

By Mike Governale

This week’s Fun Foto Friday is a snapshot from 1893. That’s Nick Brayer, an engineering contractor working on a new sewer beneath Front Street in downtown Rochester. In his hands is a tin box. It’s not a sewer pipe. It’s actually a time capsule and he’s preparing to lay it at the project site to be buried. Looks like quite the event; a crowd of neighborhood kids have formed behind him to get in on the photo op.

Fast forward to 2015 and the burning question for readers of this blog will undoubtedly be: Where is this capsule now? And what’s inside…



Uh… well… we have no idea. Not a clue. As far as we can find, this capsule was never retrieved. And as you know, most of Front Street is now itself history – entombed beneath Genesee Crossroads Parking Garage (and park). I guess that’s what we get for hiding our valuables in the sewer.



While we may never know what was in that particular box, a similar capsule from 1873 was removed from old City Hall and opened in 1999.

That 1’x1’x1′ copper box was filled with a treasure trove of books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, handwritten documents, photos, coins and other forms of currency.



Oh yes, and a hundred year-old condom . That’s right. A sheep intestine condom, left in an envelope and tucked into one of the books as a prank. The envelope was addressed to “The person who opens the box.” Score!

Tags: Front Street, Fun Foto Friday, Nick Brayer, Rochester, Rochester NY, sewer, time capsule



This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2015 at 12:51 am and is filed under Rochester History, Rochester Images, Transit + Infrastructure, Urban Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.