F*ck Toronto

[RepoMan 0]

Ferry Bad Place

 

The good news is that Torontonians are getting an exciting new car ferry. The bad news is it's going to Rochester

By JAN WONG

 

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- People in this beleaguered city on the south shore of Lake Ontario are pretty excited about a new Toronto-Rochester car ferry promised for May. For their part, people in Toronto have barely noticed. That's all to the good because there are several important reasons why Torontonians wouldn't ever want to come here.

 

Take Rochester's homicide rate, at triple the U.S. average. The car-theft rate is 2.6 times the U.S. average. Robbery is nearly triple the national rate. Then there's the culinary treasure known -- this is true -- as the Garbage Plate.

 

For $6 (U.S.), you get home fries and cold macaroni salad, topped with a cheeseburger or hot dog, all drowned in ground meat, hot sauce, chopped raw onions and Day-Glo orange grease. It takes a tattooed cook 14 seconds to assemble. It looks unpicturesque.

 

"That's why they call it the Garbage Plate," says Mayor William A. Johnson Jr., 61, who is no fan.

 

Don't sample it at Nick Tahou Hots (slogan: "Home of the Garbage Plate''). At this fluorescent-and-Formica joint, the cheeseburger is as dry as a cracker and the grease pools at the bottom of the paper plate.

 

"It's supposed to be greasy," says the skinny cashier, who appears to eat elsewhere.

 

Nick's used to be open all night until it hosted one too many shootouts. Located on West Main Street, it's a quick but perilous walk from the mayor's office, past a homeless shelter, shuttered businesses and a high school for troubled youths.

 

"You walked there?" Mr. Johnson says. "I wouldn't walk there. Don't go there again. If you had made a wrong turn, you would have been in no man's land." He pulls out sheets of statistics. Rochester's homicide rate, at 17.4 per 100,000, is double New York City's.

 

In 2001, Rochester had 39 homicides, mostly execution-style hits.

 

"Only a couple of times a year, a purely innocent person gets shot," the mayor says.

 

He dreamed up the ferry idea in 1995, a year after he took office. He thought tourism might halt the city's decline. Conjuring up a vision of Torontonians streaming across Lake Ontario, he persuaded New York state to kick in $14-million toward a ferry service.

 

Currently, the $42.5-million (U.S.) high-speed catamaran is out of dry dock in Perth, Australia. At the Rochester harbour, a 30-minute drive from downtown, work crews are rushing to convert an abandoned warehouse into a terminal.

 

But neither side has received approval from customs and immigration authorities. And construction hasn't even begun in Toronto. "I'm in the dark as to exactly what kind of structure they're talking about," says Mr. Johnson, who has heard rumours that Toronto's terminal might be a concrete pad covered by a tent.

 

Henry Pankratz, Toronto Port Authority chairman, didn't return calls. Nor did Dominick DeLucia or Howard Thomas, executives at the ferry company, Canadian American Transportation Systems.

 

"The last I heard they wanted somebody else to put in money," says Joe Pantalone, a Toronto city councillor who chairs the municipal waterfront group.

 

In a sign of how few tourists come to Rochester, rooms at Microtel Inn & Suites cost $39.95.

 

"I get the stupidest calls from the stupidest people," the desk clerk complained to a room attendant the other morning. "Like, 'How big are your rooms?' " In fact, Microtel has queen beds and full baths, and includes continental breakfast, free local calls, cable TV and the morning paper.

 

Rochester would be a bargain, except that Air Canada charges nearly $900 round-trip for a 25-minute flight. (Advance bookings are $387, with a $150 penalty for any change.) By car, the trip via Buffalo takes about 3½ hours, plus gas and tolls. In contrast, the thrice-daily ferry will cost $40 (U.S.) per car, plus $20 per passenger, or $28 for walk-ons. Shore to shore, the trip takes 2½ hours, an estimate that doesn't include customs and immigration checks.

 

But such comparisons miss the point, according to Carol Miller, a retired hospital worker (and my cousin-in-law), who has lived in Rochester her whole life. "What do they expect people from Toronto to do when they come here? There is so nothing here."

 

Hers is a typical Rochesterian psyche, less civic boosterism than civic dumpsterism. Indeed, last June a number of local organizations offered a "Reality Tour" of the city's poorest neighbourhoods.

 

Ms. Miller offers her own blightseeing tour. At the ferry docks, she points out abandoned buildings. "The beach is polluted," she says over the roar of front-loaders. Later, she drives her family van over potholed streets to the downtown core. Here, on the Genesee River, is Rochester's star attraction: a 30-metre waterfall.

 

High Falls is no Niagara Falls, but it did power Rochester's first flour mills. On this sunny November day, the footbridge is deserted. "I hate to tell you this, but it's like this in the summer, too," Ms. Miller says. "To be honest, I wouldn't come here day or night alone."

 

Downtown, all-day parking is $3. A nearby heritage building is vacant, with smashed windows and torn plastic sheeting. Traffic is so sparse it's unnecessary to look left or right when crossing the street. But pretensions to a bygone era remain: no-left-turn signs on every downtown corner.

 

Two hundred years ago, High Falls made Rochester the largest flour-milling city in the world. A hundred years ago, George Eastman invented the 10-cent flexible film roll and the $1 Brownie camera here. His 50-room mansion, which now houses a museum of photography, is the city's only five-star attraction. In 1932, at the age of 77, the lifelong bachelor declared his life's work done and shot himself in an upstairs bedroom.

 

Rochester's decline can be traced to governor Thomas E. Dewey. In 1948, Rochester voted against him when he ran for president, ensuring he lost the state -- and the White House. Two years later, Mr. Dewey saw to it that Interstate 90 bypassed Rochester on its way from Buffalo to Syracuse.

 

Today, digital technology has slashed employment at Eastman Kodak Co. to 21,000 from a high of 60,000 in 1982. Two other main employers, Xerox Corp. and Bausch & Lomb Inc., have also cut jobs. In the past decade, Rochester's population has shrunk 6.3 per cent to 220,000 (Greater Rochester has about a million) and taxable city property values have plunged 15.3 per cent. It now ranks 173rd among the nation's 200 largest metropolitan areas in terms of job creation and economic performance.

 

At the end of a depressing tour, Ms. Miller is pressed for a genuine Rochester attraction. She suggests Wegmans, a supermarket. Don't laugh. "It's the store where I take my relatives and out-of-town visitors," Neil Stern, a food-industry analyst, told The New York Times.

 

Cher went there this summer. Wearing dark glasses and a cowboy hat, she signed autographs and cooed to the manager, Bill Congdon, "I'd love for you to build one of these stores in Malibu where I live."

 

At 130,000 square feet, the Pittsford Plaza Wegmans offers a caviar bar, a kosher deli that authentically boils the bagels before baking, and a less authentic Chinese buffet. The fish department cooks to order, free. The flower department has a five-day guarantee on roses. You can hook your latte cup onto your shopping cart. Your toddler can "drive" a red plastic car also hooked, yes, to your shopping cart.

 

Aside from gargantuan restaurant portions -- the Scotch N Sirloin offers 48-ounce slabs of prime rib, Nick Tahou Hots sells 42-ounce drinks -- everything in Rochester seems to be disappearing. Downtown's revolving restaurant has closed. The nightly laser show at High Falls has been mostly discontinued. Even the Red Wings baseball team had five consecutive losing seasons, including, in 2002, its worst in 23 years.

 

"Then they moved the team to Ottawa, and immediately it got better," says Mr. Johnson, who himself was trounced this month in a race for county manager.

 

Not surprisingly, Rochesterians prefer to look to the past. Visitors are told to go to Mount Hope Cemetery, where Frederick Douglass, the slavery abolitionist, and Susan B. Anthony, the women's suffrage leader, are buried. Her home is another attraction, but everyone from cab drivers to Ms. Miller to the mayor warned against venturing into the neighbourhood (just past Nick Tahou Hots).

 

"Oh, we have no problem here," Joanne Middleton, the docent, insisted to the one and only visitor of the day. "The neighbourhood is fine."

 

Johnson ired by Toronto slap

Canadian newspaper columnist finds much to dislike in Rochester

 

By Lauren Stanforth

Staff writer

 

(December 2, 2003) — Mayor William A. Johnson Jr. says city and fast ferry officials have to work on changing people’s perceptions about Rochester, after a Toronto Globe and Mail story on Saturday took pot shots at everything Rochester, from the Garbage Plate to the height of the waterfall at High Falls downtown to how George Eastman died.

 

Johnson called a press conference Monday afternoon to denounce an entertainment article written by Globe and Mail reporter Jan Wong, which started with the phrase, “there are several important reasons why Torontonians wouldn’t ever want to come” to Rochester.

 

The high-speed ferry that will run between Toronto and Rochester is scheduled to be operational in May.

 

Wong visited Rochester for 2½ days and wrote about her “depressing tour” of the city. Wong wrote about Rochester’s homicide rate and declining work force at Eastman Kodak Co. She also took aim at many of Rochester’s institutions: the Garbage Plate with its pooling grease, how at age 77 George Eastman shot himself in the upstairs bedroom of his mansion on East Avenue and how Rochester’s star attraction is a “30-meter waterfall.”

 

“We’re going to have to mount a serious effort to counteract this perception,” Johnson said Monday.

 

The mayor said he will meet with Canadian American Transportation Systems President Dominick Delucia, Rochester’s partner in the high-speed ferry project, to discuss how to deal with negative perception before the $42.5 million project is finished.

 

Johnson, who said he talked to Wong in person on Nov. 19 for two hours, said he was offended by Wong’s obvious bias against Rochester.

 

Johnson said the quotes in the article, in which he advised Wong to never walk to the Susan B. Anthony House from Nick Tahou Hots because if she took a wrong turn “she’d wind up in no man’s land,” were accurate. However, Johnson said he was only trying to give sound advice to Wong about walking in a possibly questionable part of the city. Johnson said every city has questionable areas — even Toronto.

 

Wong, reached by phone in her Toronto office Monday, said she did research on Rochester before visiting and found the city to be saddled with crime and facing economic decline. She said she wrote the story based on how a tourist would react to Rochester’s self-promoted bright spots.

 

“I want the reader to read it. I’m trying to be a little funny, sometimes at other people’s expense and sometimes at my expense,” Wong said. “I understand people are upset. But I think (the story) is pretty accurate.”

 

Wong said she went to a concert at the Hochstein Music School and visited Strong Museum — but many of those details were cut for space considerations, she said.

 

The Globe and Mail’s publisher, Phillip Crawley, was out of town and could not be reached for comment Monday.

 

Patti Donoghue, public relations director for the Greater Rochester Visitors Association, said she had heard about, but not yet read, Wong’s article. What she had heard left her shocked, said Donoghue, who said more than 200 writers have interviewed her about Rochester during her six years with the visitors association.

 

“It seems what (Wong) concentrated on was crime. What I tell any travel writer is that there are certain areas that are not advisable to go to, just like any other city,” Donoghue said. “I can show you tons of articles and what was said about us that are wonderful. People who have lived everywhere and traveled everywhere have said ‘It’s beautiful here, you’re so lucky to live here.’ ”

 

In October, Johnson took issue with a column that ran in another newspaper, the Toronto Star, which also criticized Rochester as a high-speed ferry destination. That writer, Joey Slinger, said he would rather visit Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, than Rochester.

 

My Response

 

The Garbage Plate is the greatest food ever invinted. If they bitch got off her high horse and actually tried it she'd like it. What contrabutions has Toronto ever made to food?

 

Downtown is going to be destered on the weekend when on one as at work. They have the exact same probleme in Chicago, LA and countless other US Cites. Suburbanites are stupid and afraid of they City because of there own prejudice. Rochester had bad areas, Toronto does too. I'll admit to a higher crime rate, but your only put yourself in danger (which is exaggeratted) if you go out intentionally finding those areas.

 

The Red Wings did not move to Ottawa, the Baltamore AAA affiliate did. Rochester still has a team and was named the best Baseball City in the minors. Ottawa is least in the International League in attendence.

 

The article is elitist BS. I'll admit Rochester is no tourist attraction, but it isn't a shit hole.

[CanadianChris 0]

How long is this ferry supposed to take? It'd be like traversing Lake Ontario lengthwise. I can't see that it would be much quicker than driving it.

[RepoMan 0]

How long is this ferry supposed to take? It'd be like traversing Lake Ontario lengthwise. I can't see that it would be much quicker than driving it.

It's suppossed to take 2:15. It saves about 45 minutes. I don't think alot of pepole will take it. I just don't like one sided pot shots at my home town.

[Guest Waldo]

They were thinking about building a bridge from Buffalo to Toronto.

 

That would be one long fucking bridge.

[Red Baron 0]

They were thinking about building a bridge from Buffalo to Toronto.

 

That would be one long fucking bridge.

Considering the bridge will be going over Niagara Falls, St. Catherines, and many other townships in the Niagara Region.

 

 

The thing is, Torontoanians are stuck up bitches thinking they are the best god damn city god ever created. Hell most places is a shit hole, and just because its got a tall needle and Canada's only bunker in the country (SkyDome), thinks they are the fucking best. Yes the town is very multicultural, from many different countries, especially when it comes to Carriabana, Chinatown, Little Korea, Little Italy, etc...

 

Toronto isn't the best Canadian City there is. I'll leave that to Vancouver, is probably one of the most cleanest cities I have ever visited in the country.

 

Rochester is what? 100,000 people I assume. Toronto has about 5 million. Rochester might suffer from a high crime rate of a small town, but you don't notice that every day in Toronto there is a rape, murder, suicide, gang related issues, with out getting noticed.

 

 

But this is surprising to see this from a person writing from the Globe And Mail This is something that the Toronto Sun would publish, and the editor would accept it.

[CanadianChris 0]

Rochester (proper) has a population of about a quarter million, with a metropolitan area of just over a million. Toronto (after amalgamation) is about 2.5 million.

[Red Baron 0]

wow...

 

this is what happens when you don't go to your classes.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Rochester (proper) has a population of about a quarter million, with a metropolitan area of just over a million. Toronto (after amalgamation) is about 2.5 million.

Wow. I could've sworn the numbers were like this for the greater metropolitan areas:

Toronto: 4.5 million

Montreal: 3.5 million

Vancouver: 1.75 million

Ottawa: 1.5 million

Calgary and Edmonton: 1 million

Winnipeg: 750,000

Quebec City: 600,000

Halifax: 500,000

 

Guess I was way off.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

That's a pretty sad article. I expect better from the Globe and Mail.

 

I think the reporter had some good points though. I mean, I don't see that many Torontonians actually spending 2 hours on a ferry to go see the grave of a slave abolitionist, you know? If anything, this might help Toronto instead of Rochester. The Canadian dollar is high now, but that could change, and the lure of a somewhat cheap weekend away could cause people to go from Rochester to Toronto. Which sucks, because that takes business away from the people they're trying to help. Very unfortunate.

 

Also: redbaron51 is a very smart man, re: Vancouver.

[CanadianChris 0]

Yeah...living in Ottawa, I can tell you that we're not even a million. More like 800,000 (less than that, actually). It's the biggest small town you'll ever see. I work in the second-tallest building in town, the Jeanne Mance building, and it's:

 

a) not downtown, and

b) 26 stories.

 

Plus, population figures can vary wildly, depending on what you include in a "metropolitan area." The numbers you quoted are probably correct based on the largest definition.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I sort of want to move to Canada every now and again if I decide at some point in life that I tire of Chicago (doubtful.) I was thinking Montreal or Halifax.

[CanadianChris 0]

Montreal would probably be the perfect city for you, Czech, especially since you speak French. It is a very laid back, very cosmopolitan city.

 

Halifax is a nice city as well, but it's really isolated from the rest of North America.

[Karnage 0]

Toronto isn't the best Canadian City there is. I'll leave that to Vancouver, is probably one of the most cleanest cities I have ever visited in the country.

Well in Vancouver theres lots of potheads who think this place is like Amsterdam and the downtown east side is pretty dirty...but other than that, yeah, it's pretty clean.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Montreal would probably be the perfect city for you, Czech, especially since you speak French. It is a very laid back, very cosmopolitan city.

 

Halifax is a nice city as well, but it's really isolated from the rest of North America.

Yeah, it has its own time zone. Nova Scotia seems like Maine to a higher degree.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

*Reads Title*

 

No, no, fuck you.

 

Who the hell would want to go to Rochester? I mean there's really no point in this ferry. Waste of time and money. I'm happier staying here thanks. Unless someone offers me some Bills tickets, as even when the team is piss poor games are sold out like two months in advance...

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Yeah...living in Ottawa, I can tell you that we're not even a million. More like 800,000 (less than that, actually). It's the biggest small town you'll ever see. I work in the second-tallest building in town, the Jeanne Mance building, and it's:

 

a) not downtown, and

b) 26 stories.

 

Plus, population figures can vary wildly, depending on what you include in a "metropolitan area." The numbers you quoted are probably correct based on the largest definition.

I remember driving in the middle of nowhere while going through Ottawa. All of a sudden someone was like "Hey, there's the Corel Centre". I mean really.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Yeah...living in Ottawa, I can tell you that we're not even a million.  More like 800,000 (less than that, actually).  It's the biggest small town you'll ever see.  I work in the second-tallest building in town, the Jeanne Mance building, and it's:

 

a) not downtown, and

b) 26 stories.

 

Plus, population figures can vary wildly, depending on what you include in a "metropolitan area."  The numbers you quoted are probably correct based on the largest definition.

I remember driving in the middle of nowhere while going through Ottawa. All of a sudden someone was like "Hey, there's the Corel Centre". I mean really.

There are a lot of rural areas inside Ottawa city limits. Especially between Nepean and Kanata (where the Corel Centre is). They used to be seperated cities, but we have since been amalgamated. Including Gatineau, the Ottawa area has approximately 1 million residents.

 

It is a big city in terms of area, but the population is relatively low. Even in Ottawa, the majority of the population is suburban.

 

I live in Altavista and it would take me about 40 minutes to get to the Corel Centre.

[Guest Danny Dubya v 2.0]

Ferry Bad Place

 

The good news is that Torontonians are getting an exciting new car ferry. The bad news is it's going to Rochester

By JAN WONG

As a fellow Rochestarian (... no, it's not pronounced like "Roach". More like "rotch".), I've only been to Toronto once (was dragged by my folks there when I was younger) and the only cool thing I found there was the science museum and some dinosaur exhibit.

 

Rochester is only a bad place if you live in the ghetto. The suburbs are really tame as far as crimerate goes... then again, I don't pay attention much, but it seems so.

 

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- People in this beleaguered city on the south shore of Lake Ontario are pretty excited about a new Toronto-Rochester car ferry promised for May.

 

No... no, we aren't. Most of us realize it isn't going to do jackshit.

 

For their part, people in Toronto have barely noticed. That's all to the good because there are several important reasons why Torontonians wouldn't ever want to come here.

 

Our horribly shitty weather? C'mon now, meteorologists from all around the country come here to study our lake effect snow!

 

Then there's the culinary treasure known -- this is true -- as the Garbage Plate.

 

For $6 (U.S.), you get home fries and cold macaroni salad, topped with a cheeseburger or hot dog, all drowned in ground meat, hot sauce, chopped raw onions and Day-Glo orange grease. It takes a tattooed cook 14 seconds to assemble. It looks unpicturesque.

 

"That's why they call it the Garbage Plate," says Mayor William A. Johnson Jr., 61, who is no fan.

 

"Unpicturesque"? Food isn't meant to look at... it's meant to taste good and fill your stomach.

 

At the end of a depressing tour, Ms. Miller is pressed for a genuine Rochester attraction. She suggests Wegmans, a supermarket. Don't laugh. "It's the store where I take my relatives and out-of-town visitors," Neil Stern, a food-industry analyst, told The New York Times.

 

Fuck that, shop at Aldi's. They're cheap as hell and their food isn't bad at all. Wegmans is the yuppie parade.

 

“We’re going to have to mount a serious effort to counteract this perception,” Johnson said Monday.

 

LOL... no Johnson, I'm afraid "we" doesn't include you lately. Least not for long. You blew your reelection.