Saved by Play: the Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Rochester's Southeast Loop
The construction of the Inner Loop scarred the neighborhoods ringing downtown Rochester, including the area near Monroe Avenue and Union Street that became known as the Southeast Loop. The neighborhood spent a decade as a construction site bisected by the new sunken highway, with the unsurprising result that it was then labeled a "slum" and slated to be cleared and replaced by high-rent apartment towers. Join us as mother-son team Katie Eggers Comeau and Benjamin Comeau explore how flawed assumptions, shortsighted plans, and unlucky timing doomed the Southeast Loop Urban Renewal project, and how the unexpected arrival of the world-class Strong National Museum of Play kicked off yet another transformation.
Katie Eggers Comeau is the senior architectural historian at Bero Architecture. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Humanities from Yale University and master’s degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. Saved by Play is Katie’s third article for Rochester History, and the first article she’s written in collaboration with her son, Benjamin.
Benjamin Comeau graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2026 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and a minor in Urban Real Estate Development. He is a Real Estate Development Analyst with Greystar in Washington, D.C., where he works on multifamily and mixed-use development projects.
Registration is recommended but not required.
This is an in-person program that will also be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/@RochesterPublicLibraryNY/streams.
Presented by the Office of Rochester and Monroe County History in partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology Department of History and RIT Press.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3760629-0
