When I came to Rochester from Kansas as a cub reporter in 1976, I was dumbfounded when I heard that the Erie Canal once flowed right through downtown – indeed right past the building where I worked.

Oh my god – what on earth did that look like?

Here’s the answer.

First photo is what you see today when you look from Fitzhugh Street back east down Broad Street toward Exchange Street. At far left is the old City Hall building, then the Times Square building (not seen: the Wings of Progress sprouting out the top). Straight ahead is the brick building that used to be Lawyer’s Coop (now Thomson Reuters) and next to it, the Broad Street Bridge. And on the right, the place where I work, the Democrat and Chronicle building.

Second photo is – and I know it’s hard to believe – exactly the same view, in a photo taken “not later than 1890,” according to the handwriting on the back.

About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the old City Hall building at far left. The Erie Canal, at center, crossed the river over the aqueduct that the Broad Street Bridge was later built on top of.

Rochester owes a LOT to the Erie Canal. Its completion in 1825 was a big reason Rochester became the first boom town in America during the 1830s and 1840s. It opened up new markets for Rochester’s flour mills, and brought waves of new settlers through the city, some to stay, others to buy local goods before continuing their journeys.

And there was an added bonus in the winter: Rochesterians would turn out by the hundreds to skate on its frozen waters.

However, when it had to be enlarged and was relocated in the early 1900s to its current location, Rochesterians were not at all sorry to see it go. It caused traffic delays every time a bridge had to be lifted to let a boat through. The water would be become stagnant and filthy by the end of summer. Just about every year somebody would drown in it.