The Main Street Historic District in

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

, New York, United States, is the downtown commercial core of the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

. It is a area stretching south along Main Street from the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

to the railroad tracks. Its buildings, all but three of which contribute to its historic character, reflect the development of Medina from the early days of the canal, where a bend in the route made it a natural harbor, in the 1830s to the 1920s. They are brick or stone buildings in a variety of

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

s from the 19th century, primarily

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

. Many of them have been renovated after a period of decline in the mid-20th century. In 1995 it was designated a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. Two years later, a rail freight depot at the south end was added when further research established that it was historically related to other buildings in the district.

Geography

The district is an irregularly shaped area whose axis is Main Street for a block and a half north and south of East and West Center Street ( NY 31 and 31E/ 63 respectively. South of the Main-Center intersection, Main Street is also itself part of routes 31 and 63). Its boundaries are defined by lot lines and streets. The terrain is level with a slight descent to the canal and creek at the northeast. At the north, the district includes the properties on the east side of Main north of Pearl Street that back on the canal just north of the bend it takes after crossing the

Oak Orchard River Oak Orchard Creek (sometimes called Oak Orchard River) is a tributary of Lake Ontario in Orleans County, New York in the United States. The creek flows through Oak Orchard Creek Marsh, of which were declared a National Natural Landmark in May ...

to the immediate east. Its boundary continues along the rear property line of the east side of Main, excluding the parking lot at the canal basin, then expanding westward at East Center to include some properties on both sides of the street east of Manilla Place, stopping just short of St. John's Episcopal Church, the "Church in the Middle of the Street" and one of Medina's oldest public buildings. It then returns to the rear lines of the east side of Main, following the

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

railroad tracks back to the street. On the west side of Main it includes all the properties down to North Avenue. The district takes in the large railroad complex, excluding the hardware store on the corner with West Avenue, which it follows north to just past the tracks. The 1997 boundary increase added the

Medina Railroad Museum The Medina Railroad Museum is a railroad museum located at 530 West Avenue in Medina, New York, which is northeast of Buffalo and northwest of Rochester. The museum is housed in one of the largest standing wooden freight depots, built in 1905. ...

across the street, extending the southwest corner of the district to Gwinn Street. After that the boundary crosses the street again and takes in the old train station building, then turns north at the back of City Hall to follow rear property lines on the east side of Main, including the buildings with

frontage Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...

on the east side of Proctor Place. One lot south of Pearl Street, it turns east to exclude a house and vacant lot along that back to Main, which it then follows back up to the north end of the district. This tightly drawn boundary encloses an area of . Of the 52 buildings within it, only three are too modern to be considered

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

. There are no houses; most are multistory commercial buildings with a few having apartments above street level. The railroad-related properties, First Presbyterian Church and City Hall and its fire station are the few exceptions. It excludes Medina's Register-listed

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

and St. John's, found eligible.

History

The settlement of what became Medina began with the announcement of the canal's construction in 1817. Within a few years some houses had sprung up for canal workers near the bend, and by 1825 the area in the northeastern portion of the district known as the docks, had been well developed, with a general store. At the time what is now Main Street was known as Shelby Street. None of those buildings are extant, mostly

wood frame Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wal ...

structures, are extant, having been demolished to make way for the current buildings. The

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

of the former Arcade at 343–347 Main Street is the only remnant of the village's early years still extant. In 1823 the

Holland Land Company The Holland Land Company was an unincorporated syndicate of thirteen Dutch investors from Amsterdam who in 1792 and 1793 purchased the western two-thirds of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, an area that afterward was known as the Holland Purchase ...

, the original

European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

owners of much of

Western New York Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all sources agree WNY in ...

, sent Ebenezer Mix to survey and lay out a village at the Ridgeway- Shelby town line. He completed this by 1826. This, combined with the settlement around the docks, became Medina. At that time, it was a way station along the canal for barges and an overnighting point for passengers. Many of its early buildings were hotels. Medina grew quickly. In addition to the canal it had good

waterpower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of a wa ...

on Oak Orchard Creek (two

mill race A mill race, millrace or millrun, mill lade (Scotland) or mill leat (Southwest England) is the current of water that turns a water wheel, or the channel ( sluice) conducting water to or from a water wheel. Compared with the broad waters of a mi ...

s, one of which is reportedly still intact underground, ran along today's Main Street) and fertile land surrounding it. The settlement incorporated as a village in 1832, just seven years after its establishment. The

1840 census The United States census of 1840 was the sixth census of the United States. Conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1840, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 17,069,453 – an increase of 32.7 percent over the 12, ...

recorded 700 inhabitants. By the middle of the century the southwest portion of the village was being developed as a residential area. In 1855 the village's oldest extant hotel, the Paddock at 500–506 Main Street, was built. Around that time the

Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

, the "Falls Road", was built through the village, at the southern end of the district. It took some, but not all, of the canal's traffic. By providing easier access to raw materials and markets for finished goods the railroad, which eventually became part of the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

, spurred industrial development along Main Street. The former main station, at 615 Main Street, built early in the 20th century, is one of the district buildings using locally quarried Medina

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

, enjoying its peak usage as a building material at the time. At the same time the

Rochester, Lockport and Buffalo Railroad The Rochester, Lockport and Buffalo Railroad was an electric interurban railway that was constructed between Rochester, New York, and Lockport, New York, connecting to the International Railway Co. at Lockport for service into Buffalo. Opened in ...

offered electric trolley service that passed through Medina on tracks running along East Center, up Main and then to Commercial Street and east along a private

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

to Salt Works Road and then to West Center. A series of fires in the 1860s and 1870s led to the construction of most of the district's extant buildings between 1870 and 1900. As a result, they are visually cohesive and uniformly scaled. The most architecturally distinguished building in the district, Bent's Opera House at the northwest corner of Main and Center, is an early product of this period. The village had a diverse group of industries and retailers in the first decades of the 20th century. The fruit orchards in the farms around the village created a need for cold storage facilities near the railroad tracks. Three buildings, the warehouse at 630 Main Street that is now a carpet store, the 613-615 Main Street building and the railway museum building on West Street, reflect the importance of fruit growing at that time. So prosperous was Medina during this period that residents named the new municipal building in 1908 City Hall, out of the expectation that the village, now with a population of 5,000, would eventually become one. Most of those industries declined and eventually closed down over the next few decades. The canal, by then carrying a small fraction of its former traffic, was widened and incorporated into the

New York State Barge Canal New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

system in the late 1910s. It continued to decline. The railroads were affected as well. In 1931 the trolley service was discontinued; the tracks themselves remained for another 30 years. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the market for Medina sandstone dwindled as well. Freight and passenger traffic across the state began using the

New York State Thruway {{Infobox road , state = NY , type = NYST , alternate_name = Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway , maint = NYSTA , map = {{maplink, frame=yes, plain=yes, frame-align=center, frame-width=290, type=line, stroke-width=2, type2=line, from2=New Yor ...

, 10 miles (16 km) to the south, and eventually the Central discontinued passenger service along the route before going bankrupt itself. The buildings of downtown Medina have remained. Many were

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

and renovated with state and federal grant programs. The village has continued to benefit from the canal, which is now mainly a recreational resource but still carries some freight.

Significant contributing properties

The district's boundaries contain 54 buildings, one structure (the railroad tracks) and one site (Rotary Park, at the southeast corner of Main and Center). The park and three nearby buildings, as well as one near the train station, are the only non-contributing properties in the district. Among the others, some are notable within the context of the district. None have been listed individually on the National Register. *Austin and Dye Cold Storage Warehouse, 613–615 Main Street. A 1901 three-story

Medina sandstone Medina sandstone is a geographic subset of the Medina Group stratigraphic formation in New York state and beyond. The name refers specifically to sandstone first quarried in Medina, NY and later quarried in other locations in Orleans County and ...

vernacular building that occupies the southeast corner of the district. *Bancroft Hotel, 343–347 Main Street. Its

dates to 1835, making it the oldest building element in the district. The rest of the building was replaced after a 1927 fire. Today it houses an auto-parts store. *Bent Block, 444 Main Street. Built in 1865, this

building once housed an opera house and was the center of Medina's cultural life. *Building at 415 Proctor Place. Records show that a public right-of-way once went through this former wagon shop with a bricked-over tunnel. *Building at 435 Main Street. The district's oldest building is a stone structure with brick facade built in 1846. *Building at 512 Main Street. This brick Italianate building has some excellent

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

storefronts with red and black Carrara glass. *Central Bank of Medina, 514 Main Street. The district's only neoclassical building dates to 1890, with a facade remodeled in 1926. *City Hall, 600 Main Street. The only government building in the district, built in 1908, is also its only

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

, with rockfaced

and round-headed arch moldings. Its name reflects the village's ambitions at the time of its construction. Modern rear addition is home to the fire department. *S.A. Cook Building, 526–540 Main Street. A long, horizontal brick building that was seen as very modern when it was built in 1911. *First Presbyterian Church, 520 Main Street. The district's only church is an 1872 brick

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

structure set back slightly more from the street than its neighbors. *Fuller Block, 428 Main Street.

Decoration Decoration may refer to: * Decorative arts * A house painter and decorator's craft * An act or object intended to increase the beauty of a person, room, etc. * An award that is a token of recognition to the recipient intended for wearing Other ...

on this 1875 Italianate commercial building includes drip molding on the round-arched windows, intricate brick

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

ling and a bracketed

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. Housed the local

G. C. Murphy G.C. Murphy was a chain of five and dime or variety stores in the United States from 1906 to 2002. They also operated Murphy's Mart (full scale discount stores), Bargain World (closeout merchandise), Terry & Ferris and Bruners (junior department ...

store for many years. *Hart House, 111–115 West Center Street. Built in 1876 as a hotel, this five-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

brick structure is one of the most accomplished of the Italianate buildings in the district, with full-height brick

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s, segmentally arched windows, stone crowns and a bracketed cornice. *Maher Brothers Block, 116–120 East Center Street. This 1873 building is the only one with a

neo-Renaissance Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

facade, added 30 years after construction. *Medina Cold Storage Warehouse, 630 Main Street. Built in 1907, it is similar to the Austin and Dye building across the street. A wood frame packing house was added to the south elevation in the early 1920s. *

, 530 West Street. A timber frame

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

-sided structure built in 1905 that is believed to be the largest extant wooden freight depot in the country. It was converted to its present purpose in 1991. *New York Central Railroad Station, 615 West Street. A

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

ed structure presently used as a senior center, it was built in 1908 of mixed materials and remains mostly intact. *Paddock's Hotel, 500–506 Main Street. The oldest hotel building in the district dates to 1855.

Preservation

Medina has made the district part of a historic overlay district in its

zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...

code. The village's district includes some areas outside of the Register-listed one, such as an extension north to Eagle Street and more of East Center Street along the canal basin. It is meant to protect the district's historic character within the context of Medina's commercial zoning.Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council, , December 2009, retrieved September 3, 2010. In 2009 the Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Commission, with the cooperation of the village and representatives of its downtown business community, drafted a revitalization plan for the district. Business and consumers were surveyed to get data as to what they thought downtown's issues were. Consumers were also asked where they came from and how they used downtown. Businesses, many of which were independent and owned the space they operated from, represented a diverse group of activities, primarily retail goods and services. They employed about 222 people. Most indicated that what they would be most interested in to improve downtown was grant or loan programs to assist with business improvements. Half of them thought parking was an issue for their customers. The customers surveyed were primarily older women. Most were residents of the area who drove downtown to shop (usually at the grocery or drugstore) and attend to personal care needs. They came to downtown a few times a month and were most likely otherwise to go to a big box retailer, shops in nearby towns like

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

or Middleport or malls in the Buffalo area to the southwest. They liked the small-town feel of downtown, but felt it could use more parking and more attention to the appearance of vacant buildings. The plan recommended that the village add a section to its

comprehensive plan Comprehensive planning is an ordered process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The end product is called a comprehensive plan, also known as a general plan, or master plan. This resulting document e ...

dealing with downtown. Specific measures that were suggested to address the issues were several measures to instill pride in the historic downtown, such as the redistribution of sections of the Register application to promote awareness of the district's historic qualities, a window display program in vacant storefronts, making property owners aware of the

tax credit A tax credit is a tax incentive which allows certain taxpayers to subtract the amount of the credit they have accrued from the total they owe the state. It may also be a credit granted in recognition of taxes already paid or a form of state "disc ...

s available to them for renovating income-producing property, and the creation of a Business Improvement District. A separate parking overlay was suggested, based on recalculated demand, to address that issue.

Gallery

File:Fuller Bldg Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, Fuller Building, October 2009 File:City Hall Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, City Hall, October 2009 File:Medina First Presbyterian Church Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, Medina First Presbyterian Church, October 2009 File:S.A. Cook Building Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, S.A. Cook Building, October 2009 File:Bent Block Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, Bent Block / Bent Opera House, October 2009 File:Paddock's Hotel Main Street Historic District Medina NY Oct 09.jpg, Paddock's Hotel, October 2009

References