One of the most gangsta cities in the United States, period. Easily the most official city in New York, and everybody from everywhere who actually knows anything about street culture in Rochester will tell you the exact same thing, so long as they have a decent frame of reference for street culture in general...
Ironically my first experience with Rochester nikkas was around March/April 2011, at a house party in Elmira talking to this Spanish chick. I've been in NY less than maybe two weeks, knew one person there (my uncle), and hadn't even yet connected into the culture. Long story short, her and her cousin entertain me and walk away and I'm knowing she's gonna be the first thing I slam in NY...
I'm drinking alone in the kitchen area about 10 minutes later and this old, fat Spanish dude walk in there. He's been drinking too, and strikes up a convo with me last about 2 minutes maybe. It was pleasant and then at the end he told me the girl I holla'd at was his niece, both girls were, and he doesn't play about his nieces. He put a little tone on it, which sobered me a little so I sized him up while he was sizing me up, like he was threatening me or something...
Keep in mind I'm 21 at this time and know nobody here and have nothing on me. So instinctively I automatically shifted into another mode mentally...
I'll skip the minor details, ultimately I ended up having words with a group of Bloods (all black) that were there and told them they weren't Bloods, led to somebody calling me outside, I finish my beer and go outside and there's like 10 nikkas on the front yard, all Bloods from Rochester. Fat Spanish guy ends up coming outside with two other Spanish dudes, turns out that guy ran the local King chapter at the time (but if my memory serves me correct he was from the Bronx, I found out later), and when he heard me exchanging words with dudes he got on some "let me get at this young nikka first" type shyt....
That was my first encounter with Rochester dudes...
I spent almost two years in NY and linked with Rochester dudes when I was trafficking shyt in. Rochester was keeping Hit Squad Brims alive in the early-10s, which is an old NY Blood gang that apparently phased outta NYC before 2011 but still had hitters putting on in Roc. Those dudes were 100 with me, in my time in NY I saw Roc nikkas in different spots (outside Roc) beef with Florida nikkas in one spot, and South Carolina nikkas in another spot, over drug turf...
Roc is the only other city besides NYC where you will legit see them in any major spot across New York State on a paper chase. Whether it was cracking cards or drugs or pushing gang lines, Rochester dudes was everywhere...
It's a different kind of gangsta, they kill each other but it's not like it's a murder capital (Buffalo is worse when it comes to murder game and so are a couple small towns in the Hudson Valley), so it's not about the kills even though they get down like that too. NY from The Boroughs all across Upstate has alota outta state traffickers, international too with Canadians pushing shyt in, so it's a highly competitive drug market, but it's also not that unfriendly...
Rochester and New York are the only people that be all over NY with it...
Roc dudes (Buff too) are also known as heavy hitters on the prison yards and be making noise in county jails in Syracuse and Buffalo and small city jails like Binghamton and Elmira...
Made some good relationships in my time there, when I hung out in Roc it was mostly around Monroe CC, Lake St, those areas. And it was almost entirely street networking...
It's a smaller city, not tiny but smallish. Not a popping nightlife (Syracuse is better), food is pretty good and the civic pride is 100, they root for the Bills and have a friendly love/hate relationship with Buffalo. I like it, typically has a better economy than the rest of Upstate, but the weather is killer like the rest of Upstate, it's small, and you can run outta shyt to do quickly...
I give it a 6 or so...
I'm done with his threads now.
