National Toy Hall of Fame

The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, United States, devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through six programmatic arms called "Play Partners": The National Museum of Play National Toy Hall of Fame World Video Game Hall of Fame International Center for the History of Electronic Games The Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play American Journal of Play The Woodbury SchoolIndependent and not-for-profit, The Strong houses hundreds of thousands of historical materials related to play. These enable a multifaceted array of research, exhibition, and other interpretive activities that serve a diverse audience of adults, families, children, students, teachers, scholars, collectors, and others around the globe.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame is an international hall of fame for video games. The hall's administration is overseen by The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and is located at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, United States. The museum began the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in 2009, announced the formation of the hall of fame in February 2015, and opened it on June 4, 2015. It is located in a dedicated part of the "ESL Digital Worlds: High Score" exhibit at the National Museum of Play; prior to an expansion of the museum in 2023 it was located in the museum's "eGameRevolution" exhibit. The Strong has also run the National Toy Hall of Fame since 2002.Video games become eligible for the World Video Game Hall of Fame by meeting four criteria: Icon Status – is widely recognized and remembered Longevity – is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over time Geographical Reach – meets the above criteria across international boundaries Influence – has exerted significant influence on the design and development of other games, on other forms of entertainment, or on popular culture and society in generalInitial nominations are made each year by a staff committee at The Strong, which takes into account the four criteria, with influence considered the most important. Members of the public can submit games for consideration by the committee as well. The nominees are then voted on by a panel of around 30 "scholars and journalists from around the world", with each panel member ranking their top three choices. A public poll is also included, with the results counting as equivalent to a member of the panel. Afterwards, the staff committee reviews the votes and makes the final selection. While generally there is a clear difference in vote counts for the highest-scoring games, if there are multiple games with similar vote counts near the cutoff point, the committee decides by emphasizing a variety of game types or platforms in any given induction year. Video games that have not been inducted may be nominated in multiple years. The set of final nominees is typically announced each year in March, and the inductees in May. In its first two years of operation, the hall named six inductees from fifteen finalists; since then, it has named four inductees each year from a set of twelve. In the nine years that the hall of fame has been open, 40 games have been inducted out of 74 nominated. Many of those games have been nominated multiple times. In some cases, the hall may list the first game in a series of similar titles as a proxy for the entire series, such as with The Oregon Trail series or the FIFA International Soccer/FIFA series. Nintendo has been the developer of the most games inducted with six, out of a total of nine nominations of seven games. Atari has had three games inducted out of five nominations of four games, and Blizzard Entertainment has had two games inducted, both on their first nomination. Eight other developers have had more than one game nominated. Minecraft has had the most nominations of any game at four and was then inducted, while FIFA International Soccer has had the most nominations without being inducted at three. The earliest game to be nominated is Spacewar! from 1962, while the latest is The Last of Us from 2013, both of which have been inducted.

The Strong National Museum of Play (known as just The Strong Museum or simply the Strong) is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and based initially on the personal collection of Rochester native Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum opened to the public in 1982, after several years of planning, cataloguing, and exhibition development for the museum's new building in downtown Rochester. For at least fifteen years after its opened, the mission of the museum was to interpret the social and cultural history of average Americans between 1830 and 1940, under the direction of H.J. Swinney and William T. Alderson. Mrs. Strong's collections of dolls and toys, American and European decorative arts, prints, paintings, Japanese crafts, and advertising ephemera provided a firm foundation for this mission, and were supplemented with collections purchased and donated to more fully support the museum's early mission. The museum received considerable local and national publicity and support and substantial financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities' Exhibitions and Public Programs division.In the 1990s, the museum's Board of Trustees and director changed the museum's mission to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of play. Since then it has refined and increased its collections (hundreds of thousands of items), and expanded thrice, in 1997, 2006, and 2023.The museum is now one of six Play Partners of The Strong, which is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and produces the American Journal of Play.

Manhattan Square Park, also known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Manhattan Square, is an urban park located in Downtown Rochester, New York, in the East End District, adjacent to The Strong Museum. At approximately five acres (2 ha), it is the largest park within the Inner Loop, which marks the boundary of the official downtown district. The park is open year-round and features an ice skating rink and live music venue.

Five Star Bank Plaza is a high-rise building located in Rochester, New York, United States, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It is the sixth tallest building in Rochester and was originally built as Marine Midland Plaza. Site preparation work started December 1967, with groundbreaking on February 5, 1968. Standing at 284 feet (87 m) with 21 floors, the building was topped out on July 10, 1969 and opening day was April 15, 1970. Tishman Realty & Construction, who built the Original World Trade Center Complex, were the builders. The building was renovated in 1999. It has 560 parking spaces and 380,000 square feet (35,000 m2) of gross building area; 351,400 of it being usable.The iHeartMedia radio stations 95.1 WAIO, 100.5 WDVI, 1180 WHAM, 1280 WHTK, 107.3 WNBL, 106.7 WKGS and 102.3 WVOR broadcast from studios located on the 16th floor of the tower. Five Star Bank moved its regional headquarters to Rochester in 2016. Five Star Bank will lease three floors for ten years. Marine Midland was re-branded as HSBC in 1999 as part of HSBC's global re-branding, thus renaming the plaza One HSBC Plaza. HSBC Bank USA moved out of the plaza several years later. They sold the branch to First Niagara Bank in 2012 then later consolidated with another branch nearby. Five Star Bank opened a branch in the Plaza on the building's first floor, as had been done with each bank. The building lights up certain offices with red lights to display a Christmas tree during the holiday season. Large illuminated lettering bearing the name and logo of Five Star Bank was added to the top of the building when the building changed names to Five Star Bank Plaza (whose branch is respectively located at One Five Star Bank Plaza).

University Club is a historic club building located at Rochester in Monroe County, New York. It was constructed in 1930 and is a four-story, rectangular brick structure with a seven bay Georgian Revival style facade.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

The First Universalist Church is a historic Universalist church building located at 150 S. Clinton Ave. in Rochester, New York. Construction began in September 1907 and was dedicated in October 1908. First Universalist Church is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association and is one of two Unitarian Universalist congregations in Monroe County, New York; the other being the First Unitarian Church of Rochester.

WDKX (103.9 FM) is an independently Black-owned urban contemporary radio station that broadcasts from Rochester, New York at 800 watts of effective radiated power. The station's studios are located east of downtown Rochester along Main Street, and the transmitter tower is located atop Xerox Tower in downtown. WDKX chose its call letters to honor Black heroes ("D" for Frederick Douglass, "K" for Martin Luther King Jr., and "X" for Malcolm X).Monroe County Broadcasting Co., LTD. formed a corporation in 1968 to compete for the available FM frequency 103.9 in Monroe County, New York. WDKX commenced broadcasting at 5:30 a.m. on April 6, 1974. WDKX has been under the same ownership since its inception. Andrew A. Langston, founder and former owner and general manager of WDKX, received the "Rochester Radio Broadcaster of the Year" Award, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters "Pioneer" Award, and was inducted to the "New York State Broadcasters Hall of Fame" inaugural class. The station currently places first in Nielsen ratings of 18-34 and 25-54 listeners, both urban and suburban, and has ranked second overall in the Rochester market behind WBEE-FM in recent ratings surveys. The station has a wide-ranging playlist, ranging from Old School R&B and Classic Hip Hop to today's R&B and Hip Hop. WDKX also plays some Dancehall, Afro beats, Jazz, Pop and Dance music.

Christ Church, in Rochester, New York, is a parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester. It is located at 141 East Avenue. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.The church is a large Gothic Revival style building made of "rock-faced red Albion sandstone". It sports buttresses and flying buttresses.

Geva Theatre Center is a regional, not-for-profit, professional theatre company based in Rochester, New York. It is housed in an 1868 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, located in Rochester at 75 Woodbury Boulevard. The Center has full seasons of programming, in addition to discussions based on plays and staged readings, and community outreach.

Innovation Square, formerly Xerox Tower, is a skyscraper in downtown Rochester, New York, standing at 443 feet (135 m) tall. The tower is the centerpiece of a roughly 2.7 acres (1.1 ha) complex named Xerox Square. When it was built in 1967, it was the tallest building made of poured-in-place exposed aggregate concrete. It is the tallest building in Rochester, as well as the third tallest building in New York outside of New York City. It was initially used as the headquarters of Xerox Corporation. The "Digital X" Xerox logo at the top of the building was removed in 2005 with Xerox's new positioning away from "The Document Company" signature and the related logo in use since 1994.On April 18, 2009, Xerox announced their wish to sell the tower and other buildings in Xerox Square, and lease back the office space. In August 2013 the property was sold to Buckingham Properties for $40 million. Under the terms of the sale Xerox will continue to lease space in the building for eight years, with an option to renew. Between the Summer and Autumn of 2015, a multi-color light display was added to all four corners of the tower roof.The complex formerly featured an outdoor skating rink, and an English pub-style restaurant called The Shakespeare, both of which operated until the late 1970s or 1980s before being converted to a private outdoor lounge for Xerox employees.On January 26, 2018, Xerox has announced that it would vacate the entire building to move all its local employees to Webster.More recently, it was sold to Gallina Development. Gallina announced that it would rename the complex "Innovation Square" and retrofit it with housing, commercial, and college student living space. The auditorium, which was kept, reopened as a performing arts center in September 2021.

Washington Square Park is an urban park in Rochester, New York. It contains the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, erected in 1892.