A garden, a lock and a ghost park
I’m sure the farmers are hating these endless sunny, dry days, but I'm loving the opportunity to check off lots and lots of parks while I have the summer off from school.
Today I tagged along with my husband, who had a meeting to attend at St. John Fisher. I pushed him out of the car when we got to campus, and continued to the Village of Fairport to start my day’s adventures. My plan was to visit at least two, maybe three parks while he was otherwise engaged. It turned out, I had time for four.
I write about those four and one more below, so keep reading.
Perinton Park
My first stop was Perinton Park, located at O’Connor Road and Rt. 31F west of the village of Fairport. This is a very nice-sized municipal park with a lot going for it.
For starters, it’s beautiful, due in large part to its location on the banks of the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal Heritage Trail passes through, which is busy with hikers and bikers pretty much all times of the day. Three bright yellow bench swings face the canal for relaxation and contemplation.
For those who come to play rather than bike or sit, there’s are several nicely maintained tennis courts, basketball courts, and a volleyball court. The lodge has nice bathrooms. There’s a nice large playground in the lower part of the park, which was overrun with kids when I was there today. Nearby picnic tables make it a great destination for a play date/picnic with the little ones.
Actually, there’s so much to like about this park that I think it’s one of my favorites to date. There are no hiking trails, but the playground and chance to commune with lots of ducks makes it nice for the kids. The canal trail is perfect for a short walk after dinner. Basically it’s a great place to hang out, and I highly recommend it.
For you bikers out there, I additionally recommend that you park your car in Pittsford, ride the canal trail about 6 miles east to Perinton Park, have a picnic, then head back to the car. It’s a gorgeous -- and easy -- ride.
Driving up O’Connor Road north from Rt. 31F, the lower playground lot is the first road on your right. Head up a little farther to access the smaller lot on the upper end of the park, which is right along the canal.
Below are some general scenes from the park. The kids will love the ducks, the adults will love the natural beauty.
Potter Park
As is the case with many of the parks I’m exploring for this project, today was not the first time I had been in Potter Park. In January of 2015 I write a column about community gardens, in which I prominently featured Potter Park, home to Fairport’s community garden.
But also as is the case with many of the parks I've been exploring, I realized I had a lot more to learn about this little park.
Potter Park is located right in the village of Fairport. It stretches south from West Church Street between Filkins Street and Potter Place. It is much larger than I knew. Its most prominent feature aside from the garden is the very large veterans memorial which faces Church Street. It’s a beautiful memorial which appears to have undergone some recent renovation and refurbishing (refurbishment?) fixing-up.
Beyond the memorial and garden lie four nicely maintained baseball diamonds, some soccer fields, tennis courts and a neighborhood-sized playground. There are also some bike racks, probably because the park is adjacent to the village’s teen center. There are no bathrooms.
There’s a parking lot off of Potter Place, not far from the playground and tennis courts, or you can park on the street.
The gallery below shows the teen center, the playground, the sports fields, the tennis courts, the garden, and a close-up of the veterans' memorial.
Kraeg Road Park
Depending on where you look online, Kraeg Road Park is located in either Pittsford or Perinton. Since the park is listed in the Perinton Parks and Recreation brochure, we’re going to go with that.
Kraeg Road Park is located on the north side of Kraeg Road, a couple miles south of Rt. 31 (Pittsford-Palmyra Road). This is another canal-side park, but it’s on the south side of the canal, while the bike trail is on the north side. So you can commune with the canal here, and there is a small dock, but warning signs rightly remind you to keep your eyes on the kids because there’s little protecting them from getting too close.
It appears that the Crescent Trail winds through here along the canal, but since I was short on time, I didn't start down that path.
Kraeg Road Park features two softball fields, a playground (with a sandbox, which I rarely see), tennis courts and even a few shuffleboard courts. There are bathrooms and a good amount of parking.
Below are photos of the pavilion, the playground, and the sports fields. The bottom row show the canal side. There is a bench and a dock, but not much of anything else.
Rodney B. Janes Park
This little park really seems like a forgotten little sister. For starters, its main entrance is on Roosevelt Rd. in East Rochester. But because it sits right on the border with Pittsford, it’s actually in Pittsford. But if you didn’t see that fact on the sign at the trail head, you wouldn’t guess that.
But try to find anything about this park on the Pittsford website, and you come up blank. I tried looking at the East Rochester website. Nothing. I simply Googled “Rodney B. Janes Park.” Nothing. It’s like the park doesn’t exist.
But it does. The wooded area shows up on Google Maps (without any name) and there’s a sign in front, so it really, really does exist. And I was there today. Funny thing, though. I tried to take a photo of the sign and as you can see, like a ghost, it did not want to be photographed.
This little patch of woods is only about a quarter mile square, if that. There are a few short trails running through it, one leading from Roosevelt Rd. on the east to Harwood Lane on the west. The other very short trails simply lead to a clearing behind someone’s back yard.
So the park is basically a shortcut for anyone wanting to walk between the neighborhoods. Nothing more.
Which is probably why Pittsford doesn’t care much about it.
The first shot below is the trail head off of Roosevelt Rd., the second is on the trail, and the third is the clearing that two of the trails lead to.
Lock 32 Canal Park
When I have visitors in town from out of state, I occasionally think about how much we take for granted some pretty impressive natural resources right in our neighborhood, like Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls.
"Clinton's Big Ditch" is another good example. Most of us know it as the Erie Canal, which stretches from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. When Gov. Dewitt Clinton broke ground in 1817, people ridiculed it, certain that that the project would never be finished. But of course it was, and at the time, it was considered the Eighth Wonder of the World.
On our east side, the canal passes through the towns of Perinton, Pittsford and Brighton. The villages of Fairport and Pittsford especially have taken advantage of that fact and created beautiful canal-side areas with shops, restaurants and parks. Park your car in either village and you can spend many enjoyable hours.
But I've found that one of the best ways to explore and enjoy the canal is by bike.
The Erie Canal Heritage Trail follows the canal from Buffalo to Albany. In most places the trail was the original path on which mules trudged along, pulling the canal boats. It’s wide, flat, paved in many places and graveled in others. Basically, a joy to ride.
In the last week or so, my husband and I have ridden perhaps 10 miles of the Erie Canal Heritage Trail, most of that between the villages of Fairport and Pittsford. We like to park in one village, ride to the other, stop for a pint or a coffee, then ride back. It’s about 7 miles between the villages, and it’s a very enjoyable, easy ride.
Aside from being very scenic, riding the canal trail has two other benefits for those interested in really cool things. First, you’ll find interpretive displays posted all along the trail, explaining some of the fascinating history behind the creation of the original Erie Canal and its subsequent improvements. Second, you can get up close and personal with another man-made wonder, a canal lock.
That’s what we wanted to do today. So when his meeting was done, I picked up my husband and we ventured down a part of the bike path we hadn’t traveled before, this time parking in Pittsford and riding west a few miles towards Lock 32 Canal Park.
Naturally, the big draw of this park is the lock itself. No matter how many times I see it, it’s fascinating to see the lock in action, opening and closing its massive gates, lifting or lowering a boat and then releasing it to continue on its way. But there is actually a small park at this location as well, complete with a piece of climbing equipment for the kids, a picnic table, a few benches and an informational kiosk. Photos below. If you’re driving, the park is accessed off Clover Street just north of the canal.
I highly recommend bringing the kids to see the lock operate. It’s a great way to learn some local history firsthand. We were able to see the Sam Patch canal boat come through, which I've illusrtaed with some photos below.
To really get a flavor of our state’s canal history, make sure to make a quick side trip to Historic Lock 62. It’s tucked behind a hill at the south side of Pittsford Plaza, and was at one time a lock on the original Erie Canal.
Lock 62 was abandoned in 1918 and has since fallen into disrepair. But you can still see remnants of the original walls and where the gates hung. You’ll marvel at how skinny the lock was and wonder how any boats could get through.
Pittsford is making efforts to reclaim the old lock. They’re cleaning it up, making plans to rebuild the gatehouse, and have installed a historical display. (They were even doing some digging when we were there.) If you like history, it’s worth the stop.
By bike, take the Railroad Loop Trail, which breaks off from the Erie Canal Bike Trail just east of Lock 32. By car, park in the Pittsford Plaza lot between Applebee’s and Wegmans and walk up the hill.
