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    Rochester's Downtown Architecture: 1950-1975
    Rochester's Downtown Architecture: 1950-1975
    Rochester's Downtown Architecture: 1950-1975
    Ebook162 pages41 minutes

    Rochester's Downtown Architecture: 1950-1975

    By Daniel J. Palmer

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    Following World War II, many American cities underwent a large-scale modernization to keep up with the changing times in business technology and architecture. With help from federal funding and planning, expansive and low-density modern projects replaced the crowded blocks of century-old buildings. State-of-the-art facilities featured large, open plazas that were the scenes of social and cultural events, attracting private developers to the city s core. Due to its participation in new policies of planning and the efforts of its strong preservation community, Rochester is today an interesting and sometimes perplexing mixture of densely packed, ornamental-19th-century buildings and monumentally scaled and architecturally stark projects of the modern era. Rochester s Downtown Architecture: 1950 1975 tells the story of the peak years of change to the built environment of Rochester s downtown.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 10, 2010
    ISBN9781439638545
    Rochester's Downtown Architecture: 1950-1975
    Author

    Daniel J. Palmer

    Daniel J. Palmer is an avid researcher, writer, and photographer of architecture. He serves as the chair of the Landmark Society of Western New York�s Committee on the Resources of the Recent Past.

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      Rochester's Downtown Architecture - Daniel J. Palmer

      noted.

      INTRODUCTION

      Rochester is sometimes referred to as America’s First Boomtown, due to its rapid population growth in the mid-1800s. Much of this growth centered around the river that runs through town and the natural power of its waterfalls that, once harnessed by industry, led the city to become known for its processing of wheat into flour and the manufacturing of various goods. The downtown area grew rapidly in these years. Crowded groups of low-rise stone, brick, and wooden structures sprang up along the river and the surrounding streets in an era before zoning and urban planning.

      From the late 1800s to the early 1950s, not much had changed. The occasional bank building would replace older structures, and the city would build its central library in 1936 on the edge of the former Erie Canal Aqueduct and over a still-active raceway (a channel of water that powers a mill or hydroelectric plant), but not much else was built downtown.

      Following the end of World War II, and with the country finally recovery from the Great Depression, Americans held optimism for the future and desired to improve their standard of living. The building of suburban residential communities offered many the chance to own a piece of the American Dream. These homes were built on larger plots of land than were possible in the crowded city and offered modern conveniences not found in the city’s Victorian-era housing stock. Federal highway policies and money built expressways that led workers from their offices in the city center to their homes in suburban communities like Henrietta, Greece, and Webster in less than 20 minutes. Financing for mortgages and automobiles became easy for many Rochesterians, and the city began to see its population shrink from its 1950s peak in the 300,000s to a projected 200,000 in 2010.

      In many ways, downtown was given a suburban makeover as well. Crowded streets of two-and three-story buildings were cleared and replaced with projects of a scale and density never before seen. Streets were de-mapped, as whole sections of downtown and its edge neighborhoods disappeared. What replaced those small-scaled and decorative structures represented the state of the art in architecture and planning in the 1960s and 1970s. Massive complexes of modern buildings spread out and grouped along large plazas reflected the new philosophy in architecture of functional design that focused more on the geometry of the composition as a whole, and the use of prefabricated materials, than in delighting the passerby with ornament and classical references. The use of natural materials such as marble and limestone continued but was often replaced with curtain walls of glass, concrete, and steel. In a daring move, Rochester’s retail leaders and city government collaborated on a plan to build an enclosed shopping mall at the heart of downtown. When it opened in 1962, Midtown Plaza was hailed as an innovative project that would save retail in downtown Rochester. Unfortunately, suburbanites were more likely to spend money at a nearby mall than to venture into the city, and the city’s shrinking population could no longer support the once-vibrant shopping scene on Main Street. Therefore, retail in the center city would continue to suffer, finally collapsing when local retailers Sibley’s, Forman’s, McCurdy’s, and local grocery chain Wegmans all closed their downtown locations by the end of the 20th century.

      Later examples from this period reflect a trend at approaching the design of a high-rise as a habitable sculpture, often expressing the building’s structure in its exterior. The Lincoln First Tower, Xerox Square, and the Marine Midland Building are standout examples of this attempt to make modern architecture more lively and interesting to the layperson. High-rise housing and adjacent parklands were built to replace the aging blocks of homes and apartments at the edge of downtown and along the Genesee River. They were priced to give both senior citizens and young families a chance to enjoy affordable, but modern living spaces, as well as the recreational opportunities available at the neighboring parks.

      The project that changed the look and feel of downtown more than any one building or project, however, was not a building at all. The Inner Loop is a depressed expressway that rings the downtown area. It was under construction throughout this era, its effect on the physical fabric of downtown much like a miniature

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