[itinerary | lodging] You’ve settled into your new life on the Lake, the happy return to your roots in pastoral upstate New York. It’s a fresh start and a clean slate. Work is running you ragged, and big changes are coming your way. Time to put yourself out there. You are ready to walk the streets again, not only in the towns and villages you grew up in — but in the other big cities of Empire State, too. Rochester’s been calling.

It’s unseasonably warm for December: the perfect opportunity to explore a walkable neighborhood. In a past life, you lived for the streets of Brooklyn. Waiting for the 4 train in Boerum Hill on hazy August nights; plunging into crisp, glowing evenings from a wine bar tucked away in Prospect Heights; listening to the S shuttle rumble just steps from the Brooklyn Museum. Embracing New York means embracing the best of both worlds. You miss that city college kid you used to know, but take comfort in coming home to your quiet Lake paradise. That said, you need to let that city kid out once in a while.

Neighborhood of the Arts

Proper wayfinding in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts

Your tour of Rochester begins with a focus on the Neighborhood of the Arts– NOTA, for short. You’re pleasantly surprised to learn of the vibrant art scene in the Flower City. Like any Rust Belt town, Rochester has lived through boom and bust, Renaissance and revitalization. Powerful names like Eastman Kodak, Wegman’s, and Xerox, forever chiseled in epic brick-and-mortar bibles, continue to sustain every upstate NY family in some way. Your own grandfather sold Kodak film to NASA, film that went on to capture the some of the most incredible moments in human-space history.

Village Gate Square

Some businesses might have left Rochester, washed away by the sands of time. But new generations saw the potential in these cement footprints. One such footprint was the former Chiclets factory on Goodman Street. You remember Chiclets, don’t you? The little square gum tabs and their “Tiny Size” counterparts. Once a source of light and color in the form of chewing gum, the factory today provides art, shops, and mixed-used space in the form of Village Gate Square. It’s your first stop on the NOTA walking tour.

Are you the Keymaster to Village Gate Square’s Gatekeeper?

After passing through the forged steel gates, you’re greeted by a cobblestone courtyard surrounded on all sides by brick boxes. On one side, a Mexican cucina dusts off their outdoor seating to take advantage of the weather; on the other, colorful bicycle racks form the shape of vaporous steel flames as a giant metal head raises an eyebrow. You’re drawn into this eclectic space, pulled deeper into the urban labyrinth like Theseus on the hunt for the minotaur. What mythological creatures inhabit the halls of this post-industrial behemoth?

You find an entrance behind the metal gatekeeper and mount the steps up to the platform above. The space is quiet and bereft of other humans. It’s not really a shopping mall, but it feels the way most megamalls feel these days: abandoned yet tranquil, a moment frozen in time from a golden era. Art installations take the place of fountains and shop directories. Ancient telephone headsets dangle from the ceiling — a grim analogy for the fate of the corded machine. Steel dancers circle an orange cauldron like Macbeth‘s Three Witches. As you catch the eye of a flying fish, you reach the end of the central court and realize the walls are closing in. Like Alice, you creep curiouser and curiouser down the narrow rabbit hole as the thunder of drums bellows from within a nearby studio.

Scenes from within Village Gate Labyrinth

Could it be the minotaur crashing around the labyrinth’s center? Whoever it is, they’ve been practicing along with the same Metallica track for the past 15 minutes. You hang a hard right and eventually reach a dead-end. You can’t help but laugh nervously. The Village Gate labyrinth appears to be mocking you, a cruel joke left by Daedalus himself: the last hopes of previous explorers scrawled on a chalkboard, a warning to all those who dare seek the half-man, half-bull monster within. The claustrophobia you once felt during your city life surfaces like bad heartburn. You only hope Ariadne could save you with her magical thread, leading you to blue sky and clean air once again.

Before you die, you want to find your way out of Village Gate Square

But was it really a dead-end? Blame the unreliable narrator. You look around a corner and see a loop back to the beginning. A metaphor for life and history: boom and bust, Renaissance and revitalization. Your life in upstate NY, your life in the city, there and back again. There is a barred door with a tiny window beaming a glint of hope, the sunlight lending its golden thread to lead you back out into the world. Maybe the minotaur was your own fear all along. You close your eyes and push the bar, praying to the gods it won’t sound the alarm. And suddenly, it is warm and bright and fresh again. The gatekeeper’s back is to you now. You live to avoid his gaze a little longer.

The Unreliable Narrator Book Shop

It’s only fitting that from this vantage point, you observe a large wooden door across the courtyard with wrought iron handles and no signage. You approach the door, recalling a memory from your first visit to the Rochester area more than a year ago — a visit that would forever change your life when you offered to buy Conesus Lake House later that day. On that day the door opened to a dark speakeasy, guarded by a more lifelike gatekeeper. You and your companion did not pass this gatekeeper’s test. You were refused entry, leaving you to forever wonder what might have been. Today, the speakeasy is vanished like a mirage in the desert. A plastic A-frame welcomes you instead to the Unreliable Narrator, an independent shop of books and curiosities. Your travel companion hesitates as you move to touch the handle. Do you dare disturb the universe?

Friendly clerks at Unreliable Narrator book shop in Rochester’s Village Gate Square

The book shop is, as the kids say, “big mood.” A non-plussed clerk reads at the Square terminal while a handful of diverse shop-goers mill about to the Twin Peaks theme music playing overhead. Your companion tries on an assortment of mood rings, each one registering a different color in deference to science itself. Tarot cards, crystals, sorcery kits and the like occupy as much shelf space as the books themselves. You zero in on a Chuck Klosterman cultural treatise on your favorite decade (the ’90s) while your companion delights in a stuffed porcupine. This is no Barnes and Noble, for sure. You’re happy to support an independent bookstore and buy the Klosterman. Despite today’s weather, winter is coming– and you look forward to curling up with a good book by the fireplace.

University Ave

You exit the book shop and turn around to make sure it’s still there. Nature has a way of healing things, even cities. Maybe the speakeasy was never meant to be there in the first place. So you pass by the Village Gate Square gatekeeper once more, protected now by the spiritual shield of the Unreliable Narrator’s aura, back to Goodman Street. The wayfinding sign helps you navigate to University Avenue — NOTA’s main thoroughfare– where you begin a proper “ARTWalk” amongst colorful hand-benches, poetry booths, and geode mosaic walls.

ARTWalking towards Goodness Cakes Bakery* in NOTA

It’s about this time that you could use a snack. Just across from a steel sculpture that resembles the crosswalk man reaching upward, you stumble upon Goodness Cakes Bakery (*closed since publication). A veritable hobbit hole tucked neatly behind the flat-iron building between Atlantic and University, the bakery offers dainty cakes and pastries to match the store’s proportions. Your companion craves a classic eclair — or, in this case, the aptly named “wee-clair.” You grab a couple and lounge outside in the warming sun. The eclairs are fresh, puffy, and filled with sweet cream. Just enough calories to fuel the next leg of your journey toward the George Eastman Museum.

Heading southeast on University, you admire the various colorful sculptures created by local artist Vincent Massaro. You believe all cities should surround their occupants with art. There is a comfort — some company — in an otherwise isolating environment like a city. Like staying up with a good book and a flashlight under the covers at night. You pass by a painted craft store and a yellow metal bench and take note of the neatly landscaped intersections, home to floral arrangements, succulents, and junipers bushes. NOTA is designed with pedestrians in mind.

ARTWalking towards George Eastman Museum in NOTA

At the gate to the rear of the Eastman property, you look further down the avenue and notice the block-length building you would later learn is The Gleason Works, the world’s largest gear manufacturing plant. Surprisingly, this giant of industry does not loom over the neighborhood spewing smoke and fumes like certain Rust Belt towns of your past. Though over a half mile wide, the building rises to a modest height to match the skyline of the surrounding community, its wide arched windows inviting the curious passerby to peek into the machine. Art and industry cohabitate and coexist in Rochester.

George Eastman Museum

You pass through the faded green fence lining the back of the George Eastman plot, past the entrance to the Dryden Theatre, and stop cold at the Museum’s entrance. A familiar face smirks as if recognizing you first: a knowing smile from a master of his art before he passed, emblazoned forever on a bronze statue. Raised in nearby Fairport, Philip Seymour Hoffman went on to star in over 55 films and scored four Academic Award nominations — winning one for Best Actor in the biopic Capote. You first met him as “Dusty” Davis, the color commentator of Twister‘s rag-tag team of storm chasers, but went on to know him best as Brandt, assistant to Jeffrey Lebowski (the other Lebowski), and Lancaster Dodd, the unnerving prophet of a post-war cult. Even in memorialization, Mr. Hoffman is looking cool with his blazer, T-shirt, and sunglasses. It is calm and peaceful in the Eastman House courtyard. You pay your respects to The Master and find yourself drawn deeper into the hedge maze, where a sundial and oxidized lion fountainhead align in perfect harmony with the walled garden.

Meeting an old friend in the courtyard of the George Eastman House (rest in peace)

Memorial Art Gallery

You exit the Eastman House courtyard and turn back toward the main ARTWalk drag via Portsmouth Terrace. Light rain starts to dot your forehead, so you quicken your pace along University past the flat-iron building at the corner of Atlantic. You have one more stop planned that’s closing soon, but you can’t resist a quick pause at the Memorial Art Gallery for a free show of outdoor sculptures. A group of youths are laughing and posing amongst the installations — an exhibit in an of themselves. You are pleasantly overwhelmed by the amount of accessible public art here in NOTA. You didn’t even have to buy a museum ticket today.

Scenes from the Memorial Art Gallery campus in NOTA

Marketview Heights / Rochester Public Market

At last you reach the final stop on today’s tour: the City of Rochester Public Market in neighboring Marketview Heights. Open every Saturday until 3:00, this vibrant shopping ground features Christmas tree vendors, fruit and vegetable farmers, homemade mulled wine sellers, honey and syrup makers, clothing and accessory booths, meat packers, fish mongers, and a variety of unique foods and baked goods. The crowd is bustling, but traffic flows easily under the brightly-lit vendor sheds. You companion delights at the price of persimmons, buying a giant bag of the orange fruit for $10. You settle for a $2 apple-cider fry cake.

Scenes from the Rochester Public Market

There is evidence of NOTA’s proximity here in Marketview Heights, with colorful murals and mysterious artisan gift shops guarding the perimeter of the market. Beyond the northern gate, you hear it before you can see it coming: the CSX railroad that also serves Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited, Empire, and Maple Leaf lines. To the southwest, Rochester’s three tallest skyscrapers — Xerox, Metropolitan, and Legacy — stand proudly in Center City, a testament to the architecture of an artistic town. Art and architecture, form and function. These are the ingredients of a proper American city.

You are getting sleepy… very sleepy… at the sound of the bell, you will like, share, and subscribe

Bitter Honey

The market is winding down, but your stomach is just ramping up. It’s been a long day of art walks and bookstore mirages and spirits of Hollywood stars past. On the opposite end of the market, beyond the south gate, you spy a neat looking building amongst the converted factories that’s blasting Andy Williams Christmas music. The sign says Bitter Honey, and you realize you’ve stumbled upon one of the best Mexican-inspired restaurants and bars in Rochester.

The bar has just opened, and a friendly man in a pin-stripe shirt is polishing glasses when he notices you walk in. “Welcome to Bitter Honey,” he beams. You and your companion pony up to the bar and ask for classic margaritas and a couple menus. In addition to the usual sugar skulls and other Mexican tropes, Bitter Honey’s aesthetic revolves around the old-timey toffee from which it derives its name– Bit-O-Honey. You remember those chewy tabs from an ancient time in your childhood, when you could still walk up to the Red and White Store from your grandparents’ house and buy gobs of the stuff with pocket change. You aren’t sure what Bit-O-Honeys have to do with Mexican cuisine, but you go with it. The restaurant is decked out with tinsel and Christmas lights for the season, and by the time the bartender plops down your margarita the population has already tripled in size. Multiple groups of Santa Clauses and their elves waltz in, each more festive than the last. Young girls dressed more for a day at Hamlin Beach than for a day at the North Pole try to get on Santa’s nice list. A young couple has even brought a baby up to the bar, much to the delight of Kris Kringle. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, indeed.

Classic margarita, Buffalo chicken and Baja tacos, and vinyl at Bitter Honey in Rochester, NY

After mulling over the menu, you decide on a variety of street-style tacos to complement the marg. A Baja taco highlighting battered cod coupled with a “Josh Allen” fried buffalo chicken taco sound tasty. You excuse yourself to the restroom in hopes that your food will be waiting when you return. Squeezing your way past a crowd of Saint Nicks, you catch a compliment from Mrs. Claus herself. “Love your Conesus Lake hat,” she grins. You thank her and work your way through the double-doors and down the stairs, where you discover Bitter Honey’s connection to next-door Ziggy’s — apparently owned by the same restaurant group.

Upon your return, the tacos are waiting for you just as you expected. The bar has filled in even more, including two aunties who are practically elbowing your companion out of her chair. Nevertheless, the sound and fury of the room enter slow-mo as you take a giant bite of the corn-wrapped Baja taco. Hark! The herald angels sing: glory to chipotle crema, you sing, struck by the combination of spicy pickled onions, warm flaky fish, and fresh cilantro. You easily put the whole thing away in three bites and dive into the buffalo chicken version, ever spicier and crispier than the first. You order two more rounds of each along with a side of rice and beans to top off the night. Bitter Honey’s plate presentation is a work of art on its own — and one more margarita provides a suitable digestif for the art you consumed earlier that day.

Just as you are settling up, one of the aunties encroaching on your companion decides to make contact for the first time that night.

“Look, Santa just handed me a Ziplock full of —” She trails off, presenting a baggy of what appear to be latex prophylactics.

You tip your hat to them as you get up to leave. “Guess that’s what you’d call a stocking stuffer.”

Good night, Rochester. You’ve been great.

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