Rochester is a high-tech industrial and cultural center and the third largest city in the state. Its educational institutions include the University of Rochester with its Eastman School of Music and Rochester Institute of Technology with its National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The Vacuum Oil Company, a predecessor of Mobil Oil Corporation, was founded here in 1866. The city also has a symphony orchestra and professional theatre.

Rochester has its share of famous citizens too: Susan B. Anthony, champion of women's rights; Frederick Douglass, black abolitionist and statesman; George Eastman, inventor of flexible film; Hiram Sibley, founder of Western Union; and musicians Mitch Miller, Cab Calloway, and Chuck Mangione.

The city is on the Genesee River, near its outlet to Lake Ontario, in the midst of rich fruit and truck-gardening country.