ANNUAL MANUAL ’10: Welcome to the Neighborhoods

MonroeCounty
is about as diverse a community as you can find: a mid-size city, rural areas
with orchards and farm markets, suburbs with 20th-century tract houses and
shopping malls, and quaint, Victorian villages. The GeneseeRiver and the Erie Canal
bisect the county, more or less vertically and diagonally, so geology and
history are a constant presence, shaping everything from traffic patterns to
architecture and public festivals.

            The county
is literally a community of dozens of communities: 19 towns, nine villages, a
combo town-village, and the City of Rochester
(which has its own, numerous, defined neighborhoods). Given the number, there
might be a good bit of similarity among all these, but each has its own
distinct identity. Some draw it from their heritage, others from their location
and their surroundings (parks, universities, manufacturing plants, farmland). And to many of the residents, the individuality
of their particular hometown or neighborhood is a source of fierce pride.

            You can get
a taste of the diversity by sampling four of the local communities, from
historic, urban Corn Hill to charming canal town Spencerport. For additional
community profiles, check the Annual Manual page on rochestercitynewspaper.com.

Corn Hill

Few Rochester
neighborhoods can rival Corn Hill in architectural and historical significance.
Still home to detailed Greek Revival houses and ornate
Italianate villas with cupolas, Corn Hill recalls Victorian-era Rochester
at its finest. The Campbell-Whittlesey House at 123
Fitzhugh Street and the Hervey Ely House at 138
Troup Street are just two of many of the area’s remaining
architectural gems.

            Settled in
the early to mid-1800’s,
Corn Hill was the original fashionable side of town, sometimes referred to as the
“ruffled shirt and silk stocking” district. Rochester
was still a small, rapidly growing city at that time, and Corn Hill was within
walking distance to everything: it sprouted up on the west bank of the GeneseeRiver, and was just down the street
from what became the downtown business district. Even though the neighborhood
attracted the wealthy — many of the area’s mansions have since been demolished
— Corn Hill was “everyone’s neighborhood,” says Cynthia Howk,
architectural researcher for the Landmark Society of Western New York.

            It was a
time, says Howk, when the wealthy often lived next
door to their factories and businesses. And frequently their workers lived in nearby
housing, also built by the factory owners. “Corn Hill had people from every
economic level living cheek to jowl,” says Howk. And
the area’s eclectic quality has survived, she says. Large houses still stand,
but so do smaller, Victorian cottages.

            By the late
1950’s, much of Corn Hill’s housing had become dilapidated. Instead of housing
the rich and fashionable, many of the large Victorian homes were cut up into
apartments. Some were little more than rooming houses, where a bedroom and a
shared bathroom could be rented by the week.

            But the
1970’s ushered in a renewed interest in the area’s history and distinctive housing.
Urban pioneers began buying the houses and painstakingly restoring them. As a
result, older brick homes that once sold for a few thousand dollars generally
sell for more than $250,000 in today’s real estate market.

            In more
recent years, Corn Hill has been the center of new development along the west
side of the GeneseeRiver
in the form of town homes and Corn Hill Landing, a mixed-use retail and housing
development at the foot of downtown.

            But no
discussion of Corn Hill would be complete without acknowledging the
neighborhood’s cultural heritage. At one time, it was a nationally known jazz
center, with top musicians playing in clubs along Clarissa
Street. Each summer the Clarissa Street Reunion, a
jazz and community festival, pays tribute to that past. And every July, hundreds
of artists and more than 200,000 people descend on the area during the Corn
Hill Arts Festival. What started as a small gathering of students and artists selling their work on the sidewalks has grown into
one of the region’s most important summer attractions and a showcase for the
neighborhood’s enduring beauty. — BY TIM LOUIS MACALUSO

MarketviewHeights

MarketviewHeights is a relatively small
neighborhood in the northeast section of the city that stretches from the Inner
Loop to Clifford Avenue, and from North Street
to North Goodman Street.
The neighborhood is blessed with one of the area’s richest assets — the
Rochester Public Market — but it has also faced significant challenges.

            The
neighborhood’s earliest residents were primarily Irish immigrants fleeing the
potato famine of the mid-1800’s. They were followed by
German and Italian immigrants. A working-class neighborhood, Marketview rode the wave of the industrial boom from the
late 1800’s to World War I.

            “These were
early settlers seeking employment in the trades,” says
Cynthia Howk, architectural research coordinator for
the Landmark Society of Western New York. “This was when Rochester
was in transition, changing from the FlowerCity to an industrial city.”

            Much of the
early housing stock consisted of modest, wood-frame homes.
Most were rented by people who worked for the area’s primary employers —
textile and shoe factories. “The homes were really like cottages and not suitable
for large families,” Howk says.

            Catholic and
Protestant churches flourished. And neighborhood specialty stores, such as
bakeries, fabric, and shoe shops were common, too.

            But by the
late 1950’s, the Irish and Italian families that first settled the area began
leaving. At least some of the out-migration was a result of “block busting.” In
a 1984 publication, Dan Karin, who is now Rochester’s City Clerk, described the
tactic as a neighborhood tragedy: as more African-Americans migrated north in
search of work, unscrupulous real-estate agents were “all too willing to
terrify stable residents with tales of fear and pander to bigotry,” Karin
wrote.

            Today, the
neighborhood’s centerpiece, the Public Market is one of the city’s most popular
attractions, drawing thousands of customers every week. (It’s open Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, with occasional Sunday hours, depending on the
season). Founded in 1827, is one of the oldest continuously operating produce
markets in the country, although it has had several earlier homes prior to
relocating to its current location.

            During the
market’s earlier years, farmers relied on it mainly to sell their livestock. If
you wanted cows for milk or chickens for eggs, the Public Market was your
destination. It’s still possible to see chickens for sale, but today’s Public
Market is a place where cultural diversity meets urban chic. Vendors from all
over Central and Western New York offer everything from
handmade soap to organic sausage, and permanent buildings house coffeehouses,
exotic meat shops, and more.

            While the
Public Market has grown in popularity, requiring more parking to meet customer
demand, the surrounding neighborhood has struggled. According to census data,
the MarketviewHeights neighborhood has about
11,000 residents, mostly African-Americans and Hispanics, with about 40 percent
living below the poverty level.

            Some recent changes
offer hope for Marketview. The neighborhood has been the
target of the city’s aggressive demolition plan, ridding the area of some of
its boarded-up and abandoned houses. And the area is rich in what Howk calls institutional architecture, with interesting older
churches, schools, and commercial buildings. An important new development is
Station 55 on Railroad Street
near the Public Market, an older restored building
restored now being used as apartments and lofts. — BY TIM LOUIS MACALUSO

Penfield

Penfield is not a community that can be easily pigeonholed.

            As MonroeCounty’s first eastside town,
Penfield has a unique place in local history. And this year, it’s marking a
unique milestone: its bicentennial. Daniel Penfield
began buying up land in the area in 1795 and built mills along Irondequoit
Creek in hopes of attracting settlers. But it was on March 30, 1810, that the town was officially
incorporated. Part of the town would later break off to form Webster.

            In 2008, the
Census Bureau estimated the town’s population at 36,000. The figure has grown
steadily over the past two decades — about 30,000 people lived in Penfield at
the time of the 1990 Census. The town is home to the Paychex
headquarters and a Thermo Fisher Scientific plastics factory. (The company is
perhaps best known as the manufacturer of Nalgene water bottles.)

            While the
town is well developed, with residential neighborhoods and housing tracts, as
well as the ball fields and strip malls that usually accompany them, it’s no
cookie-cutter suburb. It has pockets of intense beauty, thanks to the town’s
natural features, and its fortunate location along IrondequoitBay.  And the town has preserved 1,600 acres of
open space, says Supervisor Tony LaFountain.

            The town’s
been working with the other Bay communities, Irondequoit
and Webster, to better protect the sensitive water ecosystem. They’ve worked
together to develop a plan to protect the Bay, which includes initiatives
focused on study of the ecosystem, public education, better planning, and
stiffer laws governing boat docking.

            Penfield
officials have been trying to promote the Bay area as something of an
attraction, particularly the area known as LaSalle’s Landing. They’d like to
see more public access to the Bay, as well as appropriate development in the
area.

            ChanningPhilbrickPark,
named after a former town supervisor, is located along Irondequoit Creek. The
creek winds through the town and also passes through the county’s EllisonPark, which is partly in Penfield.

            Volunteers
maintain the NatureConservancy-ownedThousandAcreSwamp
preserve on Jackson Road,
which is more than 450 acres in size. More than 30 different guided hikes and
field trips are offered each year, says the Nature Conservancy’s website.

            Georgena Terry, a founding member of the Penfield Green
Initiative community group, says the east side of the town has a nice open
character that makes it a unique part of the town. A cycling enthusiast and the
founder of Terry Precision Bicycles, she enjoys biking through that part of the
town.

            There are
over 3,200 acres of active farmland in the town representing 14 percent of land
in the town, LaFountain says. Much of that, he says,
is located east of Route 250. There are several farmers who work large tracts
of land, but the town also has a number of what he calls “gentleman
farmers” who have smaller operations or don’t make their sole living
through the operations.

            “I
think we have a really strong agricultural base in Penfield,”Terry
says, “and that’s something we really want to preserve.” — BY JEREMY MOULE

Spencerport

As the story goes, Spencerport was farmland before the Erie
Canal came to town.

            But after
the canal was brought through the village, it became a bustling business
district, with hotels, grocery stores, factories, blacksmiths, and grain and
bean warehouses.

            Like other
canal villages, Spencerport has reinvented itself over the years. It’s mainly a
residential community and, with approximately 3,700 residents, it’s one of the
smaller MonroeCounty
villages.

            “It has
a lot of the characteristics of the old New England
villages,” says Helen Moore, a life-long Spencerport resident. That’s the
influence of the original settlers, who came from New England,
she says.

            Some of the
older buildings now serve as storefronts and offices. An old Masonic temple on
Union Street still serves as a lodge, but it also houses a florist and a hair
salon; a bank building built in the early 1900’s serves as the offices of an
engineering and surveying firm; an insurance company’s offices are in a former
firehouse; and a complex of apartments and shops on Union Street and West
Avenue was once the Grange Hall and then the high school.

            But the
community has worked to capitalize on its canal heritage. It’s worked to seize
on the recreational and tourism benefits the canal has to offer. The village
built a park and shelter next to the Union Street
lift bridge — a structure that dates back to 1910. There’s also a gazebo, which
is used for concerts in the summer.

            The canal
path is something of a local recreation destination for residents, who use it
for walking and biking, says Mayor Joyce Lobene. But
the park and docks located next to Union Street
help draw in boat and bike travelers, says Lobene.

            “They
like the small-town atmosphere,” Lobene says.

            The
Spencerport Depot and CanalMuseum,
a combination local history museum and visitor’s center, is something of a
village landmark. As the visitor’s center, it provides canal travelers with
restrooms and shower facilities. It’s located along the canal in a building
that once served as a stop for the Rochester Lockport Buffalo trolley line,
which operated from 1908 to 1931. The building later fell into disuse and
disrepair and was moved. But it was then donated to the village by Spencerport
resident Maxine Davison, who wanted it moved back to its original location.
Volunteers moved it back to the canal in 2005, and the building was restored
through donations and volunteer labor. The museum opened its doors in 2007. —
BY JEREMY MOULE

This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.