New York State Route 353 (NY 353) is a north–south

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

located within

Cattaraugus County, New York Cattaraugus County (locally known as Catt County) is a county in Western New York, with one side bordering Pennsylvania. As of the United States 2020 census, the population was 77,042. The county seat is Little Valley. The county was created ...

, in the United States. It extends for from an intersection with NY 417 in the city of Salamanca to a junction with U.S. Route 62 (US 62) in the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

. In between, the route traverses isolated and undeveloped areas of the county, save for the villages of Little Valley and Cattaraugus. In the latter, NY 353 intersects and briefly

overlap Overlap may refer to: * In set theory, an overlap of elements shared between sets is called an intersection, as in a Venn diagram. * In music theory, overlap is a synonym for reinterpretation of a chord at the boundary of two musical phrases * O ...

s with NY 242. NY 353 was assigned to a north–south highway connecting Dayton to nearby Perrysburg. At the time, modern NY 353 was part of

NY 18 New York State Route 18 (NY 18) is an east–west state highway in western New York in the United States. It runs parallel to the south shore of Lake Ontario for most of its length between Niagara County and Monroe County. NY 18, ...

, which extended from the Pennsylvania state line to

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

via Buffalo. NY 18 was cut back to its current western terminus north of Buffalo on January 1, 1962, at which time NY 353 was extended southeastward to Salamanca over NY 18's former routing. The original Dayton–Perryburg segment of NY 353 was transferred to Cattaraugus County in 1980 and is now part of County Route 58 (CR 58).

Route description

NY 353 begins at an intersection with NY 417 in the western portion of the city of Salamanca. It initially heads northward on the city-maintained Center Street through a commercial section of Salamanca; however, the surroundings become more residential after the route crosses the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...

. The highway exits the city limits shortly afterward, at which point maintenance of the highway shifts to the

New York State Department of Transportation The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) is the department of the New York state government responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports, waterways and aviation facilities in ...

(NYSDOT). Now in the surrounding town of Salamanca, NY 353 continues northward on Center Street into a large, mostly undeveloped valley surrounding Little Valley Creek, where the route passes east of Bucktooth Hill and west of Lindell Lookout. The Center Street name ends about north of the city line at a junction with North State Street ( CR 94/ NY 950B). Past State Street, NY 353 heads through the valley as an unnamed road, paralleling the former

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 ...

of an

Erie–Lackawanna The Erie Lackawanna Railway , known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route ...

rail line (now the

Pat McGee Trail The Pat McGee Trail is a rail trail in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States, named for Patricia McGee (1934-2005). Background Pat McGee was an area legislator of Cattaraugus County who lived in Franklinville, New York, into the town of Little Valley and the small

of Elkdale, where the highway passes a local country club and intersects the

North Country Trail The North Country National Scenic Trail, generally known as the North Country Trail or simply the NCT, is a footpath stretching over from Middlebury in central Vermont to Lake Sakakawea State Park in central North Dakota in the United States; ...

. North of Elkdale, the route curves to the northwest, matching a similar turn in the path of the creek valley. This turn brings NY 353 to the outskirts of the village of Little Valley, where it intersects with CR 88 (Baker Road), CR 96 (Killborn Corners) and NY 242 at separate junctions east of the village limits. NY 353 becomes

concurrent Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to: Law * Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea'' * Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...

with the latter, following NY 242 into the village of Little Valley, a stark departure from the sparsely populated areas to the southeast. The concurrent routes, known as Rock City Street, head into the village's central business district, where NY 242 splits off to the southwest. Route 353 Cattaraugus NY

North of Little Valley, NY 353 (known as Erie Street from the center of Little Valley to the village line) passes through mostly rural areas as it winds its way northwestward through a mountainous portion of Cattaraugus County. In the route's short distance in

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

, it intersects CR 5 (New Albion Road) and CR 14A (Buelow Road) before traveling through several miles of rural

New Albion New Albion, also known as ''Nova Albion'' (in reference to an archaic name for Britain), was the name of the continental area north of Mexico claimed by Sir Francis Drake for England when he landed on the North American west coast in 1579. Thi ...

. Just outside the small village of Cattaraugus, NY 353 intersects CR 76 (Lovers Lane Road) and CR 6 (Leon Road). NY 353 becomes Main Street in Cattaraugus, in the middle of which it intersects CR 12, the main highway serving the towns of

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

and East Otto. From here, the route crosses hilly, largely undeveloped sections of the towns of

and

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, meeting CR 4 (Broadway Road, the main spur into Gowanda), CR 57 (which heads into the northwest corner of the county into Markhams and Cottage), and the north end of CR 5 to reach the more level town of

. Just west of the Persia–Dayton town line, NY 353 becomes Dayton–Cattaraugus Road and turns due north, paralleling the town line as it crosses a low-lying section of Dayton. After , the route makes a sharp turn to the northwest, paralleling the

New York and Lake Erie Railroad The New York & Lake Erie is a class III railroad operating in Western New York. The NYLE was formed in 1978 to operate a portion of former Erie trackage that Conrail no longer wanted. Today, the railroad operates between Gowanda to Conewango ...

into the hamlet of Dayton, where NY 353 comes to an end at an intersection with US 62.

History

The section of modern NY 353 from the west end of the

with NY 242 in Little Valley to

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...

was originally designated as part of Route 4, an unsigned

legislative route In the United States, a legislative route (LR) or legislative highway is a highway defined by laws passed in a state legislature. The numbering of such highways may or may not correspond to the numbers familiar to the public as part of the state, ...

, by the

New York State Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official ...

in 1908. When the first set of posted routes in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

were assigned in 1924, this section of legislative Route 4 became part of

, which initially extended south through Salamanca to the Pennsylvania state line and north to Buffalo via

. By 1926, the Salamanca–Little Valley highway was also designated as part of NY 17A, an alternate route of NY 17 between Randolph and Salamanca. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, NY 18 was extended northeastward from Buffalo to

while NY 17A was renumbered to NY 17H. The Salamanca–Dayton leg of NY 18 was modified twice in the 1930s. NY 18 initially passed through

on its way from Little Valley to Cattaraugus; however, it was realigned to follow a more direct alignment between Little Valley and Cattaraugus that bypassed New Albion to the east. Meanwhile, the overlap with NY 17H was eliminated when the NY 17H designation was removed and replaced with an extended NY 242 west of Little Valley. NY 353, meanwhile, was assigned to the portion of Peck Hill Road between US 62 west of the

hamlet of the same name and NY 39 in Perrysburg. When NY 18 was truncated to its current western terminus in Lewiston on January 1, 1962, NY 353 was extended southeast to

by way of NY 18's former routing and a short

with US 62. NY 353 ended at NY 17 in Salamanca. NY 353 remained unchanged until April 1, 1980, when ownership and maintenance of the original Dayton–Perrysburg segment of NY 353 was transferred from the state of New York to Cattaraugus County as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. Following the swap, NY 353 was truncated to what had been the eastern terminus of its overlap with US 62 in Dayton. The former routing of NY 353 along Peck Hill Road is now part of CR 58. Until the 1990s, the Salamanca end of NY 353 split in two directions, with the main route taking a more westerly track into the west end of Salamanca and an eastern route, designated as Reference Route 950B (but marked "TO 353" on the lone road marker), entered Salamanca and merged with city-maintained State Street. In the late 1990s, the northern half of 950B was handed over to the Cattaraugus County Highway Department (which had shared maintenance of that route before then, as Route 94) and the junction restructured. The southern half of NY 950B remains under state maintenance; as it connects to no other state roads anymore, it has not been maintained to the level of other state roads in the area.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{NYSR external links, type=N, nyroutes=yes, termini=yes, route=353 353 Transportation in Cattaraugus County, New York

Route description

History

Major intersections

See also

References

External links