North Main–Bank Streets Historic District

The North Main - Bank Streets Historic District is a conservation district on these two streets in the Village of Albion, New York in the United States. E, United States. This is one of the two historic districts in the Village and he sums up the commercial core of the village together, who are mainly formed in the period in which Albion was an important trade center on the Erie Canal. A portion of the channel - today the New York State Barge Canal - and two of its bridges are within the district.

The buildings within the conservation area provide a comprehensive collection of different styles of architecture in the century of its formation corner shows buildings except one are within its borders as contributing to its historic character. Among them, an opera house and the town hall of the village. This is one of the most intact business district during the previous channel. Many of the buildings were built of crushed in Medina sandstone or brick - a legacy of three destructive fires in the middle and at the end of the 19th century, the earlier wooden frame houses have fallen victim. In 1994, the district was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography

The District is an irregularly -cut area that wraps around the intersection of North Main (New York State Route 98 ) and East and West Bank Street. The terrain falls to its northern edge to the channel from back. At its southern end borders the district to the second historical district of Albion, the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District. The boundary runs along parcel boundaries and roads, all property of the Swan Library are north on the east side of North Main Street included to the canal and the bridge. At the northwest corner of the former Carriage Factory on 125 Liberty Street is one of them, just as a road block at the Beaver Alley.

This leads to the bridge and east, a portion of the channel follows, including a concrete pillar and the former towpath, to the bridge of Ingersoll Street, from where the district boundary to the southern bank of the canal west to the rear property line of Burrows block in 131 ½ North Main followed. This building is the only remaining of a whole row of houses that once stood on the canal. From there, the boundary of the historic district runs south and then east to a municipal parking lot around, to include all houses on the northern side of the East Bank Street to the Town Hall on the corner of Platt Street. The parking lot there on the other side of the street is not among them, however, the district boundary follows its border zigzag through the road block and includes all property on North Main one up to number 35.

The district has an area of ​​about seven acres and includes 43 buildings and three further buildings. Only one building, a modern business building in 18 North Main, is not historically beitragendem value. The rest of the building consists mostly of three-storey shop houses of brick or stone, interspersed with some industrial buildings and residential houses. They are built in a variety of architectural styles of the 19th century. Density and less dense development with open spaces, which are used mainly for parking, 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 rebuilding after the great fire, in which he made most of the still existing buildings and the 20th century, in which the focus has shifted to preservation and protection of existing buildings.

1810-1861: Early years

The colonization of space Albion began in the years after 1810, but declined during the decade up speed, when the work for the construction of the Erie Canal were taken. In a larger scale, the place, as in 1822 Nehemiah Ingersoll developed a large tract of land south and east of the canal later acquired Main Street. It was turned over rapidly and at Main Street created a guest house and a shop. Houses were built along the canal route and a dam with a mill were built at Sandy Creek, in the vicinity of the channel fed entirely with its water.

The channel portion of Brockport on Albion after Lockport was opened in 1824. The Orleans County was created from the northern half of Genesee County and the channel helped that Albion was determined for the county seat and not the nearby Gaines. After 1825, the canal was completed, to Albion developed into a flourishing port of transshipment for wheat and apples that were grown in the farms around. The 1827 built of brick in the neoclassical style Burrows block in 131 ½ North Main Street is the only building that remains of the houses on the canal bank.

At the opposite end of the district, the presence of Countyverwaltung has influenced the development of buildings. As in the other historic district of Albion, many of the surviving buildings from that era houses here. The oldest house in the district is the built in 1826 in the Federal Style Porter Lee House, 30 North Main. In 1830 came the two oldest commercial buildings, 105-107 North Main Street and Goodrich Proctor - block in 126 North Main Street, both of which are neoclassical brick buildings. There were other residential and commercial buildings, but these were mostly half-timbered houses in wood and survived subsequent non- fires.

Late 1830s discovered a quarry operator from Medina, the nearest larger settlement further west along the canal, a reddish brown sedimentary rock and began to sell this as a building material. This so-called Medina sandstone was eventually most broken in the area of Albion and shipped across the channel to other parts of New York, he came so also the construction of the New York State Capitol in Albany for use, as in many so-called brownstone houses in New York City. In Albion, this material was first built in 1840 during the construction of Sears Carriage Factory, 125 Liberty Street, one of the few remaining industrial buildings in canal nearby.

Middle of the century was the trade with sand stones and agricultural products Albion prosper. The canal was soon Falls Railroad added as a regional transit point through the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara, which soon merged into the New York Central, two local businessmen, Lorenzo Burrows and Williams Swan, built two large, ornamental neoclassical houses at 34 and 48 North Main Street. The still existing Courthouse in 1858 and was another Eckpunkit for the development of the village.

1862-1897: fires and reconstruction

A few buildings have survived from the period before 1862. In the year of the first destroyed by three large fires in the historic district the greater part of the south side of East Bank Street between Main and Platt Street. Instead, the residential blocks of Bordwell and Harrington, 16-28 East Bank Street and the now demolished Orleans Hotel arisen. This new building in the Italianate style were built of brick and were better prepared for future fires.

Four years later, burned 1866, the road block of North Main Street just south of the junction with the West Bank Street. He was replaced by blotting, Royce and Empire - blocks. There was the Granite Block, which was built partially of Medina sandstone at the northern end of the reconstructed area. Its design influenced that of a short time later built in the vicinity of buildings, which were designed in the same style. 1873 built the Village Hall with a combined fire station in 35-37 East Bank Street, in the eastern corner of today's conservation district. His decorative facade combined brick and Medina sandstone.

The last fire in 1882 destroyed the block of North Main Street between West Street and Beaver Bank Alley. The here newly purchased building - including the Pratt Opera House - were some of the most striking of the district. They used as construction material brick and Medina sandstone, with numerous variations of the late Victorian architecture alternated: Italianate, Eastlake and romanesque. The higher Day & Day Block and Opera House broke through the flat skyline of the houses on that side of Main Street. The building of Daly and Hanley, which originated at the north end of this block in 1897, resulted in 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, which put up in 1907th The Renaissance Revival Bank building at 121 North Main thing built in 1895 and renovated Further in the 1920s. The last major building was the knitting Building at 31 East Bank, a sandstone commercial structure erected in 1923.

1898 to the present: expansion, decline and conservation

Around the turn of the century to the 20th century, the economic situation in the area of Albion began to deteriorate slightly. Improvements in the railway system made ​​this transport konkurrenzfähigger than the canal shipping, whereas the State by the summary of the Erie Canal reacted with several other channels in the system of the New York State Barge Canal. In some areas, the channel was completely realigned in Albion even he was only deepened and widened. The two lift bridges in the historic district were built in this period, which lasted until about 1930.

The improvements on the canal had for a few years, but given the competition with Portland cement was the interest in the Medina Sandstone back, who was only sold as a curb. In the late 1940s the sandstone trade came to a complete standstill because the accessible deposits were exhausted. Albion also suffered from further south opened near Batavia New York State Thruway, the repressed both channel and railway as Gütertransportweg.

Many businesses closed, but the building in which they settled, were not canceled. The dedication of the historic district to the Court House to the south in the village which gave the impulse to strive for the preservation of monuments and heritage in the business district. The historic district in 1986 was found to be suitable for inclusion in the National Register; However, it turned out that the north side of the East Bank Street between Platt and Ingersoll Street, which should become part of the historic district originally, has undergone too many changes and modern influences, so that the historical integrity was no longer available. The Village called a historic preservation commission for the control of the two historic districts in life. This is mandated to protect the historic buildings and to improve their historical value as well as to make Albion more attractive to visitors and to provide thus to growth and further development.

Significant contributing properties

With the exception of the property 18 North Main Street all the buildings are contributing within the boundaries of the district to which histoprischen character. None of them has so far (September 2010) individually listed in the National Register.

• Burrows block, 123-131 ½ North Main Street. The oldest section of this neo-classical brick building, which was built in several stages in the 1830s, is the only surviving commercial building on the canal bank.
• Lorenzo Burrows House, 48 North Main Street. Dating from the year 1840, is one of the two great neo-classical 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 renewed in the 1920s.
• Granite Block, 52-60 North Main Street. This was built in the Italianate style Medina Sandstone house was bricked after the fire of 1866 in a random rubble stone pattern. It influenced a number of buildings in the immediate vicinity.
• Lee Porter House, 30 North Main Street. This 1826 -built Federal- style house, which was later breathed in the Italianate style, is the oldest in the historic district.
• Pratt Opera House, 120 North Main Street. The three-story neo-Romanesque building with a cross gable was built in 1882 and includes a functioning theater.
• Sears Carriage Factory, 125 Liberty Street. This small utility building made ​​of brick from 1840, which was subsequently extended twice, is one of the few industrial buildings near the southern channel bank.
• W. G. Swan House, 34 North Main Street. This house is the other of the two large brick buildings in the neoclassical style, built in the 1840s by local businessmen.
• Village Hall and Fire House, 35-37 East Bank Street. Built from 1873 building also serves as the town hall and in the presence of a fire station.