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Western New York families enjoy a rich array of child friendly, educational, and just plain fun attractions. Some of the best can be found just down the Thruway in Rochester.
Because it is just about an hour or so from the Buffalo area, it is very possible to go for the day and visit several attractions or make a weekend adventure and stay overnight.
My most recent visit began at the Susan B. Anthony House & Museum. Visitors have surged this year as the museum and New Yorkers celebrate the centennial of women receiving the right to vote in the state. Nationally, it took three more years for all American women to have the right to vote, so the national centennial celebration will be in 2020.
Every time I visit, I get a lump in my throat as the guide tells the remarkable story of a small group of Upstate women who refused to give up until they won the right to vote. Rochester was a hotbed for the women’s suffrage movement. Not only were women forbidden to vote but also they did not have the right to own property or control their finances.
Anthony was one of the movement’s leaders and lived in this modest red brick Victorian home with her sister Mary for the 40 most politically active years of her life.
In the parlor of the National Historic Landmark home, she met and planned with famous reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. Close to Anthony’s home in a tree-covered park is a statue of Anthony and Douglass enjoying tea.
It was in that same parlor that a U.S. Marshall arrested her for voting in 1872. She was taken by streetcar to the police station but refused to pay her fare insisting that, “I am traveling under protest at the government’s expense.” (She also refused to pay her $100 fine.)
From 1869 to 1906, Anthony appeared before every Congress to lobby for passage of a woman suffrage amendment. In 1906 Anthony delivered her famous “Failure is impossible” speech at her 86th birthday celebration in Washington, D.C. Less than a month later, she died at home in her bed. Her famous satchel that she always carried, stuffed with her important papers, is on display.
Both Anthony and Douglass are buried in the magnificent 196-acre Victorian Mount Hope Cemetery. Her grave is marked by a simple stone that was covered in “I voted” stickers after last November’s election.
Next stop is the Rochester Museum and Science Center that is filled with hands-on educational fun for the entire family. Everyone is invited to explore science and technology, the natural environment, and the region’s cultural heritage. There are special shows for children in the adjoining Strasenburgh Planetarium.
The Adventure Zone is a popular exhibit with a simulator ride to the floor of Lake Ontario. Examine the rock layers of the Genesee River Gorge on the climbing wall. Become a reporter in the weather studio or operate the valves of the interactive model of an Erie Canal lock.
The Rochester in 1838 Diorama has just reopened to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal. It has been totally restored and new interactive features have been added.
Be sure to stop in the Electricity Theater where visitors are mesmerized by zaps of lightning. Beginning this month is a special exhibit — Ripley’s Believe It or Not! explores the real science behind the unbelievable. How Things Work offers fun, hands-on investigations into how mechanisms such as light switches, thermostats, and traffic signals work.
The Strong National Museum of Play remains Upstate’s largest year-round cultural attraction and most popular for families from toddlers to parents and grandparents.
Created to house the collections of Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum opened in 1982 and has expanded greatly over the years. It houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play. It is also home to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, and the World Video Game Hall of Fame.
Families can easily spend an entire day here, and there is a food court and Bill Gray’s Restaurant in the vintage Skyliner Diner. Visitors may bring snacks from home and enjoy them in lunchroom C.
Just inside the downtown museum’s doors is the facility’s largest and most colorful artifact, a beautifully restored, operating 1918 Allan Herschell carousel built in North Tonawanda at the famed Herschell Carrousel Factory.
Wegmans Super Kids Market continues to be the most popular attraction at the museum. Kids enjoy shopping, scanning groceries, and stocking the shelves in the child-sized supermarket. Kids can even produce a commercial or cooking show at WKID-TV and work in deli, meat, seafood and bakery departments and make brick-oven pizzas. In the expanded toddler area, little ones can pick, count, sort, and weigh organic veggies, gather eggs, and crawl through a raised hoop house.
Other popular exhibits include Reading Adventureland, One History Place, Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?, Pinball Playfields, and Build, Drive, Go.
Many people have long known Rochester by association with its most famous industry, Eastman Kodak and its founder George Eastman who was a most generous benefactor to Rochester and charities around the world.
Eastman, Rochester’s favorite son, had a passion for flowers and designed the extensive gardens at his East Avenue mansion. He moved into his grand 50-room house (now the George Eastman Museum) more than a century ago. It was in this garden in 1928 that he and Thomas Edison introduced the world to color motion picture film invented in the nearby Kodak plant.
The house was designed for entertaining and comfort and was filled with gadgets including an elevator, 21 telephones, and a garage with its own car wash.
After leaving school at 13 to support his family, Eastman spent hours in his mother’s kitchen experimenting with glass camera plates to develop an improved photographic system. He was bothered by the cumbersomeness of the early photographic process which required that glass plates be exposed in the camera while wet, and development had to be completed before the emulsion dried.
“The bulk of the paraphernalia worried me. It seemed that one ought to be able to carry less than a pack-horse load,” he once said.
By 1888 he had his first camera on the market — the “No. 1 Kodak.”
Ten years later he was a millionaire. During the next two decades, Eastman consistently reduced the price of cameras; the simplest Brownies sold for $1, so every family could afford a camera. On the 50th anniversary of the company, Kodak gave every 12-year-old child in the country a camera.
The George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum with a collection of several million objects and is a longtime leader in film preservation and photographic conservation.
The Rochester Public Market is the place to be if you are in the area Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday. Open year-round, it has been in operation since 1905 and recently underwent an $8.5 million renovation.
Every year more than 1.7 million visitors come to experience the market’s unique atmosphere with live music, restaurants, fresh food directly from the growers, and real bargains. Saturday is the busiest day and there are often more than 300 vendors. Many visitors come for breakfast or lunch and everyone seems to leave with bulging bags. Special events are held throughout the year including garage sales, plant sales, and concerts.
The Seneca Park Zoo is dedicated to inspiring the community including children to connect with wildlife and conserve wildlife and wild places. A Step into Africa is a popular exhibit with African lions, olive baboons, and African elephants. It is designed to inspire guests to care about the Ngorongoro Center, a unique conservation area in Tanzania.
Currently, the most well-liked and cutest marine animal is surely the recently named Bob, a sea lion pup who was born in June.
There are a variety of special events at the zoo including the popular Zoo Camp-in where the whole family can spend the night at the zoo, explore the zoo with a guide, and enjoy a pizza dinner and breakfast. Just bring a sleeping bag (reservations required).
Zoo educational staff and teen members of the popular ZooTeen program set up education displays and are available to answer questions and offer hands-on activities throughout the zoo.
The Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford is the largest living history museum in New York and the third largest in the country. It is open Wednesday through Sunday through October 8th, and for special events the rest of the fall. The Nature Center is open on weekends in the winter. Special events include Halloween trick or treating, Spirits of the Past night tours, Preparing for the Holidays, Breakfast with St. Nick, and Yuletide in the Country Tours & Buffet.
Many children on my recent visit came dressed in 19th century attire or at least bonnets for the girls. There are 68 buildings with costumed interpreters to keep the hearth fires burning, the heirloom gardens flourishing, and the livestock tended. There are regular live demonstrations at the pottery, cooper shop, tinsmith, and blacksmith shop. Children enjoy the one-room schoolhouse and the 19th century games they can play on the Village Square. You can try your hand at making a punched-tin ornament.
Travel Tip of the Week: For more information go to www.visitrochester.com or call 800-677-7282. A good choice for an overnight stop is the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel Henrietta. It is centrally located, recently renovated, boasts a nice lobby swimming pool, and, of course, free chocolate chip cookies upon check-in. Call 585-475-1510 or visit doubletreehenrietta.com.
Deborah Williams is a veteran travel writer who lives in Holland, NY. Her work has appeared in national and international publications. She is a winner of the Society of American Travel Writer’s Lowell Thomas Gold Travel Writing Award. Learn more at www.deborahwilliams.com.