SignWall

J. W. Smith Dry Goods Co.

Pat Domaratz pointed me to this Geneva, NY, landmark. A quick search turned up this lovely little site on RootsWeb, which tells us:

"In 1847, John Williams Smith and S. S. Cobb opened a dry goods store in Geneva NY under the name of Cobb & Smith. In 1849, Mr. Cobb withdrew from the business and John Smith was joined with his brother, Solomon E. Smith, in the operation of J. W. Smith & Co. This store continued in operation til the mid-1900's." The site has a nice illustration of the store, too.

Among the store's employees was Samuel D. Pierson of Pittsford, whose biography is available online. If you're willing to drive a bit to do your research, Hobart & William Smith College in Geneva has a five-page history of the store among the papers of George Maxwell Blackstock Hawley, who graduated from Hobart in 1892.

Parazin Corp. Building

The Parazin Building is just down the street from the Phillips Process building. According to an article in City Newspaper, the building is one of the oldest structures in Rochester's High Falls district. It was built in 1826. There's a photo of the building on a Flickr site that says it was built to house the Louis Selye Fire Engine & Hose Company. The same site also says the building is being renovated. It has passed through a number of owners, including our local NPR affiliate, WXXI. The building was donated to WXXI in 1985. I was unable to turn up an information on Parazin Corp. If you have any ideas, contact me via the e-mail link to the left.

Labor Lyceum

Rochester's original Labor Lyceum, inaugurated in 1897 by local unions and socialists, met Sundays in the Common Council of the old City Hall. The Lyceum presented speakers, papers and debates on topics ranging from the principles of trade unionism to child labor, from issues of academic freedom to current socialist literature. In 1911 the mayor, upset with such programs, expelled the Lyceum from City Hall.

The program was continued at the Progressive Working People's Lyceum, built on St. Paul Street in 1912. The Lyceum housed radical unions such as the Amalgamated Optical Workers and the Brewers, provided space to socialist organizations, and continued to host weekly lectures and discussions on labor topics through the 1950's.

The St. Paul Street building displays intricate sculptures of three figures: one a male carpenter holding a mallet with wood workers tools in his belt. The second is a veiled woman holding a sheaf of wheat, and the third (above the other two) is the Statue of Liberty. The three images represent the Labor communities’ respect for the dignity of working people and dedication to their community. (From www.rochesterlabor.org).

Text courtesy of Pat Domaratz / Pictures by Jason Crane

Carnegie Building

I'm a regular at Village Gate Square on North Goodman St. in Rochester for three reasons -- Comics, Etc.; The Bop Shop; and Yankee Peddlar Book Shop. Driving there as often as I do means that I've driven by the Carnegie Building on Goodman St. scores of times without ever knowing what it was -- or what it had been. Turns out the Carnegie Building housed the University of Rochester's Applied Sciences Department back when the U of R was actually on University Avenue. The Carnegie Building was built in 1910 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. The fascinating story of the building's funding and construction is at the University of Rochester Library's history site.

Eastman Dental Dispensary

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.

M.D. Knowlton Company

Mark Dean Knowlton turned a successful box manufacturing company into an even more successful machinery company in the 1870s, eventually partnering with Fred Beach and relocating from Chicago to New York. You can learn more about M.D. Knowlton, which still exists today.

The Knowlton Building is in Rochester's Cascade District, home to hi-tech businesses in trendy lofts housed in 19th century factories. The Cascade District was an early and successful example of Rochester's attempts to find new uses for its oldest downtown buildings.

Martha Matilda Harper Building

I took several pictures today of the Martha Matilda Harper Buiding on E. Main St. in Rochester, just down the street from the Beech-Nut plant. The first is a photo of the the entire building, the second is of the stone nameplate. It's hard to read, but it says MARTHA MATILDA HARPER. I found the place because of Pat Domaratz, who found this entry on Ms. Harper:

"Martha Matilda Harper is a forgotten international business visionary who defied her destiny as a servant girl to launch America's first business format franchising system in 1891.

"Inspired by Susan B. Anthony and her Christian Science faith, Harper's new business model became her revolutionary tool to transform poor women into business owners. The result was a worldwide empire of over 500 Harper Method health-conscious hair and skin salons and a team of thousands of women known as Harperites. Using Harper's floor-length hair as an advertising tool, this image of her became identified with the Harper distinctiveness.

"Delighted customers included suffragists, government leaders, and actresses. Among them were Susan B. Anthony, Presidents Wilson and Coolidge, First Ladies Coolidge, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and Helen Hayes."

You can find out more about Martha Mathilda Harper at MarthaMatildaHarper.com.

Finally, here's a photo of the Harper home on Culver & East Main St. It's now a mosque.

The Journal-American Building

On the corner of Andrews St. and Saint Paul St. in Rochester is the former headquarters of the Rochester Journal-American, the Hearst paper that closed in 1937. The building now houses the Cook Iron Store Company.

The front of the building sports this fantastic arched doorway. Note the torch set in the center of the arch. You can still see the well-preserved "Journal American Building" carving above the doors. The second photo takes in a bit more of the surrounding facade. Kudos to the Cook Iron Store Co. for keeping this piece of Rochester history intact.

The Journal-American was at the forefront of the early fight to unionize newspaper writers. You can read more about that fight at The News Writers Form A Union.