North Main-Bank Streets Historic District

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A wide, rain-soaked street with tall commercial buildings on both sides. Two approaching vehicles have switched on their headlights. The road narrows at a bridge in the background.
Looking north along North Main Street, 2010

The North Main-Bank Streets Historic District is a landmarked district on these two streets in the Village of Albion in Orleans County , New York State . It is one of the two historic districts in this village and it sums up the commercial core of the village, which was mainly formed during the time when Albion was an important trading center on the Erie Canal . Part of the canal - now the New York State Barge Canal - and two of its bridges lie within the district.

The buildings within the conservation area represent a comprehensive collection of the various architectural styles in the century of its creation. All but one within its boundaries are considered to contribute to its historical character. Among them are an opera house and the town hall. It is one of the most intact business districts along the former canal. Many of the buildings were built from sandstone or brick broken in Medina - a legacy of three devastating fires in the mid and late 19th century that wiped out the earlier timber frame houses. In 1994 the neighborhood was recognized as a Historic District and added to the National Register of Historic Places .

geography

The district is an irregularly cut area that lies around the junction of North Main ( New York State Route 98 ) and East and West Bank Street. The terrain slopes down towards the canal on its northern edge. At its southern end, the district borders Albion's second historic district, the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District . The boundary runs along parcel lines and roads, including all properties on the east side of North Main Street north of the Swan Library to the canal and bridge. On the northwest corner is the former Carriage Factory at 125 Liberty Street, as well as a block on Beaver Alley.

This is followed by the bridge and eastward a section of the canal, including a concrete pier and the former towpath , to the bridge on Ingersoll Street, from where the district boundary of the southern bank of the canal west to the rear line of the Burrows Block in 131½ North Main follows. This building is the only one that still exists in a row of houses that once stood on the canal. From there, the historic borough boundary runs south and then east around a communal parking lot to include all of the houses on the north side of East Bank Street to City Hall on the corner of Platt Street. The parking lot there on the other side of the street is not one of them, but the district boundary follows its border in a zigzag through the street block and includes all properties on the North Main up to number 35.

The district has an area of ​​around seven hectares and includes 43 buildings and three other structures. Only one building, a modern commercial building at 18 North Main, is not of historical value. The rest of the buildings are mostly three-story brick or stone commercial buildings, with a few industrial and residential buildings in between. They are built in a variety of 19th century architectural styles. Dense and less dense development with open areas, which are mainly used for parking spaces, alternate.

history

The development of the historic district can be divided into three periods: the early years, from which only a few buildings have survived, the reconstruction after the great fires, in which most of the buildings that still exist today were built, and the 20th century, in which the The focus has shifted to the preservation and protection of the building stock.

1810–1861: early years

Settlement of the Albion area began in the years after 1810, but picked up speed over the decade as work began on building the Erie Canal. The place developed on a larger scale when, in 1822, Nehemiah Ingersoll acquired a large piece of land south of the Canal and east of what would later become Main Street. It was swiftly turned over and an inn and shop sprang up on Main Street. Houses were built along the canal and a dam with a mill was built on Sandy Creek, which fed the canal with its water nearby.

The canal section from Brockport via Albion to Lockport was opened in 1824. The Orleans County was from the northern half of the Genesee County created and the channel contributed to Albion for the county seat was determined and not the nearby Gaines . After the canal was completed in 1825, Albion developed into a thriving transshipment port for wheat and apples grown on local farms. The neoclassical brick Burrows Block at 131½ North Main Street, built in 1827, is the only building that remains of the canal-frontage.

At the opposite end of the district, the presence of the county government has influenced the development of the building. As in the other historic district of Albion, many of the buildings that still exist from that period are residential buildings. The oldest house in the district is the Federal Style Porter Lee House at 30 North Main, built in 1826 . Around 1830 the two oldest commercial buildings, 105-107 North Main Street and the Goodrich Proctor Block at 126 North Main Street, are both neoclassical brick buildings. There were other residential and commercial buildings, but these were mostly half-timbered houses made of wood and did not survive later fires.

At the end of the 1830s, a quarry operator from Medina, the nearest larger settlement further west on the canal, discovered a reddish-brown sedimentary rock and began to sell it as building material. This so-called Medina sandstone was finally most severely broken in the Albion area and shipped via the canal to other parts of New York. It was also used in the construction of the New York State Capitol in Albany , as well as in many so-called brownstone houses in New York city. In Albion, this material was first used around 1840 when the Sears Carriage Factory was built at 125 Liberty Street, one of the few remaining industrial structures near the canal.

In the middle of the century the trade in sandstones and agricultural products allowed Albion to prosper. The canal was soon supplemented as a regional transport artery by the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad , which soon became part of New York Central.Two local businessmen, Lorenzo Burrows and Williams Swan, built two large, ornate neoclassical houses in 34 and 34 respectively. 48 North Main Street. The existing courthouse was built in 1858 and was another cornerstone for the development of the village.

1862–1897: fires and reconstruction

Few of the buildings have survived from before 1862. That year, the first of three major fires in the historic district destroyed most of the south side of East Bank Street between Main and Platt Streets. Instead, the Bordwell and Harrington apartment blocks, 16-28 East Bank Street and the now demolished Orleans Hotel were built. These new Italianate-style buildings were built of brick and were better equipped for future fires.

Four years later, in 1866, the North Main Street block just south of the intersection with West Bank Street burned down. It was superseded by the Blott, Royce and Empire blocks. At the northern end of the rebuilt zone was the granite block, which was partly built from Medina sandstone. Its design influenced the buildings built in the neighborhood a short time later, which were designed in the same style. In 1873 the Village built a combined town hall and fire station at 35-37 East Bank Street, in the eastern corner of what is now the historic preservation district. Its decorative facade combined brick and medina sandstone.

The last fire in 1882 destroyed the North Main Street block between West Bank Street and Beaver Alley. The newly acquired buildings here - including the Pratt Opera House - were some of the most eye-catching in the district. They used brick and Medina sandstone as building material, with numerous variations of late Victorian architecture alternating: Italianate, Eastlake and Neo-Romanesque . The higher Day & Day Block and Opera House broke through the flat skyline of the houses on that side of Main Street. The Daly and Hanley buildings that emerged at the north end of this block in 1897 continued this trend.

Albion's properity continued into the 20th century. Few new buildings were built as the existing buildings remained in good shape. The International Order of Odd Fellows hall at 10 North Main, the district's south end, was put up in 1907. The Renaissance Revival bank building at 121 North Main was built in 1895 and further renovated in the 1920s. The last major building was the Strick Building at 31 East Bank, a sandstone commercial structure erected in 1923.

1898 to the present: expansion, decline and preservation

At the turn of the 20th century, the economic situation in the Albion area began to deteriorate slightly. Improvements in railroad engineering made this mode of transport more competitive than canal shipping, whereas the state responded by merging the Erie Canal with a few other canals into the New York State Barge Canal system. In some areas the canal was completely redrawn, in Albion itself it was only deepened and widened. The two lift bridges in the historic district were built during this period, which lasted until around 1930.

The improvements to the canal lasted for a few years, but in view of the competition with Portland cement , interest in the Medina sandstone, which could only be sold as curb stone , declined . At the end of the 1940s, the sandstone trade came to a complete standstill because the accessible deposits were exhausted. Albion also suffered from the New York State Thruway , opened further south near Batavia , which displaced both canal and railroad as a freight route.

Many shops closed, but the buildings in which they settled were not demolished. The dedication of the historic district around the Courthouse further south in the village was also in the business district around the impulse to historic preservation and the preservation endeavor. The historic district was found eligible for inclusion on the National Register in 1986; however, it turned out that the north side of East Bank Street between Platt and Ingersoll Street, which was originally supposed to become part of the historic district, had undergone too many changes and modern influences that the historical integrity was no longer there. The Village set up a Preservation Commission for the control of the two historic districts. It is tasked with protecting the historical buildings and improving their historical value as well as making Albion more attractive for visitors and thus ensuring growth and further development.

Significant contributing properties

With the exception of the 18 North Main Street property, all structures within the boundaries of the district add to its historic character. None of them has been individually entered in the National Register so far (September 2010).

  • Burrows Block , 123-131½ North Main Street. The oldest section of this neoclassical brick building, which was built in several construction phases in the 1830s, is the only surviving commercial building on the canal bank.
  • Lorenzo Burrows House , 48 North Main Street. The house from 1840 is one of the two large neoclassical houses in the district.
  • Citizen's Bank Building , 121 North Main Street. The only neo-renaissance building in the historic district was completed in 1895 and renovated in the 1920s.
  • Granite Block , 52-60 North Main Street. This Italianate-style medina sandstone house was bricked in a random quarry stone pattern after the fire of 1866. It influenced several buildings in the immediate vicinity.
  • Lee Porter House , 30 North Main Street. This federal-style house, built in 1826 and later given a touch of Italianate, is the oldest in the historic district.
  • Pratt Opera House , 120 North Main Street. The three-story neo-Romanesque building with the crossed gable was built in 1882 and contains a functioning theater.
  • Sears Carriage Factory , 125 Liberty Street. The small brick utility building from 1840, which was later expanded twice, is one of the few industrial structures near the southern bank of the canal.
  • Swan House , 34 North Main Street. This apartment building is the other of the two large, brick neoclassical style houses built by local business people in the 1840s.
  • Village Hall and Firehouse , 35-37 East Bank Street. The building, built in 1873, still serves as a town hall and a fire station today.

See also

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Nancy L. Todd: National Register of Historic Places Registration: North Main-Bank Streets Historic District ( English ) New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . September 1994. Retrieved September 17, 2010. See also: Accompanying eleven photos . Retrieved September 17, 2010.
  2. ^ Historic Preservation Commission ( English ) Village of Albion. 2010. Retrieved September 17, 2010.

Web links

Coordinates: 43 ° 14 ′ 51 ″  N , 78 ° 11 ′ 37 ″  W.