North Main-Bank Streets Historic District

Albion's historic commercial core, along North Main and Bank Streets and a stretch of the Barge Canal, forms a district of 46 contributing buildings and structures built between about 1827 and about 1930. Most are three-story attached rows of brick or roughly hewn Medina sandstone, with Italianate and late Victorian eclectic styling. Landmarks include the Swan Block, the Pratt Opera House, the Granite Block of 1866, the Empire Block, the Royce Block and the 1873 Village Hall and firehouse, along with early Greek Revival buildings such as the Burrows Block. Two vernacular sandstone carriage buildings represent local industry. The district matters because Albion grew with the Erie Canal, which opened through the village in 1824, the same year it became the Orleans County seat. It served as a distribution point for fruit, wheat and Medina sandstone. Although many storefronts have been altered, the upper floors keep a high degree of integrity, making this one of the more intact canal-town business districts in Western New York.