{"id":241,"date":"2009-04-18T21:18:28","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T01:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/?p=241"},"modified":"2010-05-19T10:51:57","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T14:51:57","slug":"rochester_state_and_main","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/2009\/04\/rochester_state_and_main\/","title":{"rendered":"State and Main&#8230; Window on the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The intersection at State and Main Streets in downtown Rochester, known as the Four Corners, was once the epicenter of the city. I&#8217;m going to let these two photos do most of the talking for me in this article. The photo below is of the Four Corners, looking north toward State Street.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_1910.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox-state_and_main\" title=\"The intersection at State and Main Streets in downtown Rochester, known as the Four Corners, was once the epicenter of the city.\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:8px;\" alt=\"The intersection at State and Main Streets in downtown Rochester, known as the Four Corners, was once the epicenter of the city.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_1910.jpg\" width=\"400\" border=\"1\"><\/a><br \/>\nThe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/rochester_subway_postcard_a2003.php\">postcard<\/a> I&#8217;m holding in my hand is from the early 1900&#8217;s (maybe 1912-ish). Holding it up in front of the same location in 2009, it becomes a tiny window onto the past.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_postcard.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox-state_and_main\" title=\"Close-up of the postcard. The Four Corners from the WWI era. Circa 1912-ish.\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:8px;\" alt=\"Close-up of the postcard. The Four Corners from the WWI era. Circa 1912-ish.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_postcard.jpg\" width=\"400\" border=\"1\"><\/a><br \/>\nThe Four Corners once had some of the most beautiful examples of Victorian, Gothic, Romanesque, and Neoclassical architecture standing at each corner. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryweb.org\/rochimag\/architecture\/SpecificBuildings\/Powers\/Powers.htm\" target=\"_new\">Powers Building <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:relative; top:2px;\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link\" width=\"15\" heigth=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vintageviews.org\/vv-r\/buildings\/cards\/msc005.html\" target=\"_new\">Wilder Building <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:relative; top:2px;\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link\" width=\"15\" heigth=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> are still there\u2014kiddie corner from each other. But the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryweb.org\/rochimag\/architecture\/LostRochester\/Elwood\/Elwood.htm\" target=\"_new\">Elwood Building <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:relative; top:2px;\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link\" width=\"15\" heigth=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryweb.org\/rochimag\/architecture\/LostRochester\/RochTrust\/RochTrust.htm\" target=\"_new\">Rochester Trust &#038; Safe Deposit Co. building <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:relative; top:2px;\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link\" width=\"15\" heigth=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> have since been replaced with contemporary glass office buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s very same intersection as it looks today&#8230;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_2009.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox-state_and_main\" title=\"The Four Corners as it looks today standing at the south end on Exchange Street looking toward State Street.\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:8px;\" alt=\"The Four Corners as it looks today standing at the south end on Exchange Street looking toward State Street.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/rochester_state_and_main_2009.jpg\" width=\"400\" border=\"1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also worth noting, the Powers Building was the site of the very first house in Rochester\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/rocwiki.org\/Hamlet_Scrantom\" target=\"_new\">Hamlet Scrantom&#8217;s <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:relative; top:2px;\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link\" width=\"15\" heigth=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> cabin. Also, in 1893, the first 12-way rail crossing in the world was built at the Four Corners intersection. Known as the &#8216;Grand Union&#8217; it connected the Rochester &#038; Sodus Bay and Rochester &#038; Eastern Interurbans. <\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: The postcard featured in this article (Rochester&#8217;s Four Corners) can now be viewed in greater detail <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/rochester_subway_postcard_a2003.php\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The intersection at State and Main Streets in downtown Rochester, known as the Four Corners, was once the epicenter of the city. I&#8217;m going to let these two photos do most of the talking for me in this article. The photo below is of the Four Corners, looking north toward State Street. The postcard I&#8217;m [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,788,79],"tags":[60,69,118,184,182,189,192,55,191,308,310,416,225,224,417,183,8,53,355,186,190,88,188,415,305,187,418,185],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rochester_history","category-old-photos-of-rochester-ny","category-urban_development","tag-architecture","tag-city","tag-downtown-rochester","tag-elwood-building","tag-four-corners","tag-gothic","tag-grand-union","tag-main-street","tag-neoclassical","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-old-photos","tag-photo","tag-photography","tag-pictures","tag-powers-building","tag-railroad","tag-rochester","tag-rochester-history","tag-rochester-trust-safe-deposit-company","tag-romanesque","tag-trolley","tag-victorian","tag-views","tag-vintage","tag-vintage-postcard","tag-vintage-views","tag-wilder-building"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/1492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}