The Rochester African-American Landmarks Project Needs Your Help

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published August 19, 2013 and can be found here.

   The Landmark Society is reaching out to the Rochester community to gather facts, events, places, and stories that have been important in the lives of ordinary African-Americans in Rochester. We need your help with this important project...

   Made possible by a grant from the Finger Lakes Regional Development Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, this project aims to identify landmarks that are significant to Rochester's African-American community, and to help those that are endangered to qualify for tax credits or spark interest in their preservation or reuse.

Since many of these sites are in urban neighborhoods in need of assistance, this effort could become the catalyst for revitalization of entire blocks or neighborhoods in our City.

Rochester was the home of abolitionist     Frederick Douglass

and it was a major stop on the     Underground Railroad

. But that's not all. Rochester is incredibly rich with art & music history (jazz, dance, etc.) and many African-American businesses starting with     Austin Seward

and his meat market in 1817! But you don't have to go quite that far back in time.

   We are looking for places where African Americans have lived, worked, and raised a family; the location where an important event took place; the home of someone who was special somehow. A park, a school, a corner store, any place that you remember that was important to you at some time in your life...

We want to connect these places with the experiences of real people that make them important, to create a special interest in them that will attract investment, inspire younger generations with identity and community pride, and tell the story of people who came to Rochester and made a life, raised a family and formed a community.

Please tell your friends and family, and join us for two public "listening" sessions:

Thursday,     August 22nd
   5:15pm-6:45pm
   Arnett Library
   310 Arnett Blvd. Rochester

Wednesday, September 11th
   6:30pm-8:00pm
   Holy Rosary Church Campus
   14 Lexington Ave. Rochester

Bring your friends, memories, photos, etc. and be ready to share ideas. Please direct questions to     Larry Francer    , 585.546.7029 x14.