Category: Events
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Back in the early days of Rochester, the number one enemy was fire. Constant vigilance, careful preparation, and good communication are the watch-words for fire prevention and many of these practices were honed in the hectic tinderboxes that was the 19th century city. Downtown, mills factories and forges stood shoulder-to-shoulder with apartments, houses and saloons;…
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If the road we knew today as Atlantic Avenue were to wander back in time to the turn of the previous century, we would see it pick up its old sobriquet of University Avenue from the horizon line, dust it off, and cross the Central-Hudson railroad tracks with it. There at the crossroads, on a gentle…
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Murals, as we saw in the previous segment, could be a potent rallying point for a community. The once-bare walls could display figures, symbols and slogans uniquely reflecting the hopes, history and hardships of a neighborhood. More impactful to the community than the paintings themselves, however, was the act of their creation; the call to…
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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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This post deals with a suicide, and contains historical articles describing a suicide. Continue at your own discretion. On the cover of the 1890 Rochester City Index and Guide Book, I took note of a name written in a unique and somewhat fanciful–albeit wobbly–hand: “Perley Ainsworth”. Alongside this name an occupation, “Steam Hydraulic Engineer” and…
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One of the things I appreciate about Google’s street view is the ability to peel away layers of time, comparing what came before with what exists now. This has helped me discover more than a few disappeared gems of local architecture, such as the home of John Greenwood on the corner of Grape and Orange…