- Gonechester: A History
- Landmark Society Special Commendation
- Presentations
- Research & Resources
- The Zeiner Story
- Zinkers
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Horses once roved Rochester’s streets en masse. Long before the motorcar came around, horses were the last word in transportation. Versatile, omnipresent, and much-beloved, with these amiable beasts of burden came a number of artifacts for their care and keeping. Street side, in front of shops and houses, were the site of a number of…
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In our last edition of Gonechester, we touched upon the Warner Observatory, an astronomical observatory on East Avenue at Arnold Park which was funded in large part by Hulbert Harrington Warner. Warner, a quite wealthy man with great import in the Rochester business community, was initially a producer of safes, but later pivoted to a…
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Updated September 24th, 2026. Once upon an increasingly long time, Rochester was home to the largest and most advanced telescope in the United States of America, outside the Naval Observatory. This powerful astronomical instrument set Rochester apart as a star-gazing capital in the 1880s, and drew much admiration and attention from the astronomically-inclined set. Like…
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Updated September 19th, 2026 Every now and then, I come across names of streets which have long ceased to be. Sometimes those streets literally stopped existing; other times, they were devoured by larger, more traffic-heavy streets; sometimes, they were simply renamed. So it was when I was stumbled upon several entries in 1830s Rochester city…
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A small thing with which we are familiar, the “traffic island” was once a novelty. As automobile traffic became more and more prevalent, streets and intersections became increasingly hostile environments for pedestrians. Similar to the situation around the Traffic Towers, Rochester’s traffic specialists would have their eye on advancements in traffic management tried in other,…
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At the turn of the 20th century, a small streetcar station stood at the corner of East Main Street and Chamberlain Street, a little grassy corner that now stands in front of the RTS building. Though small, quaint, and unassuming, this little station was the portal leading from the city out to the pleasure resorts…
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This is the second part of my presentation, “Lost in Highland Park”, commissioned by the Highland Park Conservancy. I presented this at their annual meeting on April 29th, 2026, and have been posting the contents piecemeal via this blog. You may click the following link to access Lost in Highland Park Pt. 1: The Foreman’s…
