Thanks for this quick tour of the river and with the canal crossing. My it's been great to be on the program and I want to thank you very much for being here.
I guess the ladies and gentleman has been Ted Curtis. The expert on the water resources of the Rochester area. And we're going to try to have a visual program of this at some point. But in the meantime thank you very much Ted I'm Barbara accountable and this has been speaking of Rochester. If you'd like a copy of this program send 1095 to WXXI. Post Office Box 21 Rochester New York 1 4 6 0 1.
Series
Speaking of Rochester
Episode Number
205
Episode
Erie Canal Edward P. Curtis
Contributing Organization
WXXI Public Broadcasting (Rochester, New York)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/189-2908kskn
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/189-2908kskn).
Description
Series Description
"Speaking of Rochester is a talk show featuring in-depth conversations with local Rochester figures, who discuss the past, present, and future of the Rochester community, as well as their personal experiences. "
Created Date
1999-08-00
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Local Communities
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:27:59
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WXXI Public Broadcasting (WXXI-TV)
Identifier: LAC-849 (WXXI)
Format: Betacam: SP
Generation: Master
Duration: 1637.0
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Speaking of Rochester; 205; Erie Canal Edward P. Curtis,” 1999-08-00, WXXI Public Broadcasting, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 7, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-189-2908kskn.
MLA: “Speaking of Rochester; 205; Erie Canal Edward P. Curtis.” 1999-08-00. WXXI Public Broadcasting, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 7, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-189-2908kskn>.
APA: Speaking of Rochester; 205; Erie Canal Edward P. Curtis. Boston, MA: WXXI Public Broadcasting, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-189-2908kskn