Railroad Stations: Central Ave. between Clinton Ave. N. and Joseph Ave. for New York Central System; Main St. W. and Oak St. for the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh division of the Baltimore & Ohio R.R.; 35 Court St. for Erie R.R.; 357 Main St. W. for Pennsylvania R.R.; 99 Court St. for Lehigh Valley R.R.
Bus Stations: 83 South Ave. for Western New York Motor Lines (Blue Bus Line) and interurban lines; 72 Franklin St. for Central Greyhound Lines.
Airport: Municipal, 5.2 m. W. of city on State 35 for American Airlines; taxi, $1.25. Sight-seeing planes and aviation schools.
Piers: Foot of Boxart St. for Ontario Car Ferry; Municipal Pier, Beach Ave., for Canada Steamship Lines, season June 15–Sept. 12.
Taxis: 35¢ first 2 m., reduced charge for additional mileage.
Streetcars and Busses: Fare 10¢; weekly passes $1.
Subway: Rowlands to west city limits; fare same as surface lines, with 5¢ additional to Rowlands.
Accommodations: 17 hotels; tourist homes.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 55 St. Paul St.; Rochester Convention and Publicity Bureau, Clinton Ave.S. at Monroe Ave.; Automobile Club of Rochester, 90 East Ave.
Radio Stations: WHEC (1430 kc.); WHAM (1150 kc.); WSAY (1210 kc.).
Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Eastman Theater, Main St. E. and Gibbs St., operas, concerts, children’s plays in winter; Masonic Temple Auditorium, Main St. E. and Prince St., legitimate plays during season; Community Playhouse, 820 Clinton Ave.S., amateur plays, Sept.–May; 31 motion picture houses.
Swimming: Municipal pool, 250 South Ave.; Genesee Valley Park, Elmwood Ave.; Seneca Park, St. Paul St. and St. Paul Blvd.; pools open weekdays 10–10, adm. free to 5 p.m., 25¢ thereafter. Beaches at Ontario Beach Park, Foot of Lake Ave., and Durand-Eastman Park, Lake Ontario.
Golf: Durand-Eastman Park, Genesee Valley Park; both 18-hole courses, greens fee: residents 50¢, nonresidents $1; season permit $5.
Baseball: Red Wing Stadium, Norton St. and Clinton Ave.N.; Rochester Red Wings, International League.
Tennis: City parks and playgrounds, 46 courts, season permit 50¢, players must furnish net.
Annual Events: Twelfth Night Celebration, Cobb’s Hill Park, Highland and Monroe Aves., Jan. 6; Easter Flower Show, Lamberton Conservatory, Highland Park, Highland Ave. between Mt. Hope Ave. and S. Goodman St., Easter week; Music Festival, Eastman Theater, Apr.; Garden Club Exhibition, Convention Hall, Clinton Ave.S. and Monroe Ave., late May or early June; Lilac Festival, Highland Park, May or June; Rose Show, Chamber of Commerce Bldg., 55 St. Paul St., June; Yacht Races, Summerville, June–Sept.; Rochester Symphony Orchestra season, 12 concerts, Oct.–Apr.; Chrysanthemum Show, Lamberton Conservatory, Nov.; Christmas Flower Show, Lamberton Conservatory, Christmas week.
ROCHESTER (500 alt., 324, 694 pop.), third largest city in the State, extends 12½ miles along both banks of the Genesee River to its outlet into Lake Ontario. The river, called by the Senecas Casconchiagon, ‘river of many falls,’ bisects the city: to the south its grassy, tree-covered banks form the sloping margin of park and campus; in the center of the city it is lined by the dull brick walls and smokestacks of industry; north it flows through a scenic gorge. Ten bridges offer views of the river and of the city skyline dominated by Mercury a-tiptoe on the city hall annex, the modern aluminum wings on the Genesee Valley Trust Building, and the aluminum Eastman Kodak tower.
The Four Corners, the junction of Main with State and Exchange Streets just west of the Genesee River, was for 100 years the center of Rochester’s life. Stately old structures, reminders of post-Civil War architecture with their horizontal belt courses, dormer windows, and mansard roofs, are jostled by modern bank and office buildings. The Four Corners has remained the financial center of the city; but in recent years, business, traffic, theaters, and hotels have moved eastward, following Main Street across the river to a new downtown district of irregular, heavily traveled streets.
From this main business area Rochester stretches out in every direction, merging into residential neighborhoods, each with its own shopping and amusement center. Several of these areas are characterized by individually owned homes with carefully tended lawns or backyards, a continuing expression of the period when the nursery industry prevailed in the city. East Avenue, shaded by overarching elms, is a street of pretentious homes behind spreading lawns.
Rochester is home to a number of outstanding specialized industries, some of which dominate in the national, others in the world market. These plants produce kodaks, optical goods, dental equipment, railway signal apparatus, gear-cutting machinery, thermometers, safety paper for checks and mechanical check-writers, and glass-lined steel receptacles. Other important products of the 1,000 local industries are shoes, clothing, food products, office equipment, unbreakable watch crystals, mail chutes, and carbon paper. The industrial plants are not congregated in any one section of the city; they dot its skyline with clean, modern structures, as a rule in park-like settings of wide, landscaped grounds.
As a result of the establishment of the Eastman School of Music and the activities of the Civic Music Association, Rochester has acquired renown as a music center (see Music).
Among the city’s foreign groups, in point of numbers, the Italians lead with 55,000 people, the Germans come next with 40,000, then the Canadians with 20,000, the English 15,000, the Poles and Irish each 14,000, and the Russians 10,000. While the Italians and Poles for a time tended to congregate in separate sections of the city, there has never existed for any period a distinct foreign quarter.
Rochester schools originated or developed many modern educational practices. Sewing classes were organized in 1901 and cooking classes in 1908. Special classes for subnormal children were established in 1906, anticipating the State law by 12 years. The city was the first in New York State to establish the 6-3-3 plan (6 years in grade school, 3 in junior high school, and 3 in senior high school) and one of the first to develop the present 7-5 plan (7 years in grade school and 5 years in junior-senior high school).
The essential conservatism of Rochester is best exemplified in its architecture. The first large-scale period of construction coincided with the heyday of the Greek Revival, and that style has dominated local architectural taste ever since. Something in the severe, straight-line school of modern architecture strikes a responsive chord; but to the flight of fancy represented by the wings atop the Genesee Trust Building the city is not yet fully reconciled: it has an uneasy feeling in the presence of beauty that cannot be made to serve some utilitarian purpose.
The first settler on the site of Rochester was Ebenezer ‘Indian’ Allen, who was granted a 100-acre tract at the falls of the Genesee on the condition that he erect a mill for use by the Indians. Allen built his mill, near the site of the present Four Corners, in 1789. In 1792 he moved with his white and Indian wives to Mount Morris.
Allen’s 100 acres, a dismal swamp infested with snakes and mosquitoes that threatened settlers with ‘Genesee fever,’ after changing hands several times was purchased in 1803 by Colonel William Fitzhugh, Major Charles Carroll, and Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, all from Maryland. In 1811 Colonel Rochester offered lots for sale; on May 5, 1812, Hamlet Scrantom moved with his family into a house on the site of the Powers Building and became the first permanent settler. Abelard Reynolds built a two-story home on the site of the Reynolds Arcade in 1813; in 1815 he opened a tavern; the first newspaper was published in 1816; the next year the village was incorporated as Rochesterville.
By that time the settlement was one of eight along the last 12 miles of the course of the Genesee. Most promising among these was Carthage, which in 1818–19 built a great bridge across the river to attract trade; but after 15 months the bridge buckled and fell. The ultimate supremacy was determined in 1823 by the construction of the Erie Canal through Rochester along what is now Broad Street; and eventually Rochester absorbed all her former rivals.
By drastically reducing transportation costs the canal opened eastern markets to the Genesee farmer. Flour mills multiplied along the river banks, and Rochester became the Flour City. It also became an important center of canal boat construction, and more than half the stock of the transportation companies operating on the canal was owned or controlled in Rochester. The cornerstone of the first Monroe County courthouse was laid in 1821; in 1822 the first sidewalks were voted and the name Rochester was legally adopted; in 1826 the population was 7,669; schools, churches, and bridges were built; and in 1833 Rochester applied for a city charter.
The social and cultural tone of early Rochester was set by the stern New England character. The first church organization was Presbyterian. Early ‘charity schools,’ which grew from the church, for a time offered educational advantages not supplied by the district schools. The first Sunday school, organized in 1818, was attended by Catholic and Protestant children alike. Early enterprises in the field of public amusement withered under the denunciations of the keepers of the public morals. Newspapers refused to accept theatrical advertisements. A change in sentiment did not come until the large German immigration of the late forties brought a taste for recreation and amusement that forced its influence upon the city.
With the development of the railroads and the expansion of the West, the flour milling industry on the Genesee declined slowly and was succeeded in economic importance by the nursery industry. Rochester then became known as the Flower City. In 1840 the Ellwanger & Barry establishment was organized and became one of the largest nurseries in the world, supplying trees for planting on every continent. Second in prominence was the firm founded by James Vick, which specialized in flowers and seeds. The nursery industry inspired the development of the city’s parks; and real estate companies, affiliated with the nurseries, developed suburban districts and helped make Rochester a city of individually owned homes.
In the middle decade of the nineteenth century Rochester was a bustling city of more than 40,000 inhabitants. The early cultural frigidity was melting under the warmth of German Gemuetlichkeit. In 1847 the Turnverein built the Turnhalle; Corinthian Hall was erected in 1849 and became a center of musical and theatrical entertainment; and in 1854 the Maennerchor was organized. On the night of October 24, 1844, Millerites assembled on the Pinnacle Hills to witness the end of the world and be gathered up to heaven with a shout. In 1848 the Fox sisters moved with their family from near-by Hydeville to Rochester and began giving demonstrations of their spiritualist rappings. In 1847 Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave, began publishing the North Star, Rochester homes were used as stations on the Underground Railroad, and the movement for abolition was the first of the many reforms that kept the city in a ferment for the rest of the: century. In 1850 the University of Rochester and the Theological Seminary were incorporated. In the early fifties, after Jesse W. Hatch adapted the Singer sewing machine to the stitching of shoes, Susan B. Anthony went about asserting the rights of women in industry on the ground that ‘a man’s clumsy fingers would never be nimble enough to master the machine that was invented for women.’
Although the shoe and clothing industries in Rochester can be traced to handicraft beginnings as far back as 1812, they did not achieve large-scale proportions until the Civil War. The invention in the fifties of machines for sewing and pegging enabled the shoe industry to respond to the stimulus of the abnormal wartime demand, so that by 1865 there were 25 shoe manufacturers. In 1898, 64 factories produced shoes for a world-wide market. In the clothing industry, the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, especially German Jews, skilled in the needle trades, the invention of the sewing machine, and improvements in transportation encouraged large-scale mass production. By 1881 between 5,000 and 6,000 persons were employed in that industry.
During the same period, 1850–80, Rochester’s specialized industries took root. In 1851 George Taylor and David Kendall began manufacturing thermometers and selling them from house to house. John Jacob Bausch opened his optical store in Rochester in 1853 and a few years later began grinding his own lenses. His friend Henry Lomb bought a half interest in the business for $60. In 1876 William Gleason invented the first commercially successful machine for cutting bevel gear teeth, and his son James later added other inventions and improvements that made possible the development of the Gleason Works.
In 1880, after successful experiments in his mother’s kitchen, George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic dry plates. His great work was the invention and manufacture of films for cameras. The invention by Edison of the moving picture machine resulted in a large demand for Eastman film. In 1888 the first Kodak was put on the market and brought photography within the reach of amateurs.
Casper Pfaudler began manufacturing glass-lined steel tanks in 1887. In 1889 Frank Ritter produced the first dental chair made in Rochester, and Libanus M. and George W. Todd invented the first of a series of mechanical devices to protect checks against alteration. In 1895 George B. Selden, a patent attorney in Rochester, was granted a patent on a compression gas engine, which gave him monopolistic control over the automobile industry until Henry Ford contested his claim in court and won.
Industrial growth made possible the physical and cultural development of the city. Horsecar lines ran in the streets in 1863; electrification began in 1889. In 1891 J. Harry Stedman invented the streetcar transfer in Rochester. In 1887 Ellwanger & Barry presented 20 acres of land to the city as the nucleus of Highland Park. This gift was the first unit in the park system established the following year under the supervision of Dr. Edward Mott Moore.
Rochester’s shoe industry, already faced with competition from New England and the Midwest, suffered a severe blow in the strike of 1922, with union recognition as the chief issue. Most of the plants were forced to remain idle for months. Yet in 1931 there were 32 shoe factories employing 3,600 workers and producing shoes valued at $11,500,000, principally high-grade footwear for women and children. In 1933 the total product of the men’s clothing industry in Rochester was valued at $32,000,000, with 7,500 workers earning a total of $11,845,500.
Conspicuous in the field of labor organization in Rochester is the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, an industrial union recognized in all the clothing factories. The history of the Amalgamated in Rochester illustrates the application of collective bargaining and arbitration to industrial relations. Strikes and lockouts have been eliminated and industrial peace and self-government established. By 1933 the capital-labor relations in the clothing industry were so well adjusted that for an 18-month period not a single grievance was brought before the arbitrator.
In 1916 the city line was extended north in a long arm to Lake Ontario. Rochester adopted the city manager form of government in 1925. In 1931 the Port of Rochester had its largest development; the harbor was deepened, and the municipal piers and accompanying terminal building were constructed.
(Central and East)
1. The POWERS BUILDING, NW. corner of Main St. W. and State St., eight stories high, built of Ohio sandstone and designed by Andrew Jackson Warner, is typical of post-Civil War architecture with its cast-iron decorations, many dormer windows, horizontal belt courses, and an unusual series of mansard roofs. When erected in 1870 it was hailed as the first fireproof structure in the city and the only building west of New York City equipped with elevators. Daniel W. Powers (1818–97), local banker and broker, built this office building and the adjacent hotel, both landmarks.
2. The MONROE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, SE. corner of Main St. W. and Fitzhugh St., is a four-story building of New Hampshire granite built in 1896 and designed in the Italian Renaissance style by J. Foster Warner. Four Roman Doric columns flank the main entrance, from which a wide marble stairway leads up to an enclosed courtyard. The millstones of Allen’s gristmill are embedded in the west wall.
3. The BOARD OF EDUCATION BUILDING, 13 S. Fitzhugh St., a good example of Victorian Gothic architecture, was built in 1874 to house the Rochester Free Academy, the city’s first public high school. On this site, donated to the city by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, the first school in Rochester was built in 1814.
4. ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 17 S. Fitzhugh St., a Gothic structure erected in 1824, is Rochester’s oldest church edifice. The three doorways are surmounted by high-arched stained-glass windows. Unusual at so early a date are two reversed-curve pointed arches above the central door. In the interior north wall is embedded a stone bearing the seal of the Bishop of Rochester, England, dated 1115–24, which was presented to St. Luke’s by the Cathedral Church of that city.
KEY FOR ROCHESTER MAP
CENTRAL AND EAST 1. Powers Building 2. Monroe County Courthouse 3. Board of Education Building 4. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church 5. City Hall 6. Mechanics Institute 7. Jonathan Child House 8. Bevier Memorial Hall 9. Livingston Park Seminary 10. Fox Sisters’ Home 11. Plymouth Avenue Spiritualist Church 12. Whittlesey House 13. Statue of Mercury 14. Broad Street Bridge 15. Rundel Memorial Building 16. Genesee Valley Trust Building 17. Reynolds Arcade 18. Chamber of Commerce Building 19. Frederick Douglass Monument 20. New York Central Railroad Station 21. Rochester Post Office 22. Masonic Temple 23. Gleason Works 24. Todd Plant 25. Cobbs Hill Reservoir 26. Stromberg-Carlson Telephone Manufacturing Plant 27. Early Mission Monument 28. Eastman Kodak Camera Works 29. Kodak Tower 30. Bausch & Lomb Optical Plant 31. Lomb Memorial 32. Platt Street Bridge 33. Bausch Memorial Bridge 34. Rochester Historical Society Museum 35. Edgerton Park 36. Maplewood Park 37. Kodak Park 38. Eastman Memorial 39. Veterans’ Memorial Bridge 40. St. Bernard’s (Roman Catholic) Theological Seminary 41. Old Charlotte Lighthouse 42. Ontario Beach Park 43. Port of Rochester 44. Durand-Eastman Park SOUTH 45.Clarissa Street Bridge 46. Colgate-Rochester Divinity School 47. Highland Park 48. Mount Hope Cemetery 49. Genesee Valley Park WEST 50. Taylor Instrument Plant 51. The Ritter Dental Plant 52. The General Railway Signal Plant 53. The Pfaudler Plant UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER 54. The Prince Street Campus 55. The River Campus 56. The Eastman Theater and School of Music 57. The Sibley Musical Library 58. The School of Medicine and Dentistry 59. The Rochester Dental Dispensary 60. The Eastman House
5. The CITY HALL, NE. corner of Fitzhugh and Broad Sts., built in 1875, is a five-story structure of Lockport gray sandstone designed by A.J. Warner in a variation of the Victorian Gothic style. In the common council chamber are oil portraits of past mayors.
6. The ROCHESTER ATHENAEUM AND MECHANICS INSTITUTE (open 8:30–5 Mon.–Fri., 8:30–12 Sat.), SW. corner of Broad St. and Plymouth Ave.S., is a two-story brick structure occupying an entire block. The Athenaeum was established in 1829 for non-occupational training. In 1885 Captain Henry Lomb founded the Mechanics Institute ‘for the purpose of providing technical training for the youth of Rochester.’ In 1891 the two institutions were merged. Nearly 4,000 students receive instruction in a variety of professional courses.
7. The JONATHAN CHILD HOUSE, 37 S. Washington St., an interesting example of Greek Revival architecture, is occupied by the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist. The two-story-and-attic brick building is distinguished by its five lofty Corinthian columns. When it was constructed in 1837 by Jonathan Child, Rochester’s first mayor, it was derisively called ‘Child’s Folly.’
8. BEVIER MEMORIAL HALL (open 8:30–5 Mon.–Fri., 8:30–12 Sat.), NE. corner of Washington and Spring Sts., houses the School of Arts of the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute. It was built in 1910 on the site of the home of Colonel Nathaniel Rochester with funds donated by Mrs. Susan Bevier of New York City. Claude F. Bragdon designed the building, and it can be described only as in his personal style. The colors of the brick and terra cotta suggest the Orient. Monthly art exhibits are held here.
9. LIVINGSTON PARK SEMINARY, 1 Livingston Park, a white two-story-and-attic wood building constructed as a residence in 1825, is occupied by the Gospel Mission and Welfare Association, Inc., and is known as the Gospel Tabernacle. In the Federal style, it is a reminder of the architectural splendor of early Rochester homes. Columns mark the front and side entrances. The interior trim is of carved mahogany, with columns of black walnut. In 1880 the building was converted into a private school for girls.
The terraced lawns of Livingston Park, guarded by iron grille gates and adorned with cast-iron animal figures, were the scene of many early Rochester social events.
10. The FOX SISTERS’ HOME (private), NW. corner of Plymouth Ave.S. and Troup St., one of the cradles of Spiritualism, is a simple post-Colonial brick house. The two-story portico has Greek Doric columns.
After their first contact with the spirit world at Hydeville (see Tour 32), the Fox sisters moved with their family to this house in 1848. Meeting with skepticism, they conducted seances in their home; and from that small beginning the faith spread. The house later served as a station of the Underground Railroad.
11. The PLYMOUTH AVENUE SPIRITUALIST CHURCH, NE. corner of Plymouth Ave.S. and Troup St., is recognized as the mother church of modern Spiritualism. This Victorian Gothic brick building, designed in 1853, was originally a Congregational church. In the churchyard a marble monument, erected in 1927, commemorates the advent of Spiritualism in the home of the Fox sisters.
12. The WHITTLESEY HOUSE (open 2–5 Fri.), SW. corner of Troup and S. Fitzhugh Sts., is a two-story-and-attic brick building in the Greek Revival style erected in 1835. A high-columned portico extends across the Troup Street side, although the main entrance is on Fitzhugh Street. The interior of the house has mahogany trim, high-ceilinged rooms, and a wing stairway, all typical of the architecture that predominated in early Rochester homes. This house was purchased in 1937 by the Society for the Preservation of Landmarks in Western New York, Inc., for preservation as a historical shrine.
13. The STATUE OF MERCURY, by J. Guernsey Mitchell, a 28-foot copper figure atop the high chimney of the city hall annex, 34–54 Court St., towers 182 feet above the Genesee River. When it was placed in position in 1881, the building was the factory of the Kimball Tobacco Company, early manufacturer of machine-made cigarettes.
14. The BROAD STREET BRIDGE serves as a roof for what was once the Erie Canal aqueduct, built in 1842, which carried the canal across the Genesee River and was considered a marvel of engineering accomplishment.
15. The RUNDEL MEMORIAL BUILDING (open 9–9 weekdays), NW. corner of South Ave. and Court St., houses the Rochester Public Library, the Reynolds Reference Library, and the book and manuscript collections of the Rochester Historical Society. Completed in 1936, it is built of limestone in a modern ‘stripped classic’ style, designed by Gordon and Kaelber and Leonard A. Wassdorp. The building is constructed literally on stilts over a four-track subway and a river raceway. Through a series of 11 archways in the west base of the building the waters of the raceway spill into the Genesee River.
Funds for the building were bequeathed by Morton W. Rundel (1838–1911), art dealer and patron. The Reynolds Reference Library, of more than 90,000 volumes, was chartered in 1884 and enjoyed independent growth until 1936. It includes outstanding collections of official reports, State and national, and extensive back files of local newspapers. Art exhibits, mostly borrowed from America’s leading art museums, are displayed each month in the gallery rooms.
16. The GENESEE VALLEY TRUST BUILDING, NW. corner of Exchange and Broad Sts., erected in 1929 of granite and limestone, is modern in style. The architects were Voorhees, Gmelin, and Walker of New York City. Severely straight lines characterize the first 12 stories, converging in a tower which supports four aluminum wings 42 feet high and weighing 12,000 pounds each. These wings add a distinctive touch to the Rochester skyline, especially under floodlights at night.
17. The REYNOLDS ARCADE, 10–20 Main St. E., a modern 10-story office building designed by Gordon and Kaelber and completed in 1932, occupies the site of the original Reynolds Arcade, which stood for a century and was the birthplace of the Western Union Telegraph Company and of the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company. George Eastman obtained his first job in an office in the Arcade, and George Selden had his office in the building.
18. The CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING, 55 St. Paul St., four stories high, of modified Italian Renaissance architecture, the exterior of Tennessee marble, was erected in 1916 with funds donated by George Eastman. A four-story addition was built in 1927 at the corner of Mortimer and Water Streets. The original structure was designed by Claude F. Bragdon, the addition by Gordon and Kaelber.
19. The FREDERICK DOUGLASS MONUMENT, Central Ave. and St. Paul St., a bronze statue on a granite pedestal, designed by Sidney W. Edwards, was dedicated in 1899 by Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of the State.
Frederick Douglass (1807–95) was born a slave in Easton, Maryland, and ran away from his master in 1838. His home on Alexander Street was a station on the Underground Railroad, and during the Civil War he helped organize Negro troops. Under President Benjamin Harrison he served as Minister to Haiti. His grave is in Mount Hope Cemetery.
20. The NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD STATION, Central Ave. between Joseph Ave. and Clinton Ave.N., built in 1914 of smoke-brown tapestry brick and brownstone, represents one of the major architectural achievements of Claude F. Bragdon. The style is a free adaptation of the neoclassic. The four-story end pavilions are essentially traditional in design, but the connecting unit, with its three wide circular arches lighting the main waiting room of the station proper, is somewhat of a departure from the classic precedent. In the interior treatment of the waiting room, while some of the details are based on Roman prototypes, the beauty of the design is achieved by simplicity of line and proportion and by the able treatment of nonstylistic ornament.
21. The ROCHESTER POST OFFICE, Cumberland St. between Hyde Park and Ormond St., erected in 1934 at a cost of $1,700,000, is built of Ohio buff limestone in a modified Italian Renaissance style. The two curved entrances are adorned with columns of pink Tennessee marble having simplified Corinthian capitals. The walls and floor of the main lobby are of varicolored marble with woodwork of American walnut.
22. The MASONIC TEMPLE (open 2–4 weekdays; guides), SE. corner of Main St. E. and Prince St., dedicated in 1930, is built of pressed brick and limestone in a modern adaptation of the Gothic style. The architects were Osgood and Osgood, Grand Rapids, Michigan, with Carl Ade as associate. The lodge rooms on the upper floors are designed in the Georgian Colonial, Classic, and Gothic styles. The auditorium seats 2,600.
23. The GLEASON WORKS (open by appointment), 1000 University Ave., manufactures gears and gear-cutting machinery.
24. The TODD PLANT (open by appointment), 1154 University Ave., produces mechanical devices and chemically treated paper to protect checks against alteration, and mechanical check-writers and check-signers.
25. COBBS HILL RESERVOIR, entrance NW. corner of Monroe and Highland Aves., with a capacity of 144,000,000 gallons, is the largest within the city limits. A large central fountain aerates the water by sending a column 75 feet into the air.
The hill, with an elevation of 636 feet, affords an excellent view of the city. A LOOKOUT TOWER (open 10–10 daily, June–Aug.), near the reservoir, is equipped with a telescope. From it can be seen the downtown skyline with a residential section in the foreground, and, on a clear day, Lake Ontario to the north.
26. The STROMBERG-CARLSON TELEPHONE MANUFACTURING PLANT (open 9–4 Mon.–Fri.), 100 Carlson Rd., manufactures telephone apparatus and radios.
27. The EARLY MISSION MONUMENT, 1201 Blossom Rd., on the grounds of Our Lady of Mercy High School, a granite monument surmounted by a cross, was erected to commemorate the first building for Christian worship in the Rochester area. A small cabin for divine service was built of bark of trees near this site in 1679 by the Franciscan Recollect missionaries, Louis Hennepin, Gabriel de la Ribaud, and Zenobe Minord.
28. The EASTMAN KODAK CAMERA WORKS (open by appointment), NW. corner of State and Platt Sts., is a series of six- and seven-story brick buildings in which some 3,000 workers are employed in the manufacture of Kodaks, Brownies, Ciné-Kodaks, tripods, enlargers, and other photographic and developing equipment.
29. KODAK TOWER (open 8:30–5 Mon.–Fri.), NW. corner of State and Kodak Sts., 19 stories high, constructed of skeleton steel with exterior facing of terra cotta and completed in 1913, is designed in a modified French Renaissance style. The aluminum tower, built in 1931, rises 106 feet above the 19th floor. Known as the ‘nerve center of photography,’ this building houses the administrative offices of the far-flung Eastman Kodak organization.
30. The BAUSCH & LOMB OPTICAL PLANT (open weekdays; three-hour conducted tours beginning at 9 and 2; planetarium open by special appointment, Tues. and Thurs. evenings, June–Sept.), 635 St. Paul St., the largest of its kind in America, occupies 16 buildings, employs more than 3,500 workers, and manufactures upward of 17,000 products, including spectacle lenses and frames, instruments for testing and treating eyes, telescopes, microscopes, periscopes, binoculars, and scientific instruments. The company manufactures its own glass and maintains its own foundry, with one iron cupel and several brass and aluminum furnaces.
31. The LOMB MEMORIAL, on the plaza, facing Bausch St., is a black granite shaft, 48 feet high, on a base of pearl-pink marble, designed by Walter Cassebeer and Lewis Brew and erected in May 1930.
Captain Henry Lomb (1825–1908), born in Germany, emigrated to America in 1849 and worked as a carpenter. In 1853 he became Bausch’s partner in his optical store. During the Civil War he sent a portion of his soldier’s pay home to help support the business. In 1885 Lomb founded the Mechanics Institute; in 1903 he donated the initial funds for the Rochester Dental Clinic.
32. The PLATT STREET BRIDGE, St. Paul and Platt Sts., a steel arch bridge constructed in 1891, is 857 feet long, its roadway 114 feet above the river.
33. The BAUSCH MEMORIAL BRIDGE, St. Paul and Bausch Sts., is of steel cantilever construction with a span of 945 feet and a height of 105 feet above water level. The view embraces one of the centers of Rochester’s industrial life.
Bronze tablets at the approaches to the bridge honor John Jacob Bausch (1830–1926), founder of the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company. Born in Germany and apprenticed there to the optical trade, Bausch came to America in 1848. After several difficult years, he opened an optical store in Rochester and began grinding his own lenses.
34. The ROCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM (open 2–5 daily), 100 Lake Ave., was opened in 1937. Materials relating to the history of Rochester and the Genesee country, slowly collected by the Society since its organization in 1888, are displayed in rotating exhibits. Of special interest is an extensive collection of pioneer portraits. A program of special exhibits commemorating the anniversaries of historic events and personages was inaugurated on February 13, 1938, with the celebration of the 118th birthday of Susan B. Anthony.
35. EDGERTON PARK, Backus St. opposite Phelps Ave., 62 acres, is used for winter athletics. Near the main entrance a peristyle with stone columns adjoins a bandstand.
The ROCHESTER MUSEUM OF ARTS AND SCIENCES (open, summer: 9–5 Mon.–Fri., 9–12 Sat.; winter: 9–5 Tues.–Sat., 2–5 Sun.), south of the peristyle, housed in a four-story brick structure with the crenelated roof line of a feudal keep, was established by the city in 1911. The director is Dr. Arthur C. Parker, who has been cited as the most eminent man of Indian descent and an authority on Indian life. The Indian and archeological exhibit displays many artifacts discovered by Dr. Parker. There are also exhibits of local flora and fauna, geological specimens, and historical items.
36. MAPLEWOOD PARK, main entrance near intersection of Lake and Driving Park Aves., contains 145 acres bordering the west bank of the Genesee. There are two picnic areas with fireplaces, tables, and benches. A small artificial lake is used as a skating rink in winter.
37. KODAK PARK (open weekdays; two-hour conducted tours, 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.), NW. corner of Lake Ave. and Ridge Road W., with main entrance on Lake Ave., the largest Rochester plant of the Eastman Kodak Company, contains 83 major buildings over an area of 400 acres and employs 10,000 workers. The plant resembles a modern city in compact form, with a hospital, cafeterias, a small theater, a locomotive roundhouse, and an athletic field.
A six-story building near the main entrance houses the research laboratory, which has produced home ‘movies,’ natural color film, film that records images at a distance of hundreds of miles, and many other advances in photography.
Production at Kodak Park is confined to photographic films, plates, paper, and chemicals. In the departments where film and sensitized paper pass through the various stages of manufacture, white light is carefully excluded, and the work is carried on under an eerie glow of subdued orange, red, and green. In one building pure bar-silver is converted into silver nitrate, which, by its sensitivity to fight, makes photography possible.
38. The EASTMAN MEMORIAL, at the Lake Ave. entrance to Kodak Park, is reached by three broad flights of steps leading down sloping banks to a large circular plaza paved with Georgia rose marble. A circular pedestal in the center of the plaza, containing a bronze urn with the ashes of Eastman, is surmounted by a cylindrical block of pink Georgia marble eight feet high, on which are carved two figures in bas-relief: a man heating a retort over a flame and woman holding aloft a torch.
George Eastman (1854–1932), born in Waterville, New York, came to Rochester with his family in 1860. While working as an office clerk for $4 a week, he spent much of his time and savings in experiments to simplify the making of photographs. In 1880 he began the manufacture of dry plates in a third floor loft on State Street, meanwhile keeping his job as a bank clerk. He opened a small factory in 1882, and in 1888 brought out the first Kodak. In 1889 he developed the flexible film that was used in Edison’s moving picture machine. Eastman donated $72,000,000 to various institutions. His Rochester philanthropies include the Eastman School of Music and the Eastman Theater, the Eastman Building of the Mechanics Institute, the Rochester Dental Dispensary, and the Chamber of Commerce building. He also gave large sums to the University of Rochester. He died, leaving the message, ‘My work is done; why wait?’
39. The VETERANS’ MEMORIAL BRIDGE, carrying Ridge Road across the river, completed in 1931 at a cost of $2,500,000, is the longest of the city’s bridges, with a span of 981 feet. It is a concrete arch type dressed with granite masonry, and has been widely praised for its classic architectural beauty. Gehron and Ross, New York City, were the architects and Frank P. McKibben was the consulting engineer.
40. ST. BERNARD’S (Roman Catholic) THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY (private), 2260 Lake Ave., is housed in a group of three-story buildings built of red sandstone in the Gothic style. The main building, with its chapel, classrooms, and living rooms, is flanked by the Building of Philosophy and the Theology Building, providing students’ rooms, professors’ living quarters, a library, and auditorium. The site was purchased in 1887 by the Right Reverend Bernard McQuaid (1823–1908), the first Bishop of the Rochester diocese.
41. The OLD CHARLOTTE LIGHTHOUSE, foot of Lighthouse St. off Lake Ave., was erected in 1822 of sandstone and brick. Octagonal, ivy-covered, it stands on a bluff about 2,000 feet from the mouth of the Genesee River.
42. ONTARIO BEACH PARK (bathing—lockers 10¢, picnicking, playgrounds), foot of Lake Ave., has 2,000 feet of sandy bathing beach on Lake Ontario.
43. The PORT OF ROCHESTER has a dock wall extending 1,200 feet along the west bank of the Genesee River and a large passenger and freight building adjoining the dock. The harbor accommodates regular lake traffic, freight steamers operating between the Atlantic coast and Great Lakes ports, and transatlantic steamers. Passenger boats ply regularly between Rochester and Toronto.
44. DURAND-EASTMAN PARK, main entrance in Sea Breeze L. from Culver Rd., has 506 acres of rolling wooded terrain. The mile-long sandy bathing beach along Lake Ontario is floodlighted for night bathing. Four small lakes within the park are stocked with fish. There are eight picnic areas equipped with tables, benches, shelters, and fireplaces, a zoo, and an 18-hole golf course. The park contains 395 varieties of native and foreign trees, shrubs, and plants.
(South)
45. The CLARISSA STREET BRIDGE, River Blvd. and Clarissa St., constructed in 1918, is a triple steel-arched bridge with four cast stone pylons, each consisting of four rusticated Roman Doric columns. The architects were Gordon and Kaelber.
46. The COLGATE-ROCHESTER DIVINITY SCHOOL, NE. corner of S. Goodman St. and Highland Ave., is on a hill. The administration building, the president’s house, and the chapel comprise a group of English Gothic brick buildings designed by James Gamble Rogers. The square tower of the administration building, with its spires and pinnacles suggestive of English cathedral towers, is visible for miles. The main building, dedicated in 1931, marked the merger of the Colgate Theological Seminary, Hamilton, New York, founded in 1820, with the Rochester Theological Seminary, founded in 1850.
47. HIGHLAND PARK, entrance at Reservoir and South Aves., 108 acres, part of which was donated in 1887 by Ellwanger & Barry, early Rochester nurserymen, contains more than 400 species of trees, shrubs, and perennials, including a grove with 370 varieties of evergreens. Five greenhouses and a conservatory display flowers throughout the year, with special displays at Easter and Christmas. More than 400 varieties of lilac are displayed at the Lilac Festival in May.
48. MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY, 791 Mt. Hope Ave., extending over 250 acres, contains the graves of many prominent Rochester people: Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), pioneer advocate of equal rights for women in politics, industry, and education; Colonel Nathaniel Rochester (1752–1831), founder and namesake of the city; Abelard Reynolds (1785–1878), the city’s first innkeeper and postmaster; and Frederick Douglass, Negro leader.
49. GENESEE VALLEY PARK, main entrance at Elmwood Ave. and River Blvd., has an area of 640 acres, with the Barge Canal, Red Creek, and the Genesee River converging near its center. A public boathouse rents boats and canoes and offers a sight-seeing trip in the river by motor launch (fare 10¢). The park contains picnic areas and facilities for a large variety of sports. Near the entrance to the park is a statue of Dr. Edward Mott Moore (1814–1902), ‘father of Rochester’s parks.’
(West)
50. The TAYLOR INSTRUMENT PLANT (open 10–4 Mon.–Fri.), 95 Ames St., manufactures instruments for recording, controlling, and indicating temperature, humidity, flow, and liquid level.
51. The RITTER DENTAL PLANT (open 8–5 Mon.–Fri.), 404 West Ave., manufactures dental furnishings and supplies.
52. The GENERAL RAILWAY SIGNAL PLANT (open by appointment), 801 West Ave., manufactures signaling apparatus.
53. The PFAUDLER PLANT (open by special permission), foot of West Ave., makes glass-lined steel containers.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
The University of Rochester was founded in May 1850 by a convention of Baptists. The liberal purpose was indicated by the establishment of a four-year scientific course in addition to the traditional arts curriculum; the ancient languages were omitted. Housed in an abandoned hotel building, with 60 students and a faculty of five, the institution opened its doors on November 5, 1850.
The administration of Dr. Rush Rhees, 1900–35, covered the period of greatest expansion. In 1900, largely as the result of a movement headed by Susan B. Anthony, women were admitted on the same conditions as men; George Eastman made the first of a series of gifts in 1904; the Memorial Art Gallery was given to the university in 1912; in 1919 it received title to the Eastman School of Music and the Eastman Theater; in 1926 the School of Medicine and Dentistry was opened; the River Campus, which houses the College for Men, was dedicated in 1930, and the old campus became the College for Women.
The College of Arts and Sciences, with separate campuses for men and women, awards the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. The Graduate School offers advanced study in several of the departments of the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Music, and the Medical School. In 1939–40 the total number of students in the university, including summer session and extension department, was 5,247; the faculty, including part-time instructors, 573.
54. The PRINCE STREET CAMPUS, University Ave. between Prince and N. Goodman Sts., is the College for Women. The 27 acres, with the vine-covered buildings shaded by elms, form a park in the midst of a residential district. The College for Women is an integral part of the College of Arts and Sciences and classes are conducted by the professors who teach on the River Campus.
The MEMORIAL ART GALLERY (open, 10–5 Tues.–Sat., 1:30–5 Sun. and Mon.), L. of the University Ave. entrance, donated by Mrs. James S. Watson in memory of her son James G. Averell, was opened in October 1913. It is a limestone building designed in the Italian Renaissance style. The Palladian loggia forming the main entrance is similar to that of the Morgan Library in New York City. The architects were Foster, Gade, and Graham; an addition in 1926 was designed by McKim, Mead, and White.
The permanent collections of the gallery include paintings by old and modern masters, departments of Egyptian, Classical, Chinese, Medieval, and Renaissance art, including painting, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, stained glass, tapestry, and historical prints.
CUTLER UNION, R. of the University Ave. entrance, named for James G. Cutler, whose benefactions made it possible, was opened in 1933. This monumental building, designed in the English Collegiate Gothic style by Gordon and Kaelber, is constructed of shot-sawn limestone. The large assembly room on the main floor is used for major college functions. The lounge, of English ‘great hall’ type, is paneled in oak, with stained-glass Gothic windows reaching almost to the ceiling; the murals are by Ezra Winter.
Weathered ANDERSON HALL, occupying the central position on the campus, was built in 1861 and named for the first president of the university; for a long time it was the only building on the campus. Directly in front of it is a bronze statue of Dr. Anderson by J. Guernsey Mitchell.
55. The RIVER CAMPUS, River Blvd. and Elmwood Ave., 67 acres of rolling land on a high bluff overlooking the Genesee River, is occupied by the College for Men. The campus was dedicated in October 1930. The main buildings, in two groups, were designed by Gordon and Kaelber in the Georgian tradition.
The RUSH RHEES LIBRARY (open during academic year, 8 a.m.–9:30 p.m. weekdays, 2–6 Sun.; in summer, 2–6 weekdays) dominates the campus with its circular tower rising 186 feet. The foyer is of Indiana limestone with a floor of marble mosaic. Heavy stone columns mark the entrance to the grand stairway. The library contains about 188,000 books, and space is provided for expansion. It has the Adams collection of Johnsoniania, one of the most complete collections of original letters, manuscripts, and first editions of Dr. Samuel Johnson; also manuscripts and letters of Lewis A. Morgan and Thurlow Weed.
The BAUSCH-LOMB MEMORIAL LABORATORY, on the south side of the quadrangle, a gift of the Bausch and Lomb families, houses the physics department and the Institute of Applied Optics, which trains students in the industrial and scientific application of optical theory and techniques.
DEWEY HALL, next to the Bausch-Lomb Memorial, houses the departments of biology and geology. The rear and the south wing are occupied by the MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (open 8:30–5 weekdays). On the first floor are the study collections and the herbarium of the Rochester Academy of Sciences. On the second floor is the geological collection, the nucleus of which was gathered by Henry A. Ward, who established Ward’s Natural Science Museum in Rochester and supplied the specimens for many of the large museums of America.
56. The EASTMAN THEATER AND SCHOOL OF MUSIC, SE. corner of Main St. E. and Gibbs St., completed in 1922, was designed by Gordon and Kaelber, with McKim, Mead and White as associate architects. The exterior of the structure is designed in a modified Italian Renaissance style. The two lower stories are of rusticated stonework, with an elaborate metal marquee extending the whole length of the building above the first floor. The third and fourth stories, of light gray Indiana limestone, are adorned with three-quarter engaged Ionic columns set on the curve of the building over the main entrance to the theater. The design is repeated in a series of pilasters alternating with pedimented and square-headed windows. An entablature, an attic story, and acroteria crown the building.
The Theater, with main entrance at Main St. E. and Gibbs St., is the largest unit in the building. Kilbourn Hall, with entrance on Gibbs St., is at the opposite end. Between the two, a central corridor, 187 feet long, forms the entrance to the School of Music. At the Kilbourn Hall end, the grand staircase leads to the second floor corridor. The School of Music also occupies a 10-story annex across Swan Street. While the faculty of the School of Music is separate from the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the university, there is a close co-operation between the two schools, and tuition paid to one entitles the student to take approved courses in the other.
In the department of theory and composition, the school has a dozen eminent instructors headed by Dr. Howard Hanson, director. From 1932 to 1937 four of the six Prix de Rome awards of the American Academy in Rome were given to students of the composition department. In 1937 one of its students was awarded the New York Philharmonic prize for the best symphonic composition in a country-wide competition. The Eastman School Symphony Orchestra and the Eastman School Chorus, made up of students, give public performances in the Eastman Theater and broadcast regularly over the radio.
Kilbourn Hall, a memorial to Eastman’s mother, Maria Kilbourn Eastman, is the assembly room of the school. The design is Italian Renaissance, embellished with colored ornamentation. The decorations were painted by Ezra Winter and the sculpture work was done by Paul Jannewein. The side walls are paneled in wood to a height of 21 feet, above which the smooth stone is hung with old tapestries. The ceiling is blue and gold in grille designs with heavy beams delicately ornamented and colored.
The Eastman Theater occupies the entire Main Street end of the building. An adjoining five-story building, directly connected with the stage, provides shops for the construction of scenery. The side wall spaces of the theater, unusually large because of the elimination of boxes, are finished in Caen stone and decorated in the Italian Renaissance style. High above the rusticated walls are murals by Ezra Winter and Barry Faulkner.
57. The SIBLEY MUSICAL LIBRARY (open 9–6 Mon.–Fri., 9–5 Sat.), 46 Swan St., a two-story brick structure with limestone trim, opened in 1938, is the only building in the United States used exclusively as a musical library. It contains about 42,000 volumes and a large number of musical scores and manuscripts presented to the University of Rochester by Hiram W. Sibley.
58. The SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND DENTISTRY, 260 Crittenden Blvd., is combined with the Strong Memorial and Municipal Hospitals, which provide clinical treatment for more than 100,000 patients annually. The main building is constructed of red brick, with many wings and pavilions. The School of Medicine, opened in 1926, is active in medical research. Its dean, Dr. George H. Whipple, was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in medicine for his research in pernicious anemia. The School of Nursing offers a three-year course leading to a nurse’s diploma and a five-year course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science.
59. The ROCHESTER DENTAL DISPENSARY (open 9–4:30 Mon.–Fri., 9–12:30 Sat.), 800 Main St. E., was established and endowed by George Eastman in 1916 to care for the teeth of the poor children of Rochester. The institution trains women for service in oral hygiene. The first dental clinic in the United States was opened in 1901 by the Rochester Dental Society with funds provided by Captain Henry Lomb. After Lomb’s death in 1908, Eastman became interested in the clinic’s activities and made his first donation. By the time of his death his subscriptions totaled $3,500,000.
60. The EASTMAN HOUSE (private), 900 East Ave., was built by George Eastman in 1906. He willed it to the University of Rochester to be used as the residence of the university president. The three-story mansion of 49 rooms is built of brick with stone trim in the Georgian Colonial style.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Boyd-Parker Shrine, 30 m. (see Tour 8A). Caledonia State Fish Hatchery, 21 m. (see Tour 11). Hill Cumorah, 26 m. (see Tour 29).
