High Falls Festival Site
Rochester, NY

A design team including architects, engineers, and landscape architects developed plans to transform this long abandoned industrial site in the city’s historic Brown’s Race District into an urban cultural park adjacent to the High Falls of the Genesee River.  The park features a viewing terrace atop the ruins of the north and west wings of the former Gorsline Building, which affords spectacular views of the falls and river gorge.  The site also includes a large central plaza space with decorative pavements that has the dual purpose of being a festival site on weekends, and a parking area for the tenants of the restored south wing of the Gorsline Building during the week.  A broad tree lined walkway, the “pedestrian way”, borders the plaza space and links the viewing terrace with other areas of the Brown’s Race District.