This photograph, taken around 1950 near the corner of East Main and Chestnut streets, looks toward Rochester’s downtown shopping district.
The view is of the 300 block of East Main Street, which was then home to such merchants as (across the street, from right) Sunderlin’s Jewelers, the Brass Rail restaurant, Triangle Millinery, Keogh’s Billiards and Western Union.
Main Street was the bustling center of commerce throughout much of the city’s history, but by the early 1950s, the model of downtown metropolitan shopping was beginning to fade. The rise of suburbs and the proliferation of suburban shopping plazas saw to that.
A good number of Rochester’s jobs also were moving from the urban core to the outskirts during mid-century. As the population migrated with them, urban merchants saw their profits dwindle.
Local historian Karen McCally describes the 1950s as a “troubling” era for city shopkeepers, noting that “Downtown had been struggling the entire decade.”
Many retailers fought back against the tide of suburbanization with a creative marketing campaign designed to showcase the benefits of downtown shopping.
The Chamber of Retail Merchants sponsored a series of “Good Neighbor Days” featuring special sales at downtown locations. They also paid to advertise on 33 regional billboards, placed strategically along the expanding highway system that carried motorists through and around the city.
Indeed, the association of merchants knew all too well the importance of transportation for attracting shoppers. Retailers pressed the city to improve bus service and local parking accommodations; to its credit, Rochester responded with new metered off-street lots and municipal garages.
Despite their valiant efforts to fend off the siren call of suburban flight — culminating in the bold Midtown Plaza experiment of the late 1950s, a venture planners hoped might “trigger a rebirth of Rochester’s entire downtown area” — shopkeepers like those on the 300 block of East Main Street found themselves on the losing side of history.
Today, few stores line the 300 block of East Main Street. Not only are all of the shops pictured gone, but so too is the building that once housed them. In its spot instead sits a small, triangular parking lot — exactly the sort of convenience that 1950s shop owners hoped might tempt suburban customers back into downtown.