The Inner Loop has been such of fixture of Rochester’s landscape over the past half-century, that it is probably difficult for many residents to remember what downtown looked like before it came along. Many other Rochesterians have never known a life without the loop. This series will take a look at the city before and after the circular roadway at its center took shape.

The original version of the Inner Loop was built in five sections between 1952 and 1965. This series will discuss each arc in turn and document some of the changes–and losses–that each arc’s surrounding neighborhood experienced.

The first arc of the loop ran from Central Avenue near the western bank of the Genesee River to Allen Street, then down Plymouth Ave North to Main Street West. Plymouth Avenue would remain the western boundary of the Inner Loop until the roadway was expanded to its current route in 1971.

Demolition for the first .47 mile stretch of the Loop began in the spring of 1952, and from the outset it was a slow-going and costly process. Because of the age of the structures in the neighborhood, almost every building had to be dismantled brick by brick. It took two weeks just to tear down the very first house for the project at 141 Plymouth Ave North.

The current site of the house lies at the southwest corner of Plymouth Ave North and Allen Street. This was not the case when the home was torn down. As a result of Loop construction, part of Allen Street was actually rerouted half a block-length southward from its original location.

This 1935 map shows Allen Street running north of the Pullman Building (now Buckingham Commons):

This current map shows Allen Street running south of the former Pullman building/Buckingham Commons, while the Inner Loop closely follows the original course of Allen Street:

Over the course of 1952 and 1953, the rubble pile from the house at 141 Plymouth Ave was joined by the remains of several other residences along Plymouth, Allen Street, Central Ave, and State Street.

The first leg of the project also destroyed a few notable non-residential buildings.

The First United Presbyterian Church, which had stood at 131 Plymouth Avenue North since 1849, met the wrecking ball in the summer of 1952. The displaced congregation dedicated the site of their new church in Gates the following summer.

Another mainstay of the neighborhood that became a casualty of the Inner Loop, was the former Fire Department Headquarters building.

The edifice, built in 1906, occupied the entire southern block of Central Avenue from Mill Street to Front Street. The Fire Department moved out of the expansive structure in 1938, afterwhich it served a variety of functions before being repurposed as emergency apartments during the housing shortage of the post-WWII era.

Just down the block from the Fire Department Headquarters building, lay perhaps the most historic edifice that was razed for the first arc of the Loop–The Savoy Hotel.

The 125-room inn on the corner of State Street and Central Avenue was originally called the Waverly House when it was constructed in 1848, just 200 feet from the city’s first New York Central Railroad Station.

The posh hotel once hosted noted figures such as Buffalo Bill Cody, but infamously declined to provide a room for one of Rochester’s most celebrated citizens in 1872.

When Frederick Douglass learned that his South Avenue home had been destroyed by a fire that June, he boarded the first train back to Rochester from Washington DC, and, arriving late at night, sought shelter at the Waverly House before reuniting with his displaced family in the morning. The night clerk refused Douglass service, falsely claiming that the hotel was fully booked, and the famed abolitionist set off into the rainy night in search of his loved ones.

The hotel, which was renamed the Savoy in 1894, experienced a considerable decline in the 20th century, and not all city residents were saddened by the news that the Savoy would be demolished in 1952. Initially, just the northern section of the building was razed to make way for the Loop before the rest of the structure followed suit.

In addition to losing some historic buildings to the first arc of the loop, the city also lost the entire section of Central Avenue west of St. Paul Street.

This 1935 map shows the section of Central between State Street and Front Street:

This current map shows the same section of the city, with the Inner Loop having replaced the route of Central Avenue:

The two photographs below, the first taken in the early 1950s and the latter, from 2018, also give a sense of the radical remapping of the first arc’s neighborhood.

The changes would continue to come with the Loop’s second arc through Corn Hill…

-Emily Morry