One thing that this SignWall project has really pointed out to me is this: I spend an enormous amount of time driving around in my car and paying no attention whatsoever to my surroundings. The Eastman Dental Dispensary is at 800 East Main Street in Rochester. It's huge. Enormous, in fact. And it's been there since 1915, when George Eastman donated the money to build it.
According to this chronology of dentistry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester was home to the first free dental clinic in the United States. The clinic opened in 1901 and closed again in 1903. In 1904, a dispensary was opened on South Washington St. In 1910, Captain Henry Lomb (of Bausch & Lomb) put together the funding and equipment to open a dental center at School No. 14.
Five years later, in 1915, fellow philanthropist George Eastman oversaw the creation of the Main Street dispensary, which opened on 15 October 1917 with 37 operating units. The Eastman Dental Dispensary soon became a major teaching center, affiliated with the University of Rochester (which was in that part of the city at the time). By 1930, Eastman Dental Dispensaries had been built in Rome, Italy; Stockholm, Sweden; Paris, France; and Brussels, Belgium. The Dispensary continued as a major treatment and teaching center until 1976, when it was relocated to the campus of the U of R Medical Center on Elmwood Ave. In 1999, the Eastman Dental Dispensary was listed as one of the seven most endangered buildings in New York State by the Preservation League of New York State.
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