What is ARTWalk?

Rochester is home to ARTWalk, a permanent outdoor art trail connecting the art centers and public spaces along University Avenue in the city's southeast quadrant. The concept for ARTWalk started in 2001 when the City of Rochester joined neighbors, artists, and developers to devise a plan to revive the area.

With art galleries and world-renowned museums in close proximity to each other, the project resulted in rebuilt streets and sidewalks in a way that honors and features these unique assets. What resulted was a neighborhood that transformed basic infrastructure into everyday, accessible art.

The area became alive with public art in a myriad of forms like sculpture, benches, bus stations, mosaic light poles, and stamped sidewalks. In a few short years, ARTWalk’s corridor has been credited with driving down crime rates, raising property values, creating jobs, addressing social issues, and returning deteriorating building stock to healthy and constructive uses. By attracting and retaining homeowners and business owners to its popular neighborhood, ARTWalk has brought increased tax revenues to the city.
The project received the Common Good Planning Center's Uncommonly Good award and the US Conference of Mayors 2003 City Livability Award.

Officially chartered in 2002, the concept of ARTWalk actually began a decade ago in 1998, when the City of Rochester, NY planned to rebuild University Avenue. Concerned residents from the newly named Neighborhood Of The Arts didn’t want a wider avenue- -they wanted neighborhood revitalization. They wanted a neighborhood focused on the pedestrian’s experience, as well as the motorist’s. University Avenue connects many Arts and Cultural organizations including two of Rochester’s prominent cultural institutions: the University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography. In fact, ARTWalk founder and 2007 Champion of the Arts award winner, Doug Rice, first visualized ARTWalk while standing outside the back entrance to the Eastman House. Looking west he could see the beautiful tower of the MAG. What to make of the many blocks in between?

Residents proposed an urban outdoor art trail that would further the City’s vision for the Neighborhood of the Arts. A process ensued that had not been seen before in this City – a strong, working partnership between neighborhood residents, transportation authorities, City planners, volunteer architects, and local, state and federal governments developed. Community planning would never be the same again. Between 1998 and 2002, a large number of individuals and organizations committed the necessary time and effort to make ARTWalk a fantastic reality, and the "City Livability" Award winner of 2003 from the US Conference of Mayors.

Rochester gained national attention as having established a means of integrating art and design fully into street-level planning. With whimsical benches, large sculptural acquisitions, mosaic-covered light posts, and a custom-designed sidewalk, the corner of University and Atlantic Avenues became a prime destination. Businesses moved in, housing sales and values increased, and young professionals and families found themselves living on the “Walk” in beautifully renovated spaces. The Flatiron Building, developed by 2005 "Champion of the Arts" winner and ARTWalk founding Trustee, Paul Kramer, now home to the popular Starry Nights Café and other galleries, antique stores, restaurants, and newly renovated lofts and apartments. The literary center, Writers & Books obtained a giant pencil sculpture, the Baobab Cultural Center was born to educate and dazzle us with African cultures and art, and the local pub, the Forum installed 3 pride sculptures, celebrating Rochester’s diversity. Everywhere one looks on ARTWalk, things have been touched by creativity and whimsy. Corners with enlarged bump-outs and medians house thriving gardens, which are maintained by a core of volunteers.

ARTWalk has always been a volunteer-run organization. Residents and community activists poured all funding into the Walk itself, and into their two trademark events for the community, ARTWalk Alive! and the Muse-A-Thon. Initially, the federal government granted transportation dollars to help make the street and sidewalk changes desired. And now, thanks to Representative Louise Slaughter, the federal government has allocated funds to expand ARTWalk. The ARTWalk II expansion will run north on Goodman Street to the Village Gate, and south on Goodman to the Rochester Museum and Science Center. It will continue downtown on University to encompass the School of the Arts and SUNY Brockport’s Visual Studies Workshop building, which houses classrooms, libraries, galleries, and theatre.