Category: Schools
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The old and venerable Blossom Hotel stood on the north side of Main Street, near the corner of St. Paul Street. A respite for travelers along road or canal, the Blossom Hotel enjoyed a high profile reputation. Wamsley Brothers was comprised of Joseph, Thomas, and Edward Wamsley, milliners and silk merchants. The Wamsleys moved their…
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This is a repost of the original 2025 post: [https://gonechester.com/2025/01/06/twelfth-night-bonfires/] Starting in the early 1930s, there was a revival in the celebration of Twelfth Night–or the twelfth day after Christmas–on January 6th by building a massive bonfire of old Christmas trees, wreaths, and laurels. An old custom, its renewal was inspired by local artist George…
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Once upon a time, Brighton was home to a settlement of Dutch immigrants, poetically called the “Dutch Settlement”. A transplanted slice of old Holland, the settlement was noted for its Dutch cultural flavor; neat little houses stood shoulder-to-shoulder surrounded by gardens full of vegetables all in rows. The Dutch, gifted in gardening and horticulture, tended…
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Is there a Green Street in Rochester? Once upon a time, there was! The name never made it past the 19th century, but the thoroughfare technically still exists: over the decades, it morphed into South Clinton Avenue south of Howell Street. But to start, it was a simple street laid out between Jackson Street [Capron…
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Every young city lived in fear of fire. Old wood houses were a veritable tinderbox, and there was no dearth of combustion sources; this was an age of wood- and coal-fired ovens, of gas lamps, of railroads putting off sparks, of incautious industry tossing smoldering, chemical garbage into the dumps. These were times when oily…
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Before its annexation by the City of Rochester in 1904, the intersection of East Avenue and Winton Road [at that time known as North and South Avenues] was the center village of Brighton, the heartbeat of its folksy commercial and social life. With its close proximity to the old course of the Erie Canal, this…
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The history of a city is foremost the history of people. It is people that make the buildings, people that pave the streets, and people whose daily lives make use of them both. The things they do, the things they make, the styles they wear… these are the deciding factors of generations. And yet, we…
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At 5’ 2” tall and about 115 pounds, Frederick S. Smith may have been a small man, but he was brave, tough, and cocky. You had to be in his line of work, for Fred Smith was one of those adventuresome janitors of the heights: the steeplejack. Known as The Human Fly–especially to himself–it was…
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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…