B2-C4

Walking Tour

The Landmark Society of Western New York has created excellent, self-guided "Walking Tours" of various Rochester communities. Below is the preamble from their Corn Hill Tour. If you would like to review and perhaps print the actual self-guided tour information, click here. You will be returned here when you’re done.

From hidden nooks and crannies to eye-catching modern edifices, these walking tours, with photos and maps, will introduce you to Rochester’s past as seen through the best of its historic and contemporary architecture.

Welcome to Corn Hill, the heart of Rochester’s oldest residential neighborhood, once known as the Third Ward. Protected by the Genesee River to the east, the Erie Canal (which followed the present route of Broad Street), and the Genesee Valley Canal (now Ford Street), the area offered early 19th century Rochesterians the same advantages residents of this sheltered, yet very urban, neighborhood enjoy today.

Millers and merchants built impressive homes during Rochester’s first growth after the building of the Erie Canal (1820s and 30s) while real estate investors built more modest dwellings for sale or rent to the city’s booming population. Scottish immigrants’ influence is still reflected in the neighborhood street names of "Greig," "Edinburgh," and "Glasgow," and former slaves settled over the hill along Clarissa Street.

The neighborhood was first known by its political designation as the Third Ward, but as earlier cottages were replaced by more substantial dwellings in later architectural styles, Rochesterians dubbed it the "Ruffled Shirt Ward" or the "Silk Stocking District." Known for its architectural diversity and sense of style, the old Third Ward was also favored for its congeniality and commitment to improving life in the city.

Changes accelerated in the 20th century and as decades passed, the neighborhood began to experience a decline, hastened after World War II by the general population exodus to the suburbs. By the early 1960s, highway and Civic Center construction had claimed many irreplaceable landmarks, and urban renewal threatened to take what was left.

Faced with the loss of large swaths of the neighborhood, the Landmark Society joined forces with residents to preserve the architectural legacy that remained through a combination of educational activities and political advocacy. These efforts helped turn a threatened neighborhood into the city’s greatest example of large-scale historic preservation. Beginning in the 1980s, new residences, designed to be compatible with the scale and character of historic streetscapes, began to fill in areas cleared decades earlier during urban renewal campaigns, breathing new life into this dynamic section of the city.

This self-guided tour offers an introduction to Corn Hill’s diverse architectural heritage, from the oldest building in the neighborhood to some of the newest.

The tour can be taken as either a 1-mile or 1.6-mile loop. Click here to see the tour.