This is the story of one small area’s evolution. A busy riverfront of the Genesee, where river met canal met mill race. Eventually added to the mix subways, and railroads, and highways… It was a busy and ever-evolving area, suffice to say.

The weighlock was located on the east side of the Genesee River, alongside the Erie Canal as it passed parallel just south of Court Street.

Canal boats entered the covered area, inside of which a lock lowered the water until the boat rested on giant scales. There, the toll was determined by the weight of the loaded boat. This process apparently took roughly fifteen minutes.

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The “Old” Weighlock

I’m actually a little uncertain on the 1851 map, for a couple reasons. First, the shape and format of the weighlock actually resembles the 1852 weighlock setup than it does the above, 1832 one. There may have been gradual improvements, replacement of weighlocks I did not locate in the records, or the 1851 map has the planned or already-under-construction 1852 lock.

I find the final theory most compelling, as the 1852 enlargement and improvement of the Erie Canal system was a massive undertaking, for which plans likely existed well in advance. Given this, it would have been a matter of foresight to include the “new” layout of the weighlock as opposed to the “old”. I have no proof of this at present, just my own deduction.

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The “New” Weighlock

The “new” weighlock (or weigh lock) was built in 1852, replacing the previous older weighlock at approximately the same area.

The below photo is from the same vantage point. While the date is uncertain, other photos from the same set are from the 1860s, so it may actually be older than the stereograph above.

The Erie Canal, Johnson & Seymour Mill Race, and Genesee River flowed alongside each other for this small section; to the north of the Court Street Bridge the aqueduct carried the canal over the river to the west side of the city. 

Canal boats and barges would be towed along the canal by mules walking upon the parallel towpath.  The bridge was available for the mules to cross over to the other side when the towpath switched sides.

“A Change Bridge is designed to allow horses or mules to cross the canal when the towpath crosses from one side to the other. The Erie Canal towpath generally ran on only one side of the canal; sometimes on the north, other times on the south, as geography warranted. When the towpath shifted from one side of the canal to the other, it was necessary for the horses or mules to change sides as well. A change bridge was designed to make this possible without unhitching and re-hitching the draft animals.

By this point the weighlock and associated structures were beginning to look a bit shambolic, worse for wear, you know the sort of thing.  It was in need of a good fixing up. So around 1896 it got a good sprucing, with a coat of white lead paint and some interior frescoes:

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The Weighlock Gang

The previous article discloses an amusing fact: that the Erie Canal weighlock at the end of the 19th century was plagued by a band of toughs known as the Weighlock Gang.  And these weren’t kids, either, but thieving drunken young adult men, some of whom had wives at home they would torment and abuse. 

[Also, I dearly hope “orgies” has a slightly different connotation in the above article than that which I’m accustomed to.]

Let’s rewind a few years to 1890 and find an article about these notorious weighlock toughs:

By the mid-to-late 1890’s they seemed to be aging out and losing steam, if they hadn’t died on the streets or lucked upon a lengthy prison sentence.  But now and again they’d turn up like a bad hay penny:

One of the leaders of this gang of toughs would later go on to become quite successful in Rochester politics. James T. O’Grady, an

Overall, majority of the newspaper articles I turned up for a search on “weighlock” [discounting tables of tolls] were regarding the Weighlock Gang, who apparently had an outsize presence in the media of the day.

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General Tomfoolery

Of course, not everyone had to be a gangster hoodlum to be an asshole.  Sometimes you could just be a garden-variety drunken asshole:

There’s “drunk” and then there’s “manslaughter-by-drowning drunk”. Don’t be a Micky Lynch: never get manslaughter drunk. And while you’re at it, avoid “sleeping-on-a-bridge-rail drunk” as well.

I appreciate the weighlock as much as anyone, but I’m surprised it made such an attractive nuisance to the loiterers of the city. Was it the view? The opportunity to hob-knob with canalmen? The beautiful frescoes?

Whatever it was, it was frowned upon. Get these loafers out of here! demanded the State of New York.

Sometimes things like this happened, too:

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A Measured Approach

All in all, the weighlock served as the real moneymaker for Rochester’s Erie ports. Not a single packet passed through the canal without being weighed for what was wanting. The scales tipped in favor of fortune here, and would continue to do so for some time–but the paradigm was about to change. Other forms of transport were taking the power of the canal away, bit-by-bit, and soon the city would have to weigh whether to have a lock at all.

This shows a bit of the structural details of the weighlock: the iron & wood bridge across the canal; the frame weigh lock structure between the piers; the scales; the wood-topped brick offices of the weighlock superintendent; and other buildings related to the operation of the weighlock, such as a blacksmith shop and carpentry shop. There were also a pair of waterwheels in a covered race beneath the weighlock complex.

One can see the small bridge between the weighlock and the machining and carpentry shop to its west in the photograph above. The weighlock bridge to South Avenue is also nicely visible.

In 1905, the LeHigh Valley Railroad was routed through the area; the train station was constructed between the river and the mill race, immediately south of the Court Street Bridge.

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Houdini’s Leap

The weighlock bridge was also noteworthy for being the site of Houdini’s first filmed stunt: leaping handcuffed from the bridge into the Erie Canal.

In the map above one can see the LeHigh Valley railroad station on the southern side of the Court Street bridge and the train tracks along the wall dividing the Johnson & Seymour mill race from the Genesee River.

The following photos follow the path a boat might take along the canal, through the weighlock, travelling south to north. They are from mostly around the same time, but are out of chronological order, instead reflecting the direction of travel. All dates are noted below their respective photos:

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The Subway Forward

Few things represented a sea-change in Rochester’s relationship with the canal than the replacement of a large segment of it with a subway. With the Barge Canal travelling a course outside the city, the old Erie infrastructure was considered obsolete. Apparently no wistful romantic, Mayor Clarence D. Van Zandt pushed through the construction of the underground train along the bed of the former canal, which began operation in 1927.

With the development of the Barge Canal and the construction of the subway, the weighlock was defunct. Come 1922, the weighlock was dismantled.

The razing of numerous weighlocks along the retired Erie Canal took place around this time, as Barge canal infrastructure replaced outdated Erie Canal infrastructure.  Weighing and fees were no longer part of everyday canal operations, meaning these noble edifices had few practical reasons to exist. 

Syracuse, New York preserved its weighlock and transformed it into an Erie Canal museum:

One can see the weighlock dimly amidst the fog in the background of the below photograph from 1919, during the construction of an approach ramp to the new Barge Canal’s terminal:

The weighlock is vanished in the 1926 plat map, above. History continues apace, bereft of one of the canal’s oldest structures.

This map also was the last appearance of the old Mohawk Dam, which was demolished in 1929.

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Carry on, My Weighless Son

From here on out, it’s as if the weighlock never existed. All developments were focused on cars or trains, particularly the fancy new subway system. But the canal was relegated to historic relic status. Freight far more commonly came by train or truck these days.

The below aerial shows the construction of the Rundel Library on pilings over the Johnson & Seymour mill race, 1934-1936.  LeHigh Valley Railroad Station is on the other side of the Court Street Bridge from the library construction.

It’s crazy how much is going on in this small section of riverside by this point.

Below, the area in the late 1950’s, shortly after the 1953-1955 construction of the Troup-Howell Bridge across the Genesee River. The new highway would eventually lead to the construction of the circular ramp, wherein our titular skatepark would–also eventually–be constructed.

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The Weighlock Bridge

The cast iron change-bridge [designed by Squire Whipple] which led from Weighlock Place to the weighlock proper was sold off in two sections, one of which would eventually end up bridging a creek in Macedon. After collapsing in 1996, it was restored and installed into the Palmyra-Macedon Aqueduct Park in 2004.

I’m not sure where the idea of an 1880 abandonment of the weighlock mentioned in the above articles came from. It doesn’t seem to be corroborated by any sources, much less the many sources in this post which suggest the weighlock was in use until the construction of the Barge Canal circa 1915. However, multiple articles claim that the bridge was divided and removed in 1880; therefore I can only suppose the bridge was removed and replaced with a different one at that date.

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Troup-Howell Bridge

Below, the Troup-Howell Bridge crossing the Genesee, as viewed from the west. The spiral off-ramp is visible at left, which now winds around the skate park.

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The Skatepark

A fly-through animation of the skate park: [https://youtu.be/owdMl–gtuA]

The following photographs were taken by me on February 11th, 2023:

As you can see, much has changed. What once served as the beating heart of the city’s Erie lifeblood now serves as a nexus of recreational sport. One can almost imagine glancing across a century’s span to catch a glimpse of the weighlock as they’re landing the perfect ollie.

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