Kodak town weary but defiant as problems worsen

With investors placing bets on whether Eastman Kodak will file for bankruptcy, there is not so much a sense of crisis as a feeling of resignation and fatigue among the residents in its hometown.

At one point, the company employed more than 60,000 people in Rochester in upstate New York, where it was born more than 130 years ago.

Now, that number is closer to 7,000 - and it has been decades since the company, once synonymous with photography, began its downward slide.

"There's a saying around Rochester that there is life after Kodak," Tom Diederich, 59, said wryly.

Diederich, who works part-time for car rental agency Hertz, retired from Kodak a month ago when his job was eliminated as part of cost-cutting. He spent 20 years in Kodak's film division.

"I don't think the impact will be as terrible as it could have been. The steady decline of Kodak allowed the area to absorb the impact," he said.

Text: Clare Baldwin, Reuters

Image: Kodak workers seen entering the company's headquarters in this file photo.

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