“Take the camera and go capture some shots of old dilapidated industrial buildings in Rochester.” My instructions were clear. I was to drive downtown and capture b-roll video of Rochester’s unfortunate economic collapse for a smear campaign commercial that my company was creating for a local Republican political candidate. It was 2004, I was a young 25, and wasn’t particularly politically motivated at the time. But I just loved video production and editing, so as someone who spent most of my day dubbing VHS tapes for a living, a real assignment like this was an opportunity I lunged at.
I parked the company truck, pulled the camera and tripod from the passenger seat and walked toward my destination. I was in Rochester’s High Falls District, a place I had seen many times delivering video tapes of commercials to a local advertising agency.
After proudly accomplishing my task of capturing Rochester’s crumbling infrastructure, I walked around a corner and heard a roaring sound. I walked a little farther and came across a long pedestrian bridge that seemed to go forever. I quickly trotted out on the bridge over a deep gorge, which was empty on this weekday morning. A few paces led me to the source of the thundering bass that consumed the air. It was Upper Falls, Rochester’s 96-foot waterfall just a stones throw north of downtown.
I had heard about it, but in my quarter-century of life, most of which had been spent living in the Rochester area, I had never seen it for myself. Here I was, standing on this amazing pedestrian bridge, staring at one of the most impressive natural sites I’ve ever seen in the middle of a city I now realize that I barely knew.
Fast forward a couple of decades. I walked that bridge again just a week ago like I had hundreds of times since that day. I stared at the same falls, which always seem to surprise and amaze me like the first day I saw them. But this time, I was walking across the bridge for the first time in two years.
Rochester’s Pont de Rennes Bridge overlooking historic High Falls used to be an extension of Platt Street until it was deemed structurally unsound for automobile traffic in the 1960s. In 1982, the bridge was reopened under the new name Pont de Rennes, as Rennes, France is Rochester’s sister city. The reincarnation of the bridge was a pedestrian-only platform that yearned to reconnect Rochester to its historic roots. The hope was that the bridge would revitalize the High Falls District, which, for some time, would see a moment of investment and revitalization.
Offices, restaurants, shops, a visitor center, and the massive entertainment hub Jillian’s came and went. Some businesses hung on longer than others, but when Jillian’s closed in 2004 after just five years, it was beginning to look like the High Falls experiment had failed. Rochester tried vigorously for decades to create places where suburbanites could go for entertainment. But as so many Rust Belt cities came to realize, this model was never sustainable. High Falls has since had somewhat of a second life as an office district, but the lofty hopes of people walking the narrow streets and admiring the approachable urban infrastructure were all but vanquished.
The bridge played host to a laser light show on and off from 1992 to 2010, but just like the investment to subsidize the entertainment district, the money spent eventually didn’t add up.
When I took that walk across the Pont de Rennes Bridge so many years ago for the first time, the attempt to liven this district via suburban-dwelling club-happy twenty-somethings had already passed. The experiment had failed. High Falls, once again, was a ghost town. It would be another 6 years before the Pont de Rennes bridge would become relevant again.
The Genesee Brew House
I know we are jumping around in the Rochester timeline here, but let’s skip to 2012. The Genesee Brewing Company in Rochester opened their new dynamic tasting room, bar and restaurant on their property North of downtown Rochester and adjacent to the Pont de Rennes Bridge. The company, looking to reconnect Rochester to its brewery roots, rolled the dice on its proximity to the city’s most impressive natural occurrence while playing off the newfound resurgence of micro-brewery mayhem and hit a massive home run. The city found a staple to rally around once again, and that energy has continued through today.
Then there is the bridge that suddenly became a platform that introduced so many to the city’s most regal natural resource once again. Genesee’s newfound center fueled a renewed interest in High Falls, albeit on the opposite side of the Genesee river than was originally intended. And during the summer, the Pont de Rennes bridge serves as a logical pre-game/post-game connector to the brewery for Rochester Red Wings baseball games.
The Bridge Today
In 2023, the bridge underwent a year and a half of structural rehabilitation and was closed to pedestrian traffic. This past December, it reopened to the delight of residents who appreciate this valuable piece of activation and connectivity. The bridge also received a bit of a facelift, with new lighting, railings, viewing stations and seating options. Moreover, the bridge feels like a blank slate for a future High Line-ish upgrade in the next few years.
Speaking of upgrade, in the Fall of 2024, it was announced that High Falls was going to become an urban state park. Areas that were formally industrial havens near the aforementioned waterfall will be opened to the public, creating public space unlike any urban area in the United States. The Pont de Rennes bridge will play an even greater role in this venture, decades after the intention for it’s original reopening as a key piece of pedestrian infrastructure.
The West side of the river continues to be a beautiful piece of urban streetscape that the city lightly pushes to display in the hopes of a renewed trend of financial investment.
And every year, Greentopia hosts their signature Dinner On The Bridge event to raise funding and highlight this beautiful piece of Rochester history.
The Big Picture
There is a lot to be taken from Rochester’s history with regard to the Pont de Rennes Bridge. Until the early 1960s, it simply facilitated automobile traffic. But for 20 years, it lay vacant, waiting for activation.
In the 80s through the 2000s it became a piece of a flawed puzzle to create an urban entertainment district. Particularly in our smaller Rust Belt urban environments, this model was almost universally proven to be unsustainable, and High Falls was no exception.
But the popularity of the Genesee Brew House reconnected so many Rochester and Rochester-adjacent residents to High Falls, and the Pont de Rennes bridge has become the best way to see this natural urban marvel. Credit Genesee Brewing for finding the right combination of great views, excellent approachable food, good beer and a home run of a rebranding campaign. The result is a newfound appreciation for the Pont de Rennes bridge and the one-of-a-kind views it enables.
The Takeaway
There are two things here. One is that any piece of urban infrastructure can have multiple lives. Just because something served an original purpose doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. A structure can have multiple lives over many decades.
The second thing is that sometimes you just never know how things are going to go. It was originally imagined that the Pont de Rennes bridge reopening as a pedestrian bridge overlooking High Falls would compliment the investment in the West side of the High Falls District on the Genesee River. But the bridge now sees its most consistent traffic as a result of an incredible business decision by Genesee Brewing on the East side of the river. In the future, the bridge will be a focal point when High Falls becomes an official state park.
Keep reimagining. You never know what’s going to stick, and then get better.