There is a neighborhood known as the Fruit Belt in Dutchtown on the west side of Rochester, NY. It was settled largely by German immigrants in the 19th century. These settlers planted numerous fruit and nut trees in the neighborhoods, which eventually lent the streets fruity names: Orange, Lime, Grape, Walnut, Orchard.

I’ve always been amused by these names; as is the case with another area of the city populated with streets named for birds, thematically-named neighborhoods have always kind of struck me as funny. I can’t tell you exactly why.

Anyhow, I tell you this only to explain that the reasons behind my posts are not always born of academic curiosity, but sometimes of silly whimsy. Can you honestly say that’s any less legitimate of an approach?

With that in mind, I was poking around these fruity streets on Google Maps when I stumbled upon one corner that piqued my curiosity: the northwest corner of Grape Street and Orange Street.

Nothing but an empty lot on the satellite view, the parcel showed signs of construction going on as of its latest street view:

But there had been something there before, most certainly. I recollected some great shambolic structure being there during my previous “in real life” travels through the intersection. Luckily, I had more than just my porous memory to work with; Google Maps allowed me to rewind the street view to 2012:

Sure enough, there it was: a massive brick edifice that looked a bit worse for wear. A large brick Italianate house to which a storefront had obviously been added at some historical point. Here it sits, unaware of its nearing fate: its windows boarded over like the blindfold of the execution victim. Cigarette?

Something was there on the corner of Grape and Orange as early as this 1851 map. I couldn’t possibly tell you if it’s the same house or a predecessor of the above house. I was unable to find a “P. Hunt” in the directory at this time.

In the 1875 Atlas, the home at the corner of Grape and Orange belongs to John Greenwood. Across Orange Street is the grocery store of Elizabeth Draude.

No. 52 Walnut Street, the address marked with purple, was owned by John Greenwood in 1875. By 1888 it had passed to his son-in-law, James Naylor.

A daughter church of St. Luke’s Episcopalian Church, the Church of the Good Shepherd, was also built on Greenwood’s lot; Greenwood was a founding member of the parish.

James Naylor, Sr. was married to John Greenwood’s daughter Sarah.

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John Greenwood

John Greenwood emigrated to the United States from Westmoreland, England in 1848.

[https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Packages/GANZAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0] (p.53)

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Barrel Machine Works

John Greenwood’s company created machinery for use in the barrel-making industry. Some of them were quite frightening to behold, more like tools of the Inquisition than of a humble cooperage. Great whirling blades, spinning leather bands, high-pressure clamps and guillotine-like cutters were par for the course in Greenwood’s state-of-the-art products.

Greenwood’s barrel machine shop was located in what is known today as “The Parry Building”, 224 Mill Street, on a block bounded by Mill Street, Race Street [Brown’s Race], Furnace Street and Platt Street.

Judging from the outlay of streets and recognizable landmark buildings in the bird’s-eye view of the Brown’s Race area in 1870, John Greenwood’s machine shop should be somewhere around where the red dot is. The only thing that somewhat confounds me is that none of the buildings look like the very recognizable shape of the “Parry Building” Greenwood occupied.

Intially, I supposed this meant the building was constructed between the illustration and the 1875 map, but a plaque on the building states that it was built 1851 and renovated in the early 1870s. So, it should be visible here, but I’m not seeing it. Regardless, I include the image for context.

After John Greenwood’s death in 1903, the company would become officially known as the Rochester Barrel Machine Works, a name it had previously used internally.  The business would move to a new and more commodious space on St. James Street. The company would continue to use the cachet earned by John Greenwood’s good reputation for some time.

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Good Shepherd

John Greenwood was an active and founding member of the Church of the Good Shepherd which was built on the same lot as his home, facing Grape Street. The fourth “daughter church” of St. Luke’s Episcopalian, the small Grape Street edifice was erected after several years of “cottage services” in John Greenwood’s home.

[http://libraryweb.org/~digitized/books/Annals_of_St_Lukes_Church.pdf] (pp.127-128)

[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Centennial_Annals_of_St_Luke_s_Church_Ro/wJjVAAAAMAAJ] (pp.39-40)

[https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Rochester_and_Monroe_County_N/IvssAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0] (p.295)

[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Centennial_Annals_of_St_Luke_s_Church_Ro/wJjVAAAAMAAJ?hl] (p.51, 92)

John Greenwood was one of the first two wardens of the Church of the Good Shepherd upon its organization as a parish in 1869. He was elected to serve in the capacity of warden of the church numerous times after:

Above: two articles in which John Greenwood was elected warden of the Church of the Good Shepherd.

In 1891, the Church of the Good Shepherd building was renamed St. Anne’s. It would remain St. Anne’s Church for merely three years, shuttering for two years before very briefly being re-opened as a church:

After this point, as evidenced by the Plat Maps of 1900 and later, the church building was renovated and sold or rented as two private residences.

In the modern day, 63 Grape street is offices and storage for College Club/Fiz Beverages. I reached out to the company with some questions regarding the property but they were disinclined to answer.

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48 Orange, Post-Greenwood

In 1900, John Greenwood retired from business entirely. Three years later, in 1903, he died.

The brick outbuilding to the west of the house, Greenwood’s former carriage house, has been parceled into its own property, No. 120 Orange Street, with a frame addition at rear.  The numbers have changed, and No. 48 Orange Street is now divided into two addresses, Nos. 116-118 Orange St.

By 1910, a house No. 59 had been squeezed in-between the church and the late John Greenwood’s house. This was built sometime prior to 1907, and served as the home of Martha L. Lyle [née Greenwood], John Greenwood’s daughter, wife of Robert W. Lyle. It is under her name that the re-subbed properties would be known on future plat maps.

Here’s an interesting tidbit; Martha’s husband Robert W. Lyle was a son of William Lyle, a Scottish poet who emigrated to Rochester. William Lyle would at one point read a poem dedicated to his grandson Clarence, who died at age 6. The funeral, sadly, took place on the child’s birthday, in the home of his maternal grandfather John Greenwood.

The 1918 Plat map reveals a brick expansion built onto Nos. 116-118 Orange Street at the northwest corner.

 By 1926, a new brick outbuilding was erected at the new south-west property line of the former Greenwood house.

The brick storefront addition at last makes an appearance in the year’s plat map. It is addressed as No. 116 Orange Street, and would at one point be the shop of Jacob Rosenthal, a tailor and inventor. His daughter, optometrist Marjorie Rosenthal also operated out of the shop.

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The Rosenthals

Their address No. 57 Grape Street, which was the door to the divided eastern wing of the former Greenwood mansion. In other words, they lived behind their shop. Other children of Jacob Rosenthal living at No. 57 Grape were Harry L. Rosenthal, who would eventually become a Monroe County judge, and would die in his chambers during a recess from a 1967 murder trial; Jessie Rosenthal, a concert pianist; and Georgia Rosenthal.

The Rochester School of Optometry, from which Marjorie Rosenthal graduated, was extant from 1902 through 1928. Between 1918 and 1928 the school occupied the Perkins House at 38 South Washington Street. The school closed after commencement proceedings at Powers Hotel for Rosenthal’s graduating class. She would become treasurer of the Rochester Optometric Society in 1930.

By 1935, an address “116 ½” appears. A cinder block garage was constructed behind the adjacent house to the west, No. 120 Orange, the former carriage house of John Greenwood.

No. 116 Orange Street is subdivided into “A” and “B” storefronts in this 1950 Sanborn map.

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Rev. John W. Greenwood

John Greenwood’s son, baptized at Good Shepherd, would himself enter into the priesthood, eventually becoming rector of Trinity Church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

After his retirement from rectoring, John W. Greenwood moved to California to be with his children. Apparently distraught by his failing health, he painstakingly wrote letters of farewell to all his family, friends and colleagues before apparently jumping to his death from the steamship “Dorothy Alexander“, between San Diego and Los Angeles.

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JOSANA/Fruit Belt Project

Starting in 2015 the corner of Grape and Orange was a part of efforts by the Fruit Belt Project, a voluntary effort to bring art and community resources to an area touched by poverty and criminal activity. Evidence of the initiatives can be seen in this community garden in the space where 57 Grape Street used to stand. Artwork by local artist and activist Shawn Dunwoody grace the sign and planting box; Dunwoody was a major part of the Fruit Belt Project and its visual design, including the creation of multiple murals.

Though John Greenwood’s home has been lost to the rigors of time and human activity, life continues on these parcels of land. After a decade as a grassy street corner lot, soon the construction vehicles will complete their task and the story of a new building will begin. It’s up to future historians–or perhaps myself, much older and more careworn–to find those stories and frame them anew.

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