Thursday, August 2, 2001

JayceLand's Weekly Rochester Events #134: Home on the Grange

I'd like to take a moment to share how much trouble I go through sometimes for all you loyal readers. Consider tonight's Peachy Neachys show. It's at 7 at Kennelly Park on Main St. in Fairport at the canal. Click on the address link and note the exact location of the park. Now, I challenge you to find any other source that pinpoints it.

Freetime Magazine just says "Main Street." The online maps MapsOnUs and MapQuest don't know where it is. You can only tell the what the gazebo in the park is if you already know where to look on Microsoft's TerraServer (here's downtown Fairport in a USGS Aerial Photograph from April 22, 1994; the gazebo is in the center of the image right next to the canal about 50 meters from Main Street--the little dark gray round-ish thing with the light gray dot on top.) The area of interest is shown to the right. The AAA map and the one in the phone book are of no help--the park doesn't even exist. Kennelly Park isn't listed in the white pages. Searching for "Kennelly Park" Fairport on Google yields some old Freetime Magazine calendar entries and an article with an editorial comment that the park was named after Vincent Kennelly Jr., the mayor of Fairport in the 1980's.

I was having no luck, so I thought I'd just drive there from work in Victor on the way home on Tuesday. I took 251 to 96 then picked up Turk Hill Road by mistake. I intended to take 250 straight into Fairport. Oh well ... I just went down 31 instead and picked up 250. I parked on Railroad Street on the north side of the canal and walked around. I didn't see it so I asked went to the barber shop and asked the barber where the park was and he said it was on the other side of the canal. By now the second train was going by on the railroad tracks so Main Street (250) was all congested. I had to wait forever to get off Railroad Street because some asshole decided to block the side street and the sheepish minivan driver was just sitting there waiting to go left. We sat there for about 5 minutes.

When we finally got going again, I puttered down Main then took 31F to 490. Stupidly I picked up 490 East and headed the wrong way ... no problem, I'd just get off at Monroe Ave. Well, no. By now it was nearing 5:00 and traffic was backed up right onto the right lane of the expressway. Same with the first 96 exit. I figured I could turn around at the Thruway but couldn't so I took it west instead.

Eleven miles and $0.40 later and I was back on 390. I cruised easily on up, right to the 590 split. Traffic was backed up right through the entire ramp to 390 ... right back to the split. No big deal -- I'll just take Winton to Westfall to home. Well, so did everybody else ... there was apparently an accident on 590 near Monroe Avenue and traffic was backed up to Winton. No big deal ... I'll just go south to Winton Plaza, through it, and back up Edgewood. Crossing 590 I confirmed there was an accident right under the overpass. I finally made my way down a relatively uncongested Westfall Road to East Henrietta and home. All told: 48 miles in an hour and a half in a trip that could have been half the distance in a third the time.

So as they say in those MasterCard commercials,

Trying to find Kennelly Park in Fairport: 30 minutes. Eleven miles on the Thruway: 40 cents. Getting stuck in Rochester rush-hour traffic: one hour.

Being the only site anywhere that pinpoints the location of Kennelly Park in Fairport: not fucking worth it.

Well enough of that for now. In other local news, the Piranha nightclub at 204 N. Water St. is closing on Friday night. I kind of think it has to because the area is getting too nice around there and what fun is a dark goth and rave club in the middle of a yuppie district? Anyway they're having some big party with a bunch of DJ's and planning to stay open way past bedtime.

• Xotec (progressive house)
• Myke D (hard house)
• Virus (happy hardcore)
• Darkwave (electro-synth-tech)
• Dangler (acid-industrial)