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New York - Rochester
Rochester (500 alt., 219,773 pop.), third largest city in the State, extends 12 1/2 miles along both banks of the Genesee River to its outlet into Lake Ontario. The river, called by the Senecas Casconchiagon, 'river of many falls,' bisects the city: to the south its grassy, tree-covered banks form the sloping margin of park and campus; in the center of the city it is lined by the dull brick walls and smokestacks of industry; north it flows through a scenic gorge. Ten bridges offer views of the river and of the city skyline dominated by Mercury a-tiptoe on the city hall annex, the modern aluminum wings on the Genesee Valley Trust Building, and the aluminum Eastman Kodak tower.
The Four Corners, the junction of Main with State and Exchange Streets just west of the Genesee River, was for 100 years the center of Rochester's life. Stately old structures, reminders of post-Civil War architecture with their horizontal belt courses, dormer windows, and mansard roofs, are jostled by modern bank and office buildings. The Four Corners has remained the financial center of the city; but in recent years, business, traffic, theaters, and hotels have moved eastward, following Main Street across the river to a new downtown district of irregular, heavily traveled streets.
These plants produce kodaks, optical goods, dental equipment, railway signal apparatus, gear-cutting machinery, thermometers, safety paper for checks and mechanical check-writers, and glass-lined steel receptacles. Other important products of the 1,000 local industries are shoes, clothing, food products, office equipment, unbreakable watch crystals, mail chutes, and carbon paper. The industrial plants are not congregated in any one section of the city; they dot its skyline with clean, modern structures, as a rule in park-like settings of wide, landscaped grounds.
As a result of the establishment of the Eastman School of Music and the activities of the Civic Music Association, Rochester has acquired renown as a music center.
The essential conservatism of Rochester is best exemplified in its architecture. The first large-scale period of construction coincided with the heyday of the Greek Revival, and that style has dominated local architectural taste ever since. Something in the severe, straight-line school of modern architecture strikes a responsive chord; but to the flight of fancy represented by the wings atop the Genesee Trust Building the city is not yet fully reconciled: it has an uneasy feeling in the presence of beauty that cannot be made to serve some utilitarian purpose.
The first settler on the site of Rochester was Ebenezer 'Indian' Allen, who was granted a 100-acre tract at the falls of the Genesee on the condition that he erect a mill for use by the Indiansn. Allen built his mill, near the site of the present Four Corners, in 1789. In 1792 he moved with his white and Indian wives to Mount Morris. Allen's 100 acres, a dismal swamp infested with snakes and mosquitoes that threatened settlers with 'Genesee fever,' after changing hands several times was purchased in 1803 by Colonel William Fitzhugh, Major Charles Carroll, and Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, all from Maryland. In 1811 Colonel Rochester offered lots for sale; on May 5, 1812, Hamlet Scrantom. moved with his family into a house on the site of the Powers Building and became the first permanent settler. Abelard Reynolds built a two-story home on the site of the Reynolds Arcade in 1813; in 1815 he opened a tavern; the first newspaper was published in 1816; the next year the village was incorporated as Rochesterville.
By that time the settlement was one of eight along the last 12 miles of the course of the Genesee. Most promising among these was Carthage, which in 1818-19 built a great bridge across the river to attract trade; but after 15 months the bridge buckled and fell. The ultimate supremacy was determined in 1823 by the construction of the Erie Canal through Rochester along what is now Broad Street; and eventually Rochester absorbed all her former rivals.
By drastically reducing transportation costs the canal opened eastern markets to the Genesee farmer. Flour mills multiplied along the river banks, and Rochester became the Flour City. It also became an important center of canal boat construction, and more than half the stock of the transportation companies operating on the canal was owned or controlled in Rochester. The cornerstone of the first Monroe County courthouse was laid in 1821; in 1822 the first sidewalks were voted and the name Rochester was legally adopted; in 1826 the population was 7,669; schools, churches, and bridges were built; and in 1833 Rochester applied for a city charter.
The social and cultural tone of early Rochester was set by the stern New England character. The first church organization was Presbyterian. Early 'charity schools,' which grew from the church, for a time offered educational advantages not supplied by the district schools. The first Sunday school, organized in 1818, was attended by Catholic and Protestant children alike. Early enterprises in the field of public amusement withered under the denunciations of the keepers of the public morals. Newspapers refused to accept theatrical advertisements. A change in sentiment did not come until the large German immigration of the late forties brought a taste for recreation and amusement that forced its influence upon the city.
With the development of the railroads and the expansion of the West, the flour milling industry on the Genesee declined slowly and was succeeded in economic importance by the nursery industry. Rochester then became known as the Flower City. In 1840 the Ellwanger & Barry establishment was organized and became one of the largest nurseries in the world, supplying trees for planting on every continent. Second in prominence was the firm founded by James Vick, which specialized in flowers and seeds. The nursery industry inspired the development of the city's parks; and real estate companies; affiliated with the nurseries, developed suburban districts and helped make Rochester a city of individually owned homes.
In the middle decade of the nineteenth century Rochester was a bustling city of more than 40,000 inhabitants. The early cultural frigidity was melting under the warmth of German Gemuetlichkeit. In 1847 the Turnverein built the Turnhalle; Corinthian Hall was erected in 1849 and became a center of musical and theatrical entertainment; and in 1854 the Maennerchor was organized. On the night of October 24, 1844, Millerites assembled on the Pinnacle Hills to witness the end of the world and be gathered up to heaven with a shout. In 1848 the Fox sisters moved with their family from near-by Hydeville to Rochester and began giving demonstrations of their spiritualist rappings. In 1847 Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave, began publishing the North Star, Rochester homes were used as stations on the Underground Railroad, and the movement for abolition was the first of the many reforms that kept the city in a ferment for the rest of the century. In 1850 the University of Rochester and the Theological Seminary were incorporated. In the early fifties, after Jesse W. Hatch adapted the Singer sewing machine to the stitching of shoes, Susan B. Anthony went about asserting the rights of women in industry on the ground that 'a man's clumsy fingers would never be nimble enough to master the machine that was invented for women.'
Although the shoe and clothing industries in Rochester can be traced to handicraft beginnings as far back as 1812, they did not achieve large-scale proportions until the Civil War. The invention in the fifties of machines for sewing and pegging enabled the shoe industry to respond to the stimulus of the abnormal wartime demand, so that by 1865 there were 25 shoe manufacturers. In 1898, 64 factories produced shoes for a world-wide market. In the clothing industry, the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, especially German Jews, skilled in the needle trades, the invention of the sewing machine, and improvements in transportation encouraged largescale mass production. By 1881 between 5,000 and 6,000 persons were employed in that industry.
During the same period, 1850-80, Rochester's specialized industries took root. In 1851 George Taylor and David Kendall began manufacturing thermometers and selling them from house to house. John Jacob Bausch opened his optical store in Rochester in 1853 and a few years later began grinding his own lenses. His friend Henry Lomb bought a half interest in the business for $60. In 1876 William Gleason invented the first commercially successful machine for cutting bevel gear teeth, and his son James later added other inventions and improvements that made possible the development of the Gleason Works.
In 1880, after successful experiments in his mother's kitchen, George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic dry plates. His great work was the invention and manufacture of films for cameras. The invention by Edison of the moving picture machine resulted in a large demand for Eastman film. In 1888 the first Kodak was put on the market and brought photography within the reach of amateurs.
Casper Pfaudler began manufacturing glass-lined steel tanks in 1887. In 1889 Frank Ritter produced the first dental chair made in Rochester, and Libanus M. and George W. Todd invented the first of a series of mechanical devices to protect checks against alteration. In 1895 George B. Selden, a patent attorney in Rochester, was granted a patent on a compression gas engine, which gave him monopolistic control over the automobile industry until Henry Ford contested his claim in court and won.
Industrial growth made possible the physical and cultural development of the city. Horsecar lines ran in the streets in 1863; electrification began in 1889. In 1891 J.Harry Stedman invented the streetcar transfer in Rochester. In 1887 Ellwanger & Barry presented 20 acres of land to the city as the nucleus of Highland Park. This gift was the first unit in the park system established the following year under the supervision of Dr.Edward Mott Moore.
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