As early as 1890, talk began to build about the need for a new east-west conduit for traffic between east Rochester and Brighton. A common answer to this need was a call to extend Park Avenue westward, past its present termination point at Alexander Street, continuing as far as Court Street. In addition to the traffic benefits, the streetcar line would also benefit: the additional length would allow a straighter track along the Park Avenue streetcar line, a line notoriously turny and twisty, both absurd and punishing for riders.

But the greatest pressure came from East Avenue residents. Though tracks cut down part of East Avenue on the way to Alexander, bumptious avenue residents didn’t like it, and wanted East Avenue to be entirely free of tracks.

---

No. 261 Alexander

A key element to extending westward was the purchase and removal of structures in the way; there were few, especially along the most vied-for of the possible routes: the straight shot down Canfield Place. To accomplish this, the railway company would need to remove the house numbered 261 Alexander, then proceed to move several houses along Canfield Place into adjoining lots.

The Alexander Street home at the foot of Park Avenue was once numbered 137 Alexander Street, and served as the family home of Jonathan Law Booth and his wife Celia Frances Brooks. J. L. Booth was a dealer in stocks at the Reynold’s Arcade. He died in 1883, and the house was put up for sale the following year, the widowed Celia moving in with her son on Meigs street.

The former Booth residence was purchased by John Alanson Davis in 1888. John A. Davis would serve as city treasurer from his election in 1885 until his removal from office in 1890 for the misappropriation of public funds. Davis was tried and sent to Auburn State Prison for a sentence of five years, but was pardoned on Christmas of 1891. 

John A. Davis and his wife, Mary K. VanDeventer, and daughter, Kate Elizabeth Davis, lived in the house at No. 261 Alexander from 1888 until John’s sudden death from heart trouble in December of 1902, after which Mary and Kate Elizabeth lived in the house. 

Mary K. died in 1934, after which the house remained in Kate Elizabeth’s possession until her own death in 1945.

Two years later, Marion Marx would purchase the vacant property, and refit the mansion into apartments and offices.

Oddly, the article claims the property lay vacant for five years prior, rather than two, but perhaps Kate Elizabeth Davis had allowed the property to go slack during the last three years of her life.

And so No. 261 Alexander survived to the present day. So what were these plans for extending Park Avenue? Why did they never go through with it? Let’s see what we can find out.

---

1901: Stalling in the New Century

Park Avenue’s streetcar line was notoriously turny-wurny, and the numerous swerves were known to cause some dizziness and nausea among the car passengers. This point of complaint could scarcely be addressed due finances and the geographical reality of Park Avenue. After all, part of Park Avenue had begun life as a racetrack built by Joseph Hall in 1868, and the surveyor included the hairpin arch around the planned park when the Vick Park neighborhood was being laid out. A streetcar whipping along a track, forced to swerve drunkenly around the acute bend was a future unknown.

---

1907-1908: Seemingly In-track-table

“It is proposed to join Park Avenue and Canfield Place and thus extend Park Avenue to Union Street. This can be done by purchasing one single piece of property on Alexander Street. Park Avenue at present has no outlet, and the block from Gardiner Park to Monroe Avenue is nearly a half mile in lngth, and to extend Park Avenue to Union Street is thus a real need at the present time. 

From Union Street to the corner of Court and Chestnut it is proposed to extend Park Avenue in a straight line two lots wide the entire distance, with a flaring outlet at Chestnut and Court of 65 feet on Chestnut and 110 feet on Court. This route would disturb only about one dozen houses, none of any great importance, and all of which could be moved to vacant property near by.”

[https://www.newspapers.com/article/democrat-and-chronicle-to-lengthen-park/140361292/]

---

1911: A Streetcar Named Undesirable

The 1911 “A City Plan for Rochester” report seemed to lend support to the westward extension, albeit the path looked slightly different. Instead of making Canfield Place the southern edge of the new Park Avenue extension, the planned route would cut a north-westerly diagonal between Canfield Place and Chapman Alley before meeting Union Street, then continuing north-westerly to meet Court Street between William and Manhattan Streets, whereupon the path the of thoroughfare would continue east through James Street.

But even as the plans cried out for more rail, Park Avenue residents were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the rail that already existed; on top of the previously-mentioned problems with the Park Avenue route, repairs were frequent, disruptive, long and–in the opinion of many–paced quite lackadaisically. The tension grew to such an intensity that even the pastor of the Park Avenue Baptist Church (then on the northeast corner of Park and Meigs) felt compelled to break his usual stoicism on matters temporal in favor of delivering a withering recrimination against the corporations involved in the slow-paced work.

Furthermore, the dangerously tight curve of the streetcar line at Gardiner Park and Alexander Street was contributing to derailing hazards on a corner already becoming known as “dead man’s curve”.

Something had to give eventually, but the interminable wrangling over rails and routes continued without further action.

---

1923: Planning Future Failures

The 1923 publication “The Rochester City Plan” makes note of the planned extension, and also notes bitterly that it was well overdue. The Park Avenue connection with Chestnut Street would render Park part of a greater Chestnut-Elm-Ormond Street connection facilitating traffic into and out of the business district.

But none of that ended up coming to fruition.

---

1929: Reuter’s Plan

In 1929, the idea to extend Park Avenue gained new momentum.

In the map above, one can faintly see the grey superimposed lines denoting the planned path of the Park Avenue westward extension. Park Avenue would have crossed over Alexander Street, travelled along Canfield Place with the former Canfield describing Park Ave’s southern edge, and met Union Street. There, the Union crossing would have jogged slightly south, and Park Avenue would have travelled along George Street, that former street now informing Park Avenue’s southern edge. It would meet and cross William Street, then connect with the intersection of Chestnut and Court Streets.

On a modern map, the course would look somewhat like this:

In addition, James Street would have been extended east through Gardiner Park. Tied into the proposition was yet another river-bridging Civic Center, with an apparent bridge built at Monroe Avenue over the Genesee and various civic center buildings, including the new City Hall, built by the river between South Avenue and Clinton Avenue South. This is a whole other ball of twine I won’t get into here, but will inevitably return to, so get yourself puffed up for that piece of writing.

---

An Aside on Charles Reuter

Charles Edgar Reuter, who wrote in support of the extension, was owner of his late father’s prominent grocery, the “George Reuter Company” established on the corner of Park Avenue and Meigs Street in 1870. (George Reuter was mentioned as the owner of a wagon in the previous “Dead Man’s Curve” article from 1911.) Doubtless the plan would be of immense benefit to Reuter, bringing more streetcar traffic to his grocery.

---

Conflicting Views

Overall, the plan seemed to have quite a lot of critical support.

There was at least one person willing to write a letter to the editor in support of the extension plan:

However, another faction of Park Avenue denizens arose in opposition to the streetcar line:

The Park Avenue car line has long been the butt of many jokes, because of the tortuous route it pursues and because the condition of the roadbed causes the cars to thunder by with great noise, they assert.

One man who lives in Park Avenue, when asked if he had heard the earthquake which shook Rochester last august, replied that to one used to hearing the Park Avenue cars roar past his house at more or less regular intervals, a minor disturbance like an earthquake would be indistinguishable.

[https://www.newspapers.com/article/democrat-and-chronicle-want-rails-out-b/140757068/]

These Parkers were weary of the thundering streetcars meandering along their Avenue; they demanded removal of the streetcar tracks and substitution of a bus line, post haste.

---

1937: The Tracks Removed

By 1935, everything remains status quo. The tracks remained, and instead of the hoped-for gentle extension westward those tracks continued to bend painfully around the corner of Alexander and Park. A graceful dotted curve between Park and Union seems to suggest the echoes of another extension plan.

In 1937, the anti-trackers won; the streetcar tracks were ripped out of Park Avenue and smooth tarmacadam put down in its stead. Traffic immediately began to increase, and–along with it–crashes increased as well.

The battle lines drawn, people proceed to do what they do best: snipe at each other with racially-aggressive language in the letters section of the Democrat and Chronicle.

And so we find ourselves most of the way to the situation we find familiar today: a meandering Park Avenue ending at Alexander Street, with buses plying the contorted turns throughout the day. My mind marvels at other possible alternative Park Avenues which may exist today, if things had gone differently. 

---

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!