“You’re not posting a blurry phone photo of that ring on Facebook. We can do better than that,” says my twenty-one-year-old sister. “Put on your boots.”  She grabbed her camera and pulled me out into a biting December night determined to get a good shot of the art deco scrolling on my engagement ring. We …

In 1982, the Marketplace Mall was set to open in Henrietta, adding a fifth suburban-style indoor shopping mall to the already saturated Rochester market. As the ribbon was cut, and the parking lot began to fill up, one Rochester businessman felt the city was ready for something different. Gary Stern had been inspired by the success …

You couldn’t say that the countries of Asia are very similar, climatewise, to upstate New York—or to one another, for that matter. However, they aren’t as different from each other as, say, ours is from Alaska’s, or China’s from Hawaii’s. There is proof in the scientific names of many popular local plants that have made …

  At around 8 a.m. on a humid Wednesday, glassmaker Ruth Hill drives from her apartment in the Nineteenth Ward to a basement studio in Penfield. The space is owned by artist and harpist Sandy Gianniny, Hill’s former high school glass teacher. With a flick of a match, a bright blue flame blows from the small …

In a shop as stripped down as the motorcycle parts he makes, Sean Pelletier’s to-do list includes aluminum tanks, seats, and fenders, all fashioned by hand. Pelletier’s Roc City Café Racers keeps alive a fifties-era British tradition, a small but passionate niche in the national motorcycle culture. Where once, it was all about stripping British-made …

  At five on a Sunday morning, cheese makers Trystan and Max Sandvoss are already hard at work while the rest of us sleep in. The 104 goats that live with the brothers on their sustainably managed twenty-acre farm are eager for breakfast—and fifty-four of them need milking. Soon, it will be time to check …