Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In a message dated 9/29/03 12:07:22 PM, mark@rabinergroup.com writes: << I don't think Kodak is smart enough to think like that. Not evil enough. Rochester remember is where they are. Not Redmond. Not an evil place. >> For over half a century Kodak had it all their way. I was a frequent visitor to Rochester during the 80s and 90s. I visited the Kodak plant, attended their inhouse photo club meetings, often attended Eastman House exhibits, and enjoyed driving up there from NYC. I recall seeing women, who must have begun working for Kodak in their teens, whose job it was to check and measure out the leaders of 35mm cassette film. Visitors had to walk through a shallow tray of water before entering the plant. They had their own world. Kodak's narrow gauge RR snaked among those 19th century buildings. It seemed as though George Eastman would be watching. Those old concrete floors were kept scrupulously clean. Rochester was a workingman's town. Gleason Machine tools is still there. Downtown is dead last time I did some street shooting. I think Linx Trainer's plant is still there. Wegman's built an elaborate food emporium that I've seen nowhere else. Like a Hollywood set. Each section had its own decor and mood. It was located in a suburb close to Rochester. The Erie Canal threads through Rochester, into the heart of downtown. Rochester has a remarkable crafts school, RIT, including an excellent photo department. And the UO is there, including their medical school. Great place to visit. My spies tell me the city has since been taken over by techies. I could never find a decent restaurant there, although they had a great delicatessen I've not seen the like of in the Northwest. The landscape is rather bleak unless you drive south to the Finger Lakes region and the town of Skaneateles or northwest toward the Falls. But Rochester was -- and probably is now -- a well-off town. At a meeting to save the local classical music station, a lady addressed the chair: "If they try to change the format, let's buy it." And those matrons meant business. They could easily swing a couple of million. Methinks Kodak probably had a lot to do with making Rochester solid. Eastman didn't make will-o'-the-wisp products. br - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html