Flower City: 1921

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~ ROCHESTER'S HISTORY ~
AN ILLUSTRATED TIMELINE

AFTER THE GREAT WAR: 1921 - 1999

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

1921

Massachusetts claims Ontario Beach, from 1788 deed.
Busses replace streetcars.
The city acquires Britton Field off Scottsville Road for an airfield. The site is left unimproved.

1922

US Supreme Court upholds rights of Rochester for Ontario Beach.
Exposition Park renamed Edgerton Park.
Traffic lights are tried in city. Police start to ticket autos.
First commercial radio station WHQ starts to broadcast - WHEC
Eastman Theater opens.
Concrete pavement used.
Gray Metal Company introduces the two day weekend to Rochester labor.

1923

The abandoned Erie Canal and its Aqueduct are rebuilt in a $12,000,000 project. The canal bed is used for a subway system. The canal is then crossed by steel beams and 17" of concrete is poured to form the road bed for Broad St. The Aqueduct has the rails laid on the canal bed, and a new level is added above for Broad St.
Kodak introduces amature movie camera... Cine-Kodak
First trackless trolley line opens on Driving Park Avenue.
Post Express sold to William Randolph Hurst.
University of Rochester files to build Medical School and Hospital.

1924

Concrete bridge over Irondequoit Creek at Empire Blvd.
Broad St., built over new subway formally opens.
for the River Campus.
First Air Mail service.
Police on Main Street are still directing traffic from towers set up at intersections.
Fanny Farmer's opens Rochester's first confectionery factory.

1925

Geo. Eastman arranges land swap between Oak Hill Country Club and the University of Rochester. The Country Club had removed a large hill from the site (actually the western most glacial deposit in the Pinnacle Range). Oak Hill had been a popular sledding site for many years. The steep hill provided breathtaking acceleration then hurled you out onto the ice covered river.
Seven redwood trees are cut down at 590 Mt Hope. They had been killed by the severe winter of 1917. Seeds had been sent back to Rochester in a snuffbox by a 'forty-niner' from the area. 4000 had been planted in the Ellwanger & Berry Nurseries. Most of the seedlings were shipped to England to be replanted on large country estates. The trees here were the largest specimens east of the Rockies. They measured 50 to 52 inches in diameter, and 52 ' tall.
Charging admission for Sunday sports legalized.
Last car run on the Manitou Beach trolley line.

1926

First ramp parking garage opens in the city.
Strong Memorial Hospital opens.
Homeopathic Hospital changes name to Genesee Hospital.
First experimental air mail service, Rochester to Cleveland.
University Club formed. To join you must have attended a college of recognized standing.
Port of Rochester established.
Churchville Park opens.

1927

New York State Railroad discontinues service from city to Glen Haven
Subway opens.
Frank T. Ellison gives land for Ellison Park, first county park.
'Talkies' first shown at the Baptist Temple.
Col. Lindbergh and Spirit of St Louis visit the city.
First Rochester-New York City air service

1928

Glen Haven Hotel burns on Election Night.
Red Wing Stadium built with seating for 18,000. Admissions range from 55 cents to $1.65. Used for outdoor boxing, wrestling, football, and opera.
Col. Lindbergh's visit inspires Rochester to plan for mail, freight, and passenger air service. A hanger, runways, and signaling devices are built for the newly named 'Rochester Municipal Airport'.
Air Mail route between Cleveland and Albany includes a stop at Rochester.
Rochester Democrat & Chronical purchased by Frank Gannett.
Corinthian Hall closed.
Northwest Beach Park opens. Becomes Hamlin Beach State Park in land swap with county for Webster Park.
Mendon Ponds area purchased by county as game preserve and forest.
Federal agents fire over 700 shots at a liquoir smuggler off Seabreeze.

1929

First Lilac Week

1930

Population City - 328,132
Population County - 423,881
The Smith Street Bridge is replaced by the steel Bausch St. Bridge. The Lomb Memorial dedicated. The 48' tall black granite shaft is at the east end of the bridge.
University of Rochester, River Campus opens to men. Prince St. became the Women's Campus until 1955, when the River Campus became co-ed.
Second hanger built at the airport. Auto parking lot expanded.
100,000 attend air show held to celebrate the official opening of the airport.
Ontario Beach Park becomes a city park.
Masonic Temple built at Prince St. and Main St. seats 2,600.

1931

Veterans' Memorial Bridge was built at cost of 2.5 million dollars. Structure is a concrete arch, faced with white granite, and highly praised for classical beauty. It is the longest bridge in the city at 981', with a height of 190'. Legal action, and arrests, stop a 'suicide lottery', with the winner determined by the sex, age, and time of the bridge's first suicide.
Teletype installed at airport for weather forecasting.
Police radio station WPDR.
Colonial Western Airlines lands here in it's route between New York City and Cleveland. Colonial Western would eveolve into American Airlines.
Three squadrons of the Army Air Corps First Pursuit group stop to refuel. A national record is tied when all eighty-four planes take off in fifteen minutes.
Fourteen area employers provide unemployment insurance to their workers. This is the first organized unemployment insurance plan in the country.

1932

Gannett Newspapers acquires control of WHEC.
July 1, Only tornado in city's history, kills two, scores injured, hundreds of thousands in damage. The freak storm destroys 100 trees on Saratoga Avenue, a 300 foot warehouse on Dewey Avenue, and most of Jones Park.
Trackless trolleys replaced by busses.

1933

WHAM dedicates it's new high-powered transmitter.
WPA grants 1.5 million for construction of John Marshall High School.
New Reynolds Arcade built.
Charlotte High School Opens
Amelia Earhart visits Rochester to speak at the Lyceum Theater
Wiley Post flies into Rochester in his famous plane the 'Winnie Mae' after his solo round the world flight.
April 27, Genesee Beer back on sale after end of Prohibition.

1934

New Post Office opens on Cumberland Street.
Lyceum Theater demolished, last of the city's eight legitimate theaters, killed by the popularity of movies. Only the Eastman Theater remains.
Jonathan Child house occupied by Fourth Church of Christian Scientists.
To celebrate Rochester's Centennial Year additional improvements are made at the airport. A new hanger, and Administration Building with waiting rooms and terminal facilities are built. An additional runway, lighting, and a two-way radio are added.
Febuary 9, City's coldest recorded temperature: -22

This date is also the only time that Lake Ontario has been know to have been frozen over completely from New York State to Canada.

1935

New Elmwood Ave. bridge opened.
Kodak introduces Kodachrome color film.
Landing area at the airport is enlarged.

1936

New York State Railroad abandons trolley service and replaces equipment with buses.
Rundel Library opens.
Bodies removed from St. Patrick's Cemetery to Mt. Hope Cemetery.
July 9-10, City's hottest recorded temperature: 102

1937

Restoration of the Campbell-Whittlesey House is the first project of the Landmark Society.
WPA builds Nine Mile Point Park State Park, but the state trades the land with the county for Northwest Beach Park. Both parks are renamed by their new owners, becoming, Webster Park and Hamlin Beach State Park.

1938

New York State Railroad reforms yielding Rochester Transit Corporation.
First Xerox copy made: "10-22-38, Astoria"

1939

Warehouse at Oklahoma Beach burns, was former Ice House.

1940

Last trolley.

1942

29,323 Monroe County men between the ages of 20 and 45 are drafted into the military.
Windsor Hotel, a popular dance hall at White City in Summerville is destroyed by fire, Dec, 11

1943-1945

Cobbs Hill used as POW encampment for POW's.

Sept.. 18, 1943 first arrivals. Sixty Italian prisoners working on area farms, and food processing plants. (10 hour/6 day @ $.80 per day wages)

200 military police housed at Culver Road and Main Street Armories.

12 buildings in the fenced compound.

Reservoir heavily guarded, but basketball courts and Lake Riley were still accessible to the public.

When Italy declared war on Germany in Oct., workers were allowed to work unguarded, out of the camp, and local citizens brought food and organized weekend dances.

June 26, 1944 to Nov. 1, 100 German prisoners replace Italians in newly strengthened camp. Army fears fiercely patriotic POW's may cause problems, as has already happened at many other similar camps. Hundreds of citizens go to park nightly to listen to prisoners sing in barracks. Assuming the same situation as with Italian POW's, they bring food and gifts. The Army wants to blockade the area to end all contact, while the city favors 'No Loitering' signs. Tension mounts between the city, Army, and police, until fist fights start on the evening of Aug. 14, 1944. Problems continued when the Army delayed removal of the Germans until November, and then local farmers started requesting prisoner laborers for the next year.

Feb. 1945 was hit with seven successive storms that paralyzed the city, forcing the city to ask that POW's be brought from the Hamlin Camp to the city. Cobbs Hill housed 100 Germans, while 175 more were at Edgerton Park. An eight week contract was arranged. The city was given the right to terminate the arrangement with one day's notice. Snow removal by prisoners was done at unannounced locations, with city police keeping locals away. A planned addition to the work force was canceled when a Feb. 24th thaw aided the problem, and by March 10 all of the prisoners had been returned to Fort Niagara. Positive reaction to methods used in snow removal ends opposition to use of prisoners as laborers in the area. Only the American Legion continues its opposition or the POW's in the area. V-E Day, May 8, 1945 ends the need for the prisoners to be in the area.

After the war the abandoned barracks were converted to apartments to house returning servicemen.

1947

Lyceum Building demolished.

1949

Durand Eastman Park Bathhouse closes.

1950

Mt Morris dam built.
Local realtor John Nothnagle introduces his 'Gallery of Homes'. He shows prospective buyers photographs of the homes for sale.

1951

B & O Railroad builds a trestle at the the foot of Boxart Street with a device for shaking the coal from rail cars into ships for transfer to Canada. There is an immediate uproar from the citizens as the device can easily be heard a half mile away, and the vibrations cracks wall, and shake objects from shelves. Adding insult to injury the shaker is used night or day, whenever a ship docks.
First Little League teams established for boys 9-13.

1952

Mt Morris Dam built in Letchworth State Park to finally control the seven-year cycle of floods by the Genesee River.

1953

Northgate Plaza opens. Area's first shopping plaza.
James A. Hard dies at 111 in Rochester. Born in Victor, Hard was the last surviving combat veteran of the Civil War, outliving all but one of the 2,675,000 Union soilders. (The last survivor was a musician who enlisted in the final weeks of the war.) Hard enlisted in the Union Army four days after the attack on Ft. Sumner. As a private in the 32nd New York Infantry, he fought in the Battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, South Mountain and Antietam. He is the oldest male buried in Mt Hope Cemetery.

1954

Livingston Park Seminary house is dismantled, with each piece numbered and placed in storage.

1955

Subway closed
Auer Hotel on Ridge Road demolished for construction of Ridge-Seneca Plaza.

1956

Genesee Valley Regional Market opens on Jefferson Rd.

1958

Sea Breeze Expressway built following the route of street cars and the 'Dummy Line'

1961

A student at Franklin High School, Trent Jackson, ties a world high school record. He runs the 100 yard dash in 9.4 seconds, equaling the mark set by Jessie Owens.

1962

Midtown Plaza opens, America's first indoor shopping mall. Corinthian Street is eliminated by the construction.

1963

Mohawk Flight 112 crashes at Monroe County Airport in a violent wind and rain storm, killing seven.

1964

Race Riots stun city. There is violence on streets for two days and three nights.

1965

190 foot stainless steel Liberty Pole is built on the site of the city's first pole. The offical name of the triangular piece of land where the pole is located is 'John F. Kennedy Square' or 'Liberty Pole Green'.
Hearing rumors that the old lighthouse is to be torn down, the editor of the Charlotte High School newspaper, 'The Pilot' writes an editorial urging the community to save the landmark. The community responded, and the structure was saved. In 1974 the lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. A second panic hit in 1981 when it was learned that a half acre of the lighthouse parcel was to be sold to Conrail. After another flood of letter writing and political maneuvering, the land and buildings were leased to the village. Not entirely comfortable with this situation work continued until Feb. 15, 1991 when title was transferred from the Federal government to the County of Monroe.
November 11, Blackout shuts down northeast.

1966

Blizzard of'66 leaves 34 inches of snow, and shuts down city for five days

1968

30 story Xerox Tower built.
Irondequoit Bay Bridge open.
City buys Rochester Transit Corporation.

1970

Livingston Park Seminary house is removed from storage, re-assembled, and restored at the Genesee Country Museum.

1972

$835,300 is stolen from an Doyle armoured truck parked in front of Kodak's Hawkeye Plant on Ridge Road. It is beleived that someone passing by the unguarded truck with the open door impulsively grabbed a bag of money. There were no suspects, and no arrests.
June, Huricane Agnes tests the Mt Morris Dam. Water levels raises to 4.2 feet from the top, creating a lake 215 feet deep, 15 miles long, and containing more than 100 billion gallons of water

1974

Barge Canal breaks out at Bushnell's Basin, destroys one home, damages 40.
Statue of Mercury placed on top of the Aqueduct Building, returning to Rochester's skyline. Erected in 1880, the statue had been on the chimney of Kimball Tobacco Factory, until it was torn down to make room for the War Memorial.
B & O coal trestle dismantled.

1974

Several cars and pedestrians drop from sight, when an abandoned subway tunnel caves in downtown.

1977

City Council changes the name of the Clarissa Street Bridge to the Ford Street Bridge.

1978

Arson blamed for Holiday Inn fire in Greece that kills 10 and injures 34.

1982

The Ginna Nuclear Power plant releases radioactive steam into the atmosphere for two minutes.

1984

The old Genesee Lighthouse is opened as a museum.

1989

The wrought iron Driving Park Avenue Bridge was demolished, and the current bridge built to replace it.

2001

Rochester and vicinity WebCams

WHEC-TV 10 Webcam views of downtown Rochester

Democrat & Chronicle 5 City Cams around the city

Main Street Cam provided by Executive Placement Corporation

Monroe Avenue Webcam Two (sometimes three) cams on the Ave

Birdcam2001 Peregrine falcon nest in Kodak Tower.

High Falls Cam High Falls and Festival Site

RITCam Rochester Institute of Technology campus webcam

Jitterbug's Cafe Webcam from SUNY Brockport

Today's weather.