Elmira Civic Historic District (Boundary Increase and Decrease)

Downtown Elmira contains a compact cluster of civic, social and educational buildings along East Church and Lake Streets, just north of the Chemung River. Within about 18 acres stand six county buildings, the city hall, an armory used for city offices, a post office, a YMCA and YWCA, private clubs, a library, an art museum and a church. Their styles range from the Greek Revival Arnot mansion of about 1835 and Italianate commercial blocks rebuilt after an 1866 fire to the Beaux-Arts City Hall of 1895, the Neo-Classical Post Office and the Sullivanesque Elks Club. The area grew with the Chemung Canal, the railroads and Civil War-era expansion, and the city's population doubled between 1870 and 1890. Local architects Joseph Pierce and H.H. Bickford designed seven buildings here and altered five more. Urban renewal later left the surrounding blocks with empty lots and out-of-scale modern buildings, which set the district apart.