The Landmark Society of Western New York has usually used its annual “Five to Revive” list to draw public attention and financial support to restoring historic buildings throughout the Rochester region. With the list, the Landmark Society is telling communities and developers that there’s unmined gold in repurposing – rather than ignoring or demolishing — these architecturally significant properties. The program has been successful at saving and repurposing some buildings on its lists.
This year, however, the Landmark Society is taking a slightly different approach to its Five to Revive by including two sites that the Rochester community already recognizes as treasures, but that are surrounded by controversy: the aqueduct over the Genesee River and the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School campus.
And for those projects, the Landmark Society isn’t just calling for their protection. It’s also weighing in on how the sites ought to be redeveloped.
For instance, the city is planning to remove the section of Broad Street over the river that covers the Erie Canal aqueduct to create a pedestrian area. Landmark Society officials say the aqueduct is one of the city’s most important historical assets and preservationists should have a voice concerning any plans to change it.
“We’re not saying don’t touch the deck,” says Tom Castelein, an architect who is president of the Landmark Society board. “But the journey from where they are now to what they’re proposing is long and complicated. There’s myriad questions and design issues that need to be addressed.”
The aqueduct is a complex structure and transforming it will require removing some elements and adding others, and how that is approached is critically important, Castelein says. What’s done with the aqueduct could be a catalyst for more downtown development, or it could lead to the aqueduct becoming a future problem like the Inner Loop, he says.
Landmark Society officials are equally concerned about the future of the divinity school property. The 24-acre site near Highland Park is a city landmark and it’s eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
The property is being sold to local developer Angelo Ingrassia, and no redevelopment plans have been made public. But at a Highland Park neighborhood meeting earlier this year, Ingrassia said the property’s picturesque hillside would someday need to be developed. That’s something the Landmark Society would strongly oppose, says Wayne Goodman, the organization’s executive director.
The full Five to Revive list includes Parrott Hall in Geneva, Odd Fellows Hall in Holley, and the former National Yeast Company and Iroquois Motor Car Factory in Seneca Falls.
Parrott Hall was built in the 1850’s as the home of Nehemiah and Louisa Denton. The Italianate-style mansion and farm became the first property in Geneva to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was also the first home of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, used for research at Cornell University. The building is in need of significant repairs, say Landmark Society officials.
“It’s a building that needs a champion,” says Castelein. A coalition of organizations is working to raise the funds to repair and repurpose the building, he says.
Odd Fellows Hall, built in the late 1800’s, is in the Holley Village Historic District anchoring the end of a block of storefronts. If it were demolished, it would leave the street looking like it was missing a tooth, Castelein says.
The former National Yeast Company and Iroquois Motor Car Factory is located in Seneca Falls on the Erie Canal. A recent proposal called for demolishing the 30,000-square-foot building and replacing it with a gas station. But the building is solid and a prime candidate for reuse as housing or offices, says Castelein.
Landmark Society officials revealed the list at Warner Castle this week, the organization’s future headquarters. The residence was built in 1854 and resembles a Scottish castle.
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2018.
In a city that’s touted such asinine projects as the Toronto ferry and RenSquare, one would have thought that it would be impossible to ever find a civic “improvement” project that was an even bigger waste of tax dollars, or one that, unlike those other blue sky nightmares, has the potential to cost lives. But with the Broad Street aqueduct project a new low had been achieved.
Of course the plan to turn the Broad Street aqueduct into a glorified frog pond has been proposed before. Mayor Duffy did so years ago before he resigned to become Cuomo’s gofer. But, like Frankenstein’s monster, this idea just won’t die. Nor will it’s supporters ever explain how in hell they think they can eliminate downtown’s busiest street level bridge without creating a traffic nightmare and with the attendant danger to public safety.
Spending at least $250,000 a year to maintain the Broad Street Bridge and extension tunnel (Genesee Transportation Council budget allots money every year) and keep it from collapsing onto the Erie Canal bed is not a long term plan, but has been necessary for the decades in which the subway tunnel and aqueduct bridge have sat dormant.
While the Roc The Riverway concepts are aggressive and jarring for that area, I see more upside than cause for concern. Losing a traffic bridge across the river, when there are three others within walking distance let-alone driving distance is a minimal consolation to creating a destination space focusing on pedestrians between two of our biggest city destinations for visitors (Blue Cross Arena and the Convention Center).
I welcome anyone to look into North Shore in Pittsburgh or Prospect Ave District in Cleveland to see the positive affects of creating these kinds of pedestrian spaces. I also submit to the jury the Highline in NYC and Riverwalk in Chicago as ways to re-utilize our existing infrastructure and promote our natural resources.
And let’s bury the ferry, that debacle happened twelve years ago; no one died, I think we can move forward.
Rochester’s history is marked by multiple factors and many things have become huge symbols of our community. Broad Street Bridge is one of these symbols. You show anyone the bridge from anywhere and they immediately know Rochester, NY. You remove the top row of arches from the old subway tunnel and nobody knows what it is. It’s fine to redevelop this area and remove the traffic deck, however the arches on the top row play a pivotal row in transportation history and the history and evolution of transit systems as a whole not just in NY but nationwide. It plays a pivotal role in establishing the identity of our community. Children and families share stories that have survived generations about the arches and subway system or the bridge itself while looking out the Blue Cross Area windows, or people passing over, by, or viewing it from afar or in pictures. Even our Library, a major institution spanning the entire county, uses these arches as a logo and symbol of who we are as a community. They are major identity markers for this community. You can easily use them as part of the new development by using their base as a guard rail between people and the river and then by using the arches as a beautiful piece along either side. The center arches can be removed, but the sides must stay that is non negotiable. To remove these would be an outrage not just for our community but the nation, transportation and canal history, and the whole of history itself. These arches must remain as they are an even bigger symbol of Rochester than the City’s Flower City logo.