Bridge Square Historic District

Bridge Square Historic District is a 10.5-acre area of brick commercial and industrial buildings on the western edge of downtown Rochester, New York. Its growth followed the Erie Canal, which opened here in 1826, and the nearby Genesee Valley Canal and railroads that made the square a transportation junction. Twenty-four buildings and brick-paved Bennett Alley contribute to the district. The oldest is the Federal style United States Hotel of 1826, a four-story brick and fieldstone building that kept much of its original interior woodwork and plan. In 1850 the University of Rochester and a theological seminary, now Colgate Rochester Divinity School, began there. Other buildings include Italianate and Romanesque commercial blocks on West Main Street, large industrial buildings along Cascade Drive, and the c. 1830 Greek Revival Loomis House, the only frame building left. The district shows the shift from residential to commercial to industrial use between the 1820s and 1920s. Development ended after the canal was moved in 1917, and the buildings remain in use.