Pittsford kind of gives me the creeps but it looked pretty cool today as this big rain storm moved in. A suburb of Rochester, it’s an Erie Canal town gone prepsville with the Pendleton Shop, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s at the four corners. I’m calling this building the coal tower but I think the coal tower is shorter and off to the right. I should get my facts right before opening my mouth but I don’t. I’m sure Pittsford has a rich, colorful history but has been pretty much obliterated.
My father is presenting a talk on the history of the Buckland farmland in Brighton this Saturday at noon. Based on The Edmunds diaries, 40 handwritten books by a father and son, it’s an account of West Brighton farm life in the late 1800’s. Reservations are required.
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The Coal Tower is a restaurant across the parking lot from the silos you picture. Those silos were converted last year into offices with a ‘penthouse’ residence on the top floor. I’m assuming the views are spectacular.
Though I don’t miss living in Pittsford, there are certainly many worse places to live.
As Martin says, The Coal Tower is now the restaurant on Shoen Place. I graduated from Pittsford High School, and grew up next to Oak Hill Country Club. Pittsford was always destined to be THE perfect suburban town; it can only be experienced as a series of still-shots. It is the epitome of a delusion, a moment (right about this time of year). and there is no use being sentimental about “history”, or saying it has been “obliterated”. The observation convicts you of sharing in the very notion. Oh, I could write a long poem about Pittsford! Wait, I did! It’s called: ONE SOUL DIVERTED
Somehow Pittsford seems to take itself seriously and your description of it was comic relief. Thanks for writing it. Although I must say I do really love their library and have always enjoyed visiting Schoen Place. I’d like to read LLoyd’s poem.
” I should get my facts right before opening my mouth but I don’t.”
Sounds like the philosophy of the old A&R Report – “Often in Error, Never in Doubt”
Dee S.
The poem ONE SOUL DIVERTED is here: http://stagepoetrycompany.typepad.com/stage_poetry_co/2007/02/index.html
Scroll down to the beginning of that blog page and see Table of Contents, then read poems in reverse order, Starting here in Feb. 07 the archives of this poem go through to April, 07, ending with “Dictates of Talk, IV”. Parts about Pittsford especially in “Yodewah” and “Pittsford Plaza>.
Oh my goodness, thank you for the link to the poetry. Have read Feb and half way through March. Wonderful reading. Thank heavens for poets.
I have a photo of the silos from 2007. I hope somewhere there are photos of the site in Pittsford before the Plaza was built. I cannot remember what it looked like.