Spanning Time: The evolution of Exchange Street in Binghamton
It has been there for nearly 200 years, and yet we really are not sure how it came to be.
There are many roadways and thoroughfares in our region. So many are familiar to us, and with names that can be found in many communities. There are countless Main streets, Maple streets, Oak streets and even Court streets in other municipalities.
However, there are some road names that are unique to an area. In this instance, I am not referring to some truly unique road name such as Wheel Barrel Alley — no, I will leave that one and others for future columns.
I am writing about one where I spent more than 20 years and still am not sure of how it came to be.
That would be Exchange Street in downtown Binghamton.
The road appears on early maps of the fledgling village in the 1830s, but we are unsure as to how that name came about. The most reasonable answer is that in the early years of Binghamton — the time when Joshua Whitney was still establishing the basic layout of the new community — there was some time of exchange for local farmers to sell their wares, or early traders to converge on what William Bingham imagined as a public square.
As “commercial” as the name of the road implies, its history is anything but commercial. So much of its history has been educational, religious and financial in nature.
In the first few decades of the 19th century, religious meetings of burgeoning congregations would be held. Some were held in the courthouse, and in this case of the Universalist Church, a meeting was held on the lawn of the courthouse. A later church would be constructed on the corner of Exchange Street and Congdon Place. That church would be demolished in the 1920s to make way for the construction of the Binghamton Savings Bank — now an M&T Bank branch.
Farther south on the street was once the Sons of Israel Synagogue — the first building for worship for the Jewish faith. That congregation would move in the early years of the 20th century and become Temple Israel. The land would later be used for the construction for a Volunteers of America center, and that building has come full circle, as it is once again used for religious purposes.
In 1904, the Binghamton Public Library opened its doors at 78 Exchange St. — welcoming thousands of residents into the “People’s University.” Built upon the site that once housed the home of attorney Orlow Chapman, the library became in integral part of the street. What once was a block of commercial buildings, homes and even gas stations, the arrival of the 20th century saw the building of the public library as a natural progression of the development of the street.
The library’s neighbor, the Security Mutual Building, was under construction at the same time as the library, and replaced the Hagaman and Pope Blocks. Its impressive skyscraper appearance added to the growing importance of that corner.
As the YWCA moved into a former hotel building, the evolution of Exchange Street continued.
One unfortunate loss was the relocation of Spaulding Bakeries from Exchange Street to Conklin. Many residents remember the smell of the fresh bread coming from their building near the Susquehanna River. That end of the street was first connected to the southern side of the river not by a massive bridge, but by a simple metal pedestrian bridge in the 1874. But the bridge collapsed during bad weather, and was replaced by the current Exchange Street Bridge in 1902 and built by the Owego Bridge Co.
The Urban Renewal Program removed much of the last of the residential remnants, and allowed for the construction of the Woodburn Courts buildings in the 1970s and the addition of Northshore Drive.
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What had started as a dirt roadway that allowed farmers to sell their crops evolved into a highly evolved place for services for the community.
The street continues to provide space for people of all needs, an old library about to become a culinary school, and services to meet many of society’s issues.
Perhaps the street has provided us a truly fair exchange.
Gerald Smith is a former Broome County historian. Email him at email@example.com.