RochesterSubway.com : Inside 65-67 Chestnut St.

Inside 65-67 Chestnut St. – Old Hotel Richford

May 15th, 2016

The following story was submitted by ThisApparatusMustBeUnearthed.com

Since I’ve lived downtown I’ve had my eyes on this building. Not for much good reason except that it was there, and waiting. But despite being so close, it always stayed locked up and out of reach. In fact, over the years it seemed to defy everyone’s best efforts to occupy it – including those of its many owners…

The history of 65-67 Chestnut Street begins in 1915 when it opened as Hotel Richford for Men, a fireproof hotel with 400 rooms starting at $1.00 a day. Room prices hadn’t changed much by 1929 when it was renamed Ford Hotel and reopened for both men and women.

Founded by Richard T. Ford, his R.T. Ford & Company would also operate hotels in Buffalo, Erie, Toronto , and Montreal.

The name eventually changed back to Richford in 1944 and with the midtown bus station established next to it, it would become a reasonably popular budget hotel along with the Cadillac, which at that time was still truly a hotel. Both establishments declined rapidly however in the 1960s as highway travelers opted for motels located along the expressways – and buses and trains became less fashionable modes of travel.

Suburban sprawl, economic pressure, and Rich Ford’s 1959 death led to the hotel’s closure in 1961, leaving only the Cadillac still open (which itself served to prevent much of anything else being able to succeed on the block to the present day). Since the hotel closed for good in 1968 the property has been the ruin of one developer after another – probably bankrupting more people than any other in the city of Rochester.

In the early 70s the building became the Richmond Office Building and the home of First Federal Bank. Its original neo-classical facade was also “modernized” and covered in the lovely metal cladding we see today.

There were other attempts to renovate it in 1981 (offices), 1987 (offices, briefly successful with a branch of First Federal bank re-established in the basement), 1993, 1997 (the last one with any work to be done on it, responsible for the drop ceilings and Ethernet cable), 2004 (offices), and 2008 (condos). Each of these ended in the developer losing their investment and the property falling into foreclosure.

Since the building’s sale this past January ~~the current owner has obtained approval for conversion from an office building to 96 apartments, though~~ work on the building itself has yet to begin.

UPDATE: This article previously stated that 65-67 Chestnut had approval to be converted into “96 apartments.” This information was sourced from Emporis.com and may be outdated or inaccurate information. Although additional sources we checked confirm that plans are in the works for something here, we’ll have to wait a bit longer for details to surface.

Recently, gaining access into the building has been trivially easy. The front door (facing the former bus station) was, and probably still is, open. One look at me and you’d realize I’m not a ninja like some of the other local urban explorers.

The space inside was much more thoroughly destroyed than I would have expected. Contrary to just about every other abandoned building I’ve seen, the uppermost floors are actually the closest to intact, with the damage getting worse and worse going from top to bottom.

There was a little bit of actual trash in there (food wrappers, etc) that looked like it was about 20 years old, but no signs of current or former occupants except pigeons and crows fluttering around the upper levels.

Between the 90s renovation attempt, the office features (phone jacks, exit signs, cubicle walls, etc) scattered all over, and the combination of colors from the paint and mold, I thought it had a totally different aesthetic than anywhere else I’ve been – much less post-industrial or post-apocalyptic, much more vaporware (an ironic movement that reclaims 90s corporate style).

Needless to say the building is a total wreck – possibly scrapped, more probably the result of the series of botched renovations and various upgrades and abatement projects that evaded completion.

Complicating the situation, some of the windows have probably been open since the 90s, and pigeons have made the top floor a winter shelter.

Anyway, yeah, it’s a fixer upper. I guess there’s a perfectly good reason this 10-story office building was on the market for less than your average south side apartment.

So for now, we wait for the next chapter in the ongoing saga of 65-67 Chestnut St. And enjoy these images.

To be continued.

• • •

24 Responses to “Inside 65-67 Chestnut St. – Old Hotel Richford”

Ben says:

May 16, 2016 at 9:18 am

Were there any news stories of who actually bought this building? Didn’t realize this one was on the list to be redeveloped as well, good to see though.
Mark says:

May 16, 2016 at 11:18 am

Glad to see that it’s finally going to be renovated become a useful part of Rochester again. It’s a shame it was let get into this condition to start with however
James says:

May 16, 2016 at 12:27 pm

Glad it’s going to be reused. Ton of photos in here, almost overwhelming. The fisheye can get a little much.
John says:

May 16, 2016 at 9:52 pm

Wow, I always assumed it was an urban renewal building from the ugly exterior. It’s mind boggling why someone would tear off the original facade for what is on there currently. With the state of the building, I’d say we’re lucky the building is still up and about to be renovated. I’m surprised it’s not a gravel lot like the west side of downtown.
Richard Long says:

May 17, 2016 at 1:24 am

The Richford was a dumpy residential hotel in the 50s, inhabited largely by working men in Rochester for a few weeks or months, with a small restaurant on the basement level. It served a purpose then. It was noted for being a clean place, and reasonable rent.

Around 56 the City solved the shortage of downtown parking by erecting the famed Pigeon Hole Parking structure between the hotel and Broad Street. That brought a whole new level of noise to the rooms on that side and left them unrentable. The CYO down the block had a lot of empty available rooms thanks to cars and television eliminating resident businessmen who now left downtown for home in Pittsford etc. every day rather than staying in the city, and rented them to all men with the cash to rent a room. CYO also offered a gym, pool, bowling alleys and a restaurant. The Richford lost more guests.

A few years later Pigeon Hole Parking was disassembled and sold to somebody who thought they could run it, after the City’s elevator operator dumped a few cars from upper levels.

Trailways cane with Midtown, possibly in 64, and Midtown had a hotel on top. The Richford was DEAD. Unlike the Cadillac, Richford didn’t aim for the welfare market.

Around 75 the State DMV moved from W Broad & Fitsugh to offices on the first floor of the Richford, spending a lot of tax money to remodel.
Politics changed, and when the lease was up DMV moved again. That ended the restaurant in the Richford.

In the early 90s, Harris Wilcox attempted to sell the building at Auction. After 2 days of possible buyers going through the building, they weren’t able to get an opening bid of $100. If they had somebody would have owned the building for $100, but the back taxes and refusal by the City to lower the assessment would have killed them.

With the geographic relationship to Midtown the Richford is screwed in terms of being able to get anything in and out of via truck. The elevated first floor adds to the problem.

The metal cladding on the building is a leftover from Urban Renewal in the 60s when some “planner” had a fascination with aluminum skinned buildings.
The first clad was Lauer’s Furniture on State street, covered in gold colored aluminum over a few weeks by a giant bucket truck.
Gary says:

May 17, 2016 at 3:33 pm

Thanks so much for publishing the photos, as depressing as they are. It’s exciting to know the building will see new life. I recall both adjacent buildings as urban hotels, the Richford and the Cadillac, while I was a student at RIT’s downtown campus. We students often walked over there and to the nearby Bamboo Club on East Avenue, a block away. While they weren’t as elegant as the Sagamore, the Rochester or the Manger, both were solid downtown hotels. The Richford even had its own Urban Legend. An older woman, possibly homeless but well-dressed, would come stand quietly on Chestnut Street, late at night, in front of the hotel. When she thought no one was looking, she would pee on the sidewalk and leave. She was legendary among RIT students. (BTW, the Bamboo Club was a strip club with cheap beer. It’s now the parking lot adjacent to RG&E at the corner of Chestnut. East Avenue had a very different vibe in those days.)

As for the metal cladding that Richard Long mentioned, my first job as a student in Rochester was working at the Erdle Perforating Company at Bull’s Head (on York Street near the railroad), a heavy industry that worked sheet metal into the decorative architectural grillwork so popular at the time. I was their Sample Department, cutting 10″ squares of anodized perforated metal and shipping them to potential customers. Amazingly, I lost no fingers while operating their huge industrial shears and brakes needed to cut the little squares from sheets of steel, brass and aluminum. In the back of the factory was a massive degreasing pit that was the most frightening thing I had ever seen. Many pallets of 4×8 sheet metal were lowered into the huge pit where a bath of chlorinated hydrocarbon vapors washed away the oil coating the metal. The heavier-than-air vapor was invisible, but could be seen washing against the metal sides of the pit as if it were waves in a swimming pool. It was creepy. I had nightmares of falling into the pit and being dissolved. Industrial safety wasn’t a big deal at that time. Erdle had produced the cladding for Lauer’s and many other Rochester buildings “modernized” in the sixties.
Chris Stone says:

May 17, 2016 at 4:30 pm

Not sure where the information about redevelopment came from, but there are no pending or active permits with the city for any sort of renovation work.
jeff freeland says:

May 17, 2016 at 6:12 pm

How many dumpster loads to prepare the building for apartments. It will take months…
John says:

May 18, 2016 at 12:00 am

Maybe this building got confused for the one on Elm behind the Cadillac. I think that is getting made into housing aimed at Eastman student. Could see these 2 buildings easily getting confused.
Malcolm says:

May 18, 2016 at 1:28 am

I assume that the exterior could be returned to the original brick/stone/ look/feel, correct? It would be an ideal case from a NTHP profile in Preservation Magazine.
Gary says:

May 18, 2016 at 6:59 am

That all depends on how the metal was attached. Usually when an older building was “modernized” in the 1960s, there was no looking back. The change was considered permanent, so little care was taken to make it reversible. Brick might be repaired, but in the case of large areas of stone, such as this facade appears to use, there may have been permanent damage. Whether it went too far to restore needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis. The old Hotel Rochester (former RIT dormitory) was a case in point. When it was covered in sky-blue ceramic tiles in the 1970s to become the Mariner Motor inn, all the stone detailing was chipped away. Even then, the tiles didn’t adhere well and some dropped off. A beautiful building was permanently defaced and finally demolished. It’s now yet another of Rochester’s historically significant parking lots (east of Plymouth, between Main and Broad).
Ben says:

May 18, 2016 at 10:14 am

John – last I had read the Cadillac was actually the one that was supposed to be redone aimed at Eastman students, and 88 Elm(behind the Cadillac) would be mixed-use apartments/office space. Of course, these plans are always changing.
RochesterSubway.com says:

May 18, 2016 at 10:33 am

UPDATE: This article previously stated that 65-67 Chestnut had approval to be converted into “96 apartments.” This information was sourced from Emporis.com and may be outdated or inaccurate information. Although nearby 88 Elm and 50 Chestnut are also being renovated, additional sources we checked do indicate that plans are in the works for 65-67 Chestnut. We’ll just have to wait a bit longer for specific details to surface.
Richard Long says:

May 18, 2016 at 1:01 pm

Bouncing off Gary’s reference to the Hotel Rochester, which along with the Powers Hotel survived being a residence hotel for RIT students in the 60s: The Powers went on to become the Executive Office mess when low budget contractors, particularly the electrical contractor caused a fire. It remains a (NOT Code compliant) Fire trap to this day.

The Rochester suffered the humiliation of the Blue brick veneer job. The work there was so well done the Bricklayer’s Union Local issued warnings to the citizens of Rochester to use sidewalks on the other side of the street, because the Budget Contractor did the usual BUDGET job. Rochester’s newspapers actually had reporters who covered the story, and City Inspectors (undoubtedly related to elected officials) assured the public the brick veneer was safe.

Work on the interior was of the same quality as the work on the veneer and it showed up quickly as well. Things got entertaining as blue glazed bricks began denting Plymouth Avenue’s pavement.

Rochester has quite a number of buildings turned to rubble by the “Urban Renewal” of the 60s, and some of them haven’t reached Benvenuto’s Gully off Lake Avenue yet.

A special thanks should go out to the Politicians and Inspectors of Rochester in the 60s & 70s.
Gary says:

May 18, 2016 at 2:27 pm

Richard, Thanks for expanding on the Rochester Hotel. I lived away during the 70s and saw it rarely. Many of my RIT friends had lived there and i envied them the quality of their rooms.
Chris Stone says:

May 19, 2016 at 4:46 pm

I think only the first floor was stone or cultured stone. The upper floors look like they were yellow or buff colored brick.
Cheryle Wood says:

February 14, 2017 at 6:54 pm

Surprised to see it still standing. I remember visiting it as a student at RBI in 1964-65. It was the dorm for the female students and had a staff to supervise them.
Richard Long says:

February 16, 2017 at 2:52 pm

Cheryle, you speak of a different time, a different world and some days I think a different civilization as well. I often wonder how many RBI grads went forward from there with a solid base of knowledge of how business functioned, and into American industry and business.

I well recall kids striving to get into RBI because it would be an almost guaranteed path to a white shirt job at Kodak or B&L, Xerox was still small back then. I also remember hundreds of them eating lunch in Washington Square Park every day to save some money.

Supervised dorms for female students, the standard back then, much akin to Anderson Hall over behind the MAG, now one of the Red Cross buildings. How many young males learned to scale walls to get into the dorm back then?
AbandonedBuildingAddict says:

March 14, 2017 at 7:30 pm

It’s a shame to see the neglect this building has been through, but if it’s the top floors that are in the worst condition maybe they could knock a few stories off and then redo it. If the bottom is the worst off, then I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble. The building wasn’t a very fancy place to begin with. And it’s from the time period when they still used asbestos, so is there asbestos in there? And if there is it might just be better to leave it and not renovate because it would just cost far too much either way. Nice photos though.
Jax says:

December 18, 2017 at 7:07 pm

Anyone know if this place is still open??
RochesterSubway.com says:

April 25, 2022 at 2:28 pm

UPDATE: Crews continue cleanup after debris falls from Downtown Rochester building Thursday… https://www.whec.com/rochester-new-york-news/debris-falls-from-downtown-rochester-building/6451811/
Anonymous says:

October 10, 2023 at 11:20 pm

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2023/10/10/owner-of-decrepit-richford-hotel-building-rochester-ny-has-plan-to-save-from-demolition/71004362007/?fbclid=IwAR2FFPtogRxdOKXjFxmao6anusLd9fc4uCv0R53O22Wx308cA_Ex4woT9p8_aem_AfP7Eo15a-gmTjjE0P97APVRWBOgLAbhBj9fDQ7vG9FnCZs8fa940oNIv47Qv8YRT6Y&mibextid=Zxz2cZ#lnl5yczpoj4yyijrz2
Lynne says:

March 14, 2024 at 11:44 pm

Updated: March 14, 2024 – 1:18 PM
Published [News10 NBC]: October 12, 2023 – 4:40 PM
Not clear to me what the update to this story from last fall is.
Owners Midtown Reborn LLC want to turn the old Richford Hotel into a mix of 80 apartments, retail, and offices. Inspectors visited the building on Tuesday [?] to help all parties figure out whether the building can be saved or should be torn down. https://www.whec.com/top-news/no-decision-yet-on-whether-to-demolish-dilapidated-rochester-hotel/
RochesterSubway.com says:

March 15, 2024 at 2:18 pm

Not clear to me either. Sounds like the City of Rochester is on the fence as to whether or not to allow the building to be rehabbed or order it be demo’d based on current condition. Does anyone here have more detail?

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Inside 65-67 Chestnut St. – Old Hotel Richford

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