I think it stands to reason that the older you get, the more you appreciate the old aspects of our city. The Landmark Society organized an “Inside Downtown Tour” last weekend, and seven historic buildings and one relatively new townhouse opened their doors.
The Reynolds Arcade was our first stop. The center of downtown Rochester life for more than a century, the original building was constructed in 1825 with a wide-open, glass-covered interior arcade lined with shops. Rochester’s first post office was inside. George Selden came up with the plans for a gasoline engine in the Arcade. The Cutler Mail Chute was invented here. Thomas Edison spent a night there working on his quadruplex telegraphic system. George Eastman had his first job there. Daniel Webster made a famous speech from the Arcade balcony. The first telephone in the city was demonstrated there, and Rochester’s first mayor, Jonathan Child, was inaugurated in the Arcade in 1834. The building was razed in 1932, and the new Reynolds Arcade, the modern Art Deco-style office building, was built in the old Arcade’s place.
Our next stop was what we still call the revolving restaurant, the old (built in 1976) First Federal headquarters. We used to go there for Sunday brunch, an all-you-can-eat affair with Champagne Mimosas while the restaurant provided views in all directions. The elevator that used to run up the outside of the building is gone. We took a freight elevator to the fifth floor and toured the facilities of three radio stations, Warm, Fickle and The Zone. No turntables, no CD players, just computers. A DJ who had just finished his shift told us they do a four-hour show in one hour so the owner doesn’t have to pay them for as much time. The top floor no longer revolves, so we walked around the big circle with views of Lake Ontario to the north and the Bristol Hills to the south. Joywave played up there a few years back. It looks unused today.
They have been renovating the fabulous Powers Building since the 1980s. The staircase above contained 45 tons of iron. According to Wikipedia, the 1863 construction consumed 65,000 square feet of Italian and Vermont marble, 8,000,000 pounds of iron, 80,000 yards of plastering, and 12,000 wagonloads of sand for mortar. Formerly a hotel and an office building, “Hurt in a car—Call Mattar” has an office on the seventh floor. In 1875, Powers converted the entire fifth floor of the building into an art gallery to display works he had acquired on travels throughout Europe, assembling one of the most extensive private art collections in the United States at that time.
Across the street, the Wilder Building was the tallest building in Rochester for a short while. Not to be outdone, the Powers Building added a five-story tower. Around the corner we walked through Two Saints Church, where a representative described the congregation as the most diverse in the city. I noted they have something called Jazz Vespers on Friday evenings. The old City Hall is now the Rockford, a comfy boutique apartment building. We’ve been in the Hochstein School many times, but the tour revealed connections to the Underground Railroad. Lastly, we walked through a Washington Street rowhouse that was undergoing extensive renovations.
This is important work the Landmark Society does.
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