Broad Street-Water Street Historic District

Along the northern bank of the Erie Canal in Lyons, New York, a T-shaped commercial district of about twelve acres preserves buildings from the 1830s to the 1890s on Broad and Water Streets. The area grew from the canal landing at the foot of Broad Street, where the canal opened to Lyons in 1825. Its brick and stone blocks carry inscriptions naming their builders and dates, including the Exchange Buildings of 1835, the Knowles Block of 1852, and the Nusbickel Block of 1879. Cast iron storefronts, iron balconies, stone piers and decorative cornices survive with few changes, and several Water Street buildings back directly onto the canal bank. The Baltzel Block, built in the 1880s for the Baltzel brothers, was valued for its dormers, gables, weathervanes and cast iron lion ornaments. The district was listed because it keeps the look of a nineteenth-century canal commercial street. Later correspondence records that the Baltzel Block burned in 1978 and was demolished.