American cities and towns have always prided themselves on their grand avenues. The social elite and industrial captains often transformed normal thoroughfares into magnificent promenades lined with mansions to showcase their wealth. Post-Civil War America experienced a burst of this activity, but Rochester, Americas first true boomtown, had already set its sights on a grand avenue as early as 1840. The nouveau riche were anxious to establish a prestigious social colony befitting their stature. Using local and national architects, landscapers, and craftsmen, they transformed East Avenue from...

Rochester's immigrant saga is filled with compelling tales of hardship and achievement. Dutchtown--originally Deutschtown--is perhaps the most beloved immigrant neighborhood because of the tens of thousands of regional families who trace their forebears back to it. Rochester's Dutchtown tells how the neighborhood evolved out of Frankfort, a German settlement established in 1810 at the High Falls. Scenes depict countless hardworking citizens, including Italian immigrants who first arrived in the 1880s, and fascinating relics of an industrial center that thrived for nearly two centuries.

When Rochester experienced the explosive growth generated by the Erie Canal, what began as a pioneer neighborhood of cabins quickly became an impressive ward of mansions for the citys social hierarchy. Todays generation knows it as Corn Hill, but it is actually the old Third Ward, an extraordinary neighborhood that rivaled Charleston, Savannah, and Natchez in elegance and importance. Rochesters Corn Hill: The Historic Third Ward offers the first comprehensive pictorial history of this ruffled-shirt district from its humble beginnings, to its Victorian peak, through its eventual decline and...