State Street Historic District

Twelve masonry commercial buildings line the west side of State Street in downtown Rochester, forming the last unbroken row of nineteenth-century commercial architecture inside the city's Inner-Loop. Built between about 1825 and the early twentieth century, nearly all are four stories tall, and most share a vernacular brick design with corbelled cornices and sandstone and limestone trim. The oldest is the two-story Palmer Fish building, a Federal style structure from about 1825. The northern end building, the 1878 Sayer Block, is the only stone-faced one and has rare Eastlake detailing. Number 169 keeps its original cast-iron Corinthian storefront. The row was once part of the State Street and Front Street wholesale and market area, home to seed dealers, carriage painters, liquor wholesalers and leather goods makers. Urban renewal after World War II cleared most similar rows, so this group is the main reminder of that commercial district. Storefronts have been altered, but the upper facades still read as a cohesive historic unit.