While perusing the photographs in the Albert R. Stone negative collection, I came across this pair of photographs of a bottle yard on Joseph Avenue.  I found myself intrigued and enchanted by this small glimpse of something so quotidian, as common as bringing your bottles and cans for redemption is today, but with a very “past aesthetic”.  The crates, the ceramic jugs, the stoppered glass bottles and staved barrels… yesterday’s beverage containers.

Who was the bottle man?  Who owned this fenced-in lot full of stacked crates?  Who was Bernard Rose?

The first mention of Bernard Rose the bottle-man appeared in the 1898 City Directory; Rose dealt bottles out of No. 13 Holland Street, between Joseph Avenue and Chatham Street.

The next year, Rose moved his business to No. 101 Joseph Avenue, a building with an adjacent empty lot which would serve as the bottle yard. He and his family would also live there for nearly the next decade, until they moved to No. 60 Avenue A in 1908.

Eventually, the addresses on Joseph Avenue were rejiggered, and Bernard Roses’s building became Nos. 135-137 Joseph Avenue. The lot which served as the bottle yard would be No. 139.

Note the “BOTTLES IN CRATES” inscriptions written in the lot and sheds north of No. 101/137 Joseph. A very apt description, if you recall the image at top.

In 1930, Bernard Rose sought a permit to remodel the building and its lot into a gas station:

The 1950 Sanborn map shows us that plan came to fruition;

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Optical Pursuits

Besides his bottle-yard, or rather as a consequent continuance of his bottle-based career, Bernard Rose edged into the field of optics; honing shards of beer-bottle glass into magnifying lenses eventually led to Rose becoming owner of Projection Optics Co., Inc.:

Projection Optics’ focus [tee-hee] was the creation of specialty lenses for the motion picture industry.

In the 1921 directory, Bernard Rose is listed as treasurer of Consolidated Lens Co. at 20 Spring Street:

The following year, Rose is listed as manager and treasurer of “Projection Optical Co. Inc.”. Projection Optics Co. Inc. was founded in 1918 at No. 203 State Street by William H. Repp; the companies seem to have merged sometime during this year.

The location and address would suggest Consolidated Lens Mfg. Co./Projection Optics Co. Inc. was in the same building as pictured below in 1910:

Projection Optics Co. Inc. would eventually move into the former Likly’s luggage factory at 330 Lyell Avenue.

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Temple Beth El

Bernard and Tillie Rose (née Berger) were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania.  During the latter half of the 19th century, Lithuania fell under the rule of the Russian Empire. Sentiments against Jews in Russia turned worse than usual; riots and pogroms erupted throughout eastern Europe during this time. As a result, huge swathes of Jews emigrated, some to the United States like Bernard and Tillie Rose.

Bernard married Tillie in 1892; together they had four daughters, Sadie Huyla (b.1894), Tobie Ray (b. 1896), Frieda Byrne (b. 1906) and Anna Laura (b. 1908) as well as a son, Aaron Eli (b. 1899 or 1900). 

Bernard and Tillie would become big movers and shakers in organizing Eastern European Jewish life in Rochester, they were driving forces behind the formation of the Jewish Young Man’s Association, the Jewish Young Woman’s Association, and a chapter of the Hadassah Zionist organization [now named after Tillie Rose] in the city of Rochester, among numerous other pursuits.  They were also dedicated to reaching Jewish persons born in and immigrated to Rochester, in order to set them up with proper places of living, employment, religious education, and membership within a synagogue. 

In 1915, Bernard Rose was one of ten men who gathered to organize a new synagogue aligned with the fledgling Conservative Jewish movement, Temple Beth El: 

“On November 28th, 1915, ten men gathered in the Frankel household to organize a new synagogue aligned in the traditions and practices of the fledgling Conservative movement. The group consisted of Louis Frankel, Charles Frankel, Isaac Joffe, Charles Moskowitz, Reuben Goldstein, Louis Sarachan, Benjamin Rosenthal, Bernard Rose, Hyman J. Cohen, and Charles Cohen.”

https://www.tberochester.org/shalom/our-story/history/

In 1916 they would purchase the Baptist church on the corner of Park Avenue and Meigs Street as their first location:

Temple Beth El would remain on this corner for many decades; it was here when Bernard Rose died in 1948, and his funeral was performed within its walls. It wasn’t until nearly twelve years after Rose’s death that the catastrophic 1960 fire gutted the house of worship, leaving only ruins to be razed:

A number of plans were made for the site; an immediate attempt at opening a gasoline service station was slapped down. Instead, an apartment complex was designed and built on the plot, which still stands today:

As for the Congregation Beth El, a new temple was required. The community rallied in support of the orphaned worshippers and, in 1963, a large brick temple was erected on the east side of South Winton Road, on land that was once a sand and gravel quarry.

But again, that’s all long after the time of the Roses. Let us return to 1908, when the family made a significant move out from over the bottle-yard to a house at No. 60 Avenue A.

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No. 60 Avenue A

In 1908, Bernard Rose and his family moved from above the Joseph Avenue bottle shop to No. 60 Avenue A:

This house saw much use as the center of Bernard and Tillie’s social organizations within the Jewish community; for instance, the Hadassah organization she helped found was headquartered in the living room of the home.

The house which is currently at No. 60 Avenue A is on record as having been built in 1920; presumably it is a replacement for the house the Roses lived in until 1918.

However, I have reason to doubt. The property doesn’t seem any different in the 1950 Sanborn map than it did in the 1911 edition:

Not to mention that, despite the wear-and-tear on it, evidence of the stone cladding exists on the present-day house. Therefore, I’m of the opinion that No. 60 Avenue A is much older than 1920, but I’ll have to get back to you when I’ve proven that substantively.

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No. 376 Harvard Street

Come 1918, the Rose family would move out of their home at No. 60 Avenue A into a house at No. 376 Harvard Street. Bernard would remain there until his death in 1948.

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Sadie H. Rose

One of the Rose daughters, Sadie Huyla Rose, rose to prominence through writing books. Born to Tillie and Bernard in 1894, Sadie graduated from University of Rochester in 1917, one of the first UofR classes to admit women:

Sadie Rose married Rabbi Baruch Reuben Weilerstein in June of 1920. The two of them moved to Brooklyn, and then eventually on to Atlantic City.

Under the name Sadie Rose Weilerstein, Sadie wrote a number of books; especially popular was her series of Tom Thumb-like books about a miniature Jewish boy named K’Ton Ton, who got into numerous Jewish-themed scrapes and came out learning important lessons, also with a Jewish moral bent to them.

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Faded Roses

Come the mid-20th century, Rochester’s remaining Roses began to disappear. All of Bernie and Tillie’s children had moved on to other cities; Sadie to Atlantic City; Tobie to Bradford, Pennsylvania; Frieda to Toronto, Canada; Anna to New York City, and Aaron to Syracuse.

In 1948, Bernard Rose died in hospital, still living at No. 376 Harvard Street:

Tillie Rose, left a widow in her home of 35 years, took leave and stayed with her daughter Sadie in Atlantic City, where she died in 1951:

After arriving from Lithuania and leaving a massive mark on Rochester’s Jewish cultural heritage, the Rose family itself was now but a memory to Rochester. The institutions they founded are still extant… except for the bottle yard.

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