Lakes and waterfalls
Finger Lakes, gorges & canal towns
Deep lakes, shale gorges, college towns, wineries, canal history, and small villages where water rules, tourism, and property checks often overlap.
The places
Ithaca
Cornell, Ithaca College, gorges, waterfalls, and Tompkins County local checks.
Open the place page ->Watkins Glen
A famous gorge, a racing name, and a Seneca Lake village with heavy visitor seasons.
Open the place page ->Skaneateles
Clear lake water, village streets, and a drinking-water story tied to Syracuse.
Open the place page ->Seneca Falls
Women's-rights history, canal geography, and a village name known well beyond the county.
Open the place page ->Rochester
High Falls, the Genesee River, Kodak history, and western Finger Lakes connections.
Open the place page ->Browse by county
Every city, town, village, and Census place in this shelf is reachable through its county page.
Stories and notes from this shelf
Short, sourced notes tied to this part of New York.
The Waterfall in Town That Beats Niagara on Height
Taughannock Falls drops 215 feet straight down — taller than Niagara — and it's one of more than 150 waterfalls hiding in the gorges around Ithaca.
Read the note ->Watkins Glen: a 19-waterfall gorge and a racing legend
This Finger Lakes village holds two big draws: a state park gorge with 19 waterfalls in one mile, and Watkins Glen International, where American road racing was born in 1948.
Read the note ->The lake so clean Syracuse drinks it straight
Syracuse's watershed materials describe Skaneateles Lake as clear enough to use without a filter plant before it reaches city taps — and the village at its north end shares the same sparkling shoreline.
Read the note ->Where the women's rights movement began, in 1848
In July 1848, a landmark Women's Rights Convention met in a Seneca Falls chapel. You can stand in that room today at a National Park Service site.
Read the note ->A 97-foot waterfall right in downtown Rochester
High Falls drops 97 feet on the Genesee River in the middle of downtown Rochester — and the restored Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge gives you a front-row view.
Read the note ->Water and gorge checks
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