Rochester is getting state money to help extend a trail in the High Falls gorge.
Rochester is getting a $275,000 dollar grant to do the trail work on the east end of the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge, near the Genesee Brewery. Mayor Tom Richards and State Senator Joe Robach announced details of the project which also involves about $475,000 worth of investment by the city. That includes money spent several months ago to buy land where an old rail bed had existed.
Richards says this area of the city has its roots in the beginnings of Rochester, when it was a source of water power for making flour. And he says it can still have a vital role in the city's economic development.
"It is no longer as important to us in an industrial sense as it was before, but what you see today is a continuation of making it again the center of our city.”
The project also includes restoring spotlights on the falls. That was stopped several years ago because of cost factors. The lights are expected to be restored in the next year or so, but those plans do not call for restoring the laser light show that used to be there.
