Rochester Landmarks is a searchable database of architectural landmarks, public art, and big trees in and around Rochester, New York. It includes descriptions of, information about, and photographs of the landmarks. More items will be added every couple of months. Your comments and suggestions for new items are invited.

What Is Public Art?

"The term 'public art,' properly, refers to works of art, in any media, that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. The term is especially significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies, and creators of public art, to whom it signifies a particular working practice, often with implications of site specificity, community involvement, and collaboration" (from Wikipedia).

About the Artist

Richard Margolis moved to Rochester 50 years ago for the MFA program at RIT. He stayed because he never found any place he liked better. He taught for ten years, did commercial and architectural photography, was a founding member of Photo Archives Belong in Rochester (PABIR) that campaigned successfully to keep the Eastman House photographic collection here. He worked for ten years to save the Hojack Swing Bridge from demolition, but that effort failed. He helped revive the Arts & Cultural Council in the 1980s, organized the first meetings of the Neighborhood of the Arts, was a founding member of ARTWalk, helped organize 2nd Saturdays for Anderson Alley Artists, and was its coordinator for several years. He was a member and president of the Francis Parker School 23 PTA that his children attended. He was project manager for several sculpture projects at School 23 and the Cat & Bird sculpture at the corner of Merriman Street and University Avenue, the first ARTWalk sculpture.

Margolis's studio is on the 4th floor of a former shoe factory, now the Anderson Arts Building. He claims to dislike digital photography but Rochester Landmarks, Israel Public Art, 1000 Islands Landmarks, and The Bridge Project website and book, are all primarily digital photography. He does work now with a 4 x 5 camera and makes big prints in a conventional darkroom on silver gelatin paper. He was born in June and is a Gemini and sometimes claims that that explains why his life and work is bifurcated.