This post, simply described, follows the history of a field.

---

A Lyon’s Den

Our story begins with Harrison A. Lyon, a Brightonian nurseryman. In the latter half of the 19th century, he and A. J. Fisk conducted a nursery business headquartered on the lot presently occupied by East High School.

The map below shows Culver Road, then known as Culver Street, in western Brighton in the year 1872. It is the vertical road at center.
Schanck Avenue–now East Main Street–met Culver at the north, where farmer Hendrik van Brunt Schanck’s handsome cobblestone house once stood.
To the south University Avenue crossed–now Atlantic Avenue, where nurseryman John Charlton‘s stately brick home once stood, covered in the ivy he introduced to the Americas.

Lyon & Fisk’s business was situated somewhat north of directly between the two; I’d estimate perhaps the north end of the athletic field parking lotoff of Culver Road. Again, that’s my conjecture; I cannot be sure if the Lyon & Fisk structure in the 1872 map corresponds with the building on the Lyon property facing Culver in later maps. They could be distinct structures.

If it is the same structure, then it managed to survive until 1948!

The land in 1902, two years after Harrison A. Lyon’s death in 1900. It would pass to his nephew, Edmund Lyon.

The neighborhood circa 1910, five years after Rochester’s annexation of Brighton.  The plot bounded by East Main Street, Culver Road, and Atlantic Avenue belongs to Edward P. Lyon according to the plat map.  However, the property deed for this parcel of land names him as Edmund Lyon. _{https://www.facilities.rochester.edu/history/MAG/1915May11deed.pdf}

In 1913, the University of Rochester purchased the plot of land from Edmund Lyon for use as an athletic field. It was deeded in 1915. The UofR was at the time still inhabiting its Prince Street campus; outdoor space for sports and athletic games had been hard to come by. The purchase of the Atlantic Street tract represented a massive boon to the school’s athletic program.

---

A Field is Born

The University of Rochester Athletic Field as of 1918, roughly two or three years after completion. One can see the appeal of the site: it was attractive and mostly undeveloped land in the recently-annexed Brighton. It was even on a trolley stop [the loop at the northwest end of Ohio Street] so crowds could easily get to and from games.

President Rush Rees notes in the article above that the new athletic field will be graded in two sections due to the steep gradient, in which the elevation from west to east drops around twenty feet. This intense grade is still observable today with the retaining wall along Atlantic Avenue.

As noted in the above excerpt from The University of Rochester: The First Hundred Years, the houses of the field’s neighbors served as impromptu grandstands; these neighbors included the houses which previously existed along the west side of Ohio Street.

Intriguingly, through observation of photographs of games being played on Old University Field, one can track the development of Ohio Street from sparse houses on mostly bare fields to a full street of houses. If you’ll indulge me:

---

Ohio Street Develops

The late 1910s and early 1920s saw a housing development boom on Ohio Street. Land formerly belonging to nurseryman Allen L. Wood had been divided into housing tracts, which were at this point being purchased and built on.

The photograph from The University of Rochester: The First Hundred Years introduces a prominent and useful landmark to Ohio Street’s development: a two-colored house numbered 105 Ohio Street. This house, now gone, had a darker-colored upper storey, while the lower half was lighter-colored. A paired window completed the very identifiable profile of 105 Ohio Street, which makes identifying other houses in the images easier:

The area is highly undeveloped in this picture, suggesting a date closer to 1918 than 1926. 

The two-colored house 105 Ohio Street is visible with 116 & 112 Ohio, at left. 

A small segment of Ohio Street is visible, with a car, between 105 and 116, 112. 

Most of Ohio Street is not visible due to the higher grade between the field and the street; the Old University Field lot was not uniformly graded along Ohio Street until the construction of East High School in the late 50’s, leaving a “ridgeline” of sorts between Ohio Street and the playing field.

105 Ohio Street is visible at center, above the head of the foremost football player.

148 Ohio Street is visible to the left. This is another highly-identifiable house on Ohio; still standing–despite a very recent fire–148 is the third oldest street-facing house on Ohio Street. 112 and 116 came first, and are still extant as well.

Many distant houses, most likely along Indiana Street, appear along the background in-between the sparse Ohio Street houses.

89 Ohio Street is at right, in the process of construction.

105 Ohio Street, above center, still had a large gap to its north in this photo, which would be mostly filled in with houses by 1926. The space between 105 and 89 in previous photos holds a house in the photo above, which will be joined by a second house by 1926. These will be 96 and 101 Ohio Street. Every house mentioned in the above paragraph is now gone.

Several houses on the east side of Ohio Street, north end, can be seen here.

This image has been edited to include images and addresses of Ohio Street homes which appear in the photo. Fortunately, the houses on the east side of Ohio Street withstood the test of time, and are still with us today.

This shot shows a complete 89 Ohio Street, with the two-storey back porch. In the photo it is next to a large outbuilding behind 63 Ohio Street which often served as a seating area for spectators willing to climb up there.

A shot showing the orientation of the grandstands, which are clearly pointing towards the two-colored house, 105 Ohio, in agreement with plat maps and published plans.

This shot is the extreme north end of Ohio Street, where it intersects East Main Street.

The brick commercial building at the left is 1824-1826 East Main Street, with 1844 and 1850 East Main Street visible nearby.  The frame structure between 1824-1826 and 1844 was likely razed to build another commercial building, 1830-1834 East Main Street.

---

City Playground

The City Playground would host such displays of athletic prowess as the Democrat and Chronicle’s City Championship horseshoe-throwing tournament. Shining stars like Isaac A. Vandeviver of 49 Farragut Street took up the iron U on the fields of Ohio Street; a blacksmith by trade, the Dutch-born Ike knew his way around a horseshoe.

---

1950s Aerials

These aerials from the early 1950s [likely 1952-1953] were shown to me by a helpful librarian at the University of Rochester.

In the aerial photograph above, one can observe the Charlton Nursery packing house and the houses along the west side of Ohio Street adjacent to the football field, to the right. Atlantic Avenue runs diagonally along the bottom, East Main Street diagonally along the top.

The same aerial photo as above, uncropped. Looking northwest.

Looking south; Atlantic Avenue is above the field, East Main Street below it. Packard St., Maxson St., Hall St., Macbeth St. and a bit of Berry St. can be observed towards the bottom of the photo.

Looking southeast; here one can see the fronts of the row of similar-looking houses along the east side of Culver Road.

Looking west; Atlantic Avenue is to the left of the field, East Main Street to the right, and Culver Road above. Packard St., Hall St., Berry St., and a bit of Durham St. are visible at right. Illinois St., Indiana St., and Ohio St. are at bottom.

Bird’s-eye view of the athletic field; of especial interest to me are the desire-lines in the undeveloped southeastern corner of the field. As a pedestrian who has walked through this area innumerable times, I too have felt the inexorable desire to cut across this corner. Nowadays, this takes the form of walking through a parking lot instead of a busky field, but the effect is the same.

Looking north; the row of extremely similar houses along the east side of Culver road are highly visible here, at left. From the shadows this photo looks to be taken on a very bright, crisp morning; it was March 3, 1953.

---

Constructing East High

Via this article about property value assessment squabbles, I made the discovery that Packard Street was once considered for extension through the former athletic field to Atlantic Avenue, well over twice as long as it otherwise ended up! Imagine, Long Packard.

“In another action, the board accepted the certification of the annual Feinberg Law report. An annual report that there are no Communist teachers in the school system is required under law.” Ah, vintage.

The process of constructing the high school would require the purchase of numerous houses by the school district, securing either their demolition or their removal to another address. Some of these houses would end up being moved across the field to Packard Street, which had been extended from Bonner Place in the 1920s, and which had not yet been completely developed.

55 Packard Street does not exist any longer, having been subsumed by 900 Culver Rd.

I’ve taken the liberty of blowing up the above houses on Ohio Street and labelling them with addresses:

As the houses along Culver Road emptied out, the stretch of abandoned homes was known as a “Ghost Town” which was targeted by vandals and arsonists. By the time of this article’s publication only one family still lived in the area, at 728 Culver, which would have been at the foot of Leighton Avenue. The present-day grandstands of the East High School football field now occupy that space.

---

The East High Era

As of this 1960 alteration to the Sanborn Map, the houses on the east side of Culver Road and the houses on the west side of Ohio Street are all gone. What appears to be supplementary classroom trailers occupied the southwestern corner of the lot.

As an aside, one can see in this map that Ohio Street, too, was considered for an extension. This planned extension would have carried Ohio Street past its current southern boundary, clear through to Humboldt.

The above interior cover spread shows an aerial of the east side of East High School. Indiana Street is closest to the foreground, and Ohio Street borders the highschool campus. Atlantic Avenue cuts diagonally across the lower left corner, East Main Street across the upper right, intersected by Culver Road horizontally near the top of the photo.

I labelled the addresses of all the homes I could visually discern. There’s more houses on Indiana street but they are so lost in shadow I can’t tell where one ends or one begins. Being one who dislikes conjecture, I instead provided the graphic “incomplete”.

The above aerial shows the north side of East High School. Packard and Maxson Streets are partially visible at the bottom of the photo.

An aerial view of the east side of East High School. A good chunk of Ohio Street is visible in the lower left-hand corner. Atlantic Avenue is along the left, Culver Road at top, and East Main Street along the right edge.

Sometime between 1962 and 1966 the communications tower was built at the northeast corner of the East High School campus.

These photos of a 1967 snowball fight give a tantalizing glimpse of the intersection of Culver Road and East Main Street in that year. Above the student to the left, one can see the apartment building at 1671-1677 East Main Street, now a Domino’s parking lot. By the rightmost students’s head, a filling station with a billboard, where the Dollar Tree is now.

Decades of performance and budget issues plagued East High School. In 2015, the University of Rochester took over management of the school. With the UofR returning to the Old University Field the circle has been completed, or the snake has eaten its tail or whatever. You get it.

---

A New Tower

In December of 2024, a new transmitter tower was constructed next to the old one, and the older tower dismantled.

---

Supporting Gonechester

Did you enjoy what you read? Consider giving me a little tip at buymeacoffee.com/Gonechester, by way of saying “thanks!” It’s not necessary, but it certainly helps!