Lehigh Valley Railroad Station is a historic
railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
located at
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 ...
in
Monroe County, New York
Monroe County is a county in the Finger Lakes region of the State of New York. The county is along Lake Ontario's southern shore. At the 2020 census, Monroe County's population was 759,443, an increase since the 2010 census. Its county seat a ...
. The
Lehigh Valley Railroad
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...
built the station in 1905 but stopped using the station for passenger service in the 1950s. Later the station was used as a bus terminal and then as a night club. In the 1980s the building was added to 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 ...
and today it houses the
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is a restaurant, blues venue, and biker bar chain located mostly in upstate New York with branches in New York City, and formerly in New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland.
History
First opened in 1988 on Willow Street ...
restaurant.
History
![Rochester subway entrance postcard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Rochester_subway_entrance_postcard.jpg)
Around the turn of the 20th century, the
Lehigh Valley Railroad
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...
was the last of several railroads to bring passenger service to Rochester.
The first passenger terminal was a small wooden depot constructed a few blocks to the south of the later station, near where
I-490 passes today.
The current station was built in 1905 and consisted of a passenger station and freight terminal. The buildings are located above the Johnson-Seymour mill on the
Genesee River
The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.
The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...
and across the river from the site of the former
Erie Railroad Depot. The passenger station is a brick, hip-roofed, -story structure with French Renaissance overtones, including "two-toned walls, copper gutters and flashing and a red tiled roof."
The freight terminal is a 1-story brick structure. Behind the buildings was two tracks and an
island platform
An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...
elevated above the river with the Lehigh Valley tracks heading south along the east side of the river. To the left of the buildings was an elevated service road that led to a bigger Lehigh Valley railyard.
Passenger service ended in 1950 with the decline of the railroad which began during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and resulted in it having to restructure its debt multiple times under the
Chandler Acts of 1938–9.
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Post-train station years
After the ending of passenger service, the station briefly served as a bus depot, but it was abandoned completely in 1954. Around the same time, the platform and tracks from the station were demolished and most of the service road was demolished in the 1960s. The buildings became widely known as an eyesore in Rochester, and a refurbishment attempt in the 1970s failed. Local developer Max Farash bought the buildings in 1982 (for one dollar), and a two-year restoration process ensued. In 1985, the building was 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 ...
.
After a few years in the 1990s as a nightclub called Carpe Diem, the buildings now house Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is a restaurant, blues venue, and biker bar chain located mostly in upstate New York with branches in New York City, and formerly in New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland.
History
First opened in 1988 on Willow Street ...
. In 2018, a re-development project on the site of the former Rochester Subway Court Street station and remains of the service road resulted in a luxury high rise being built next door and in one of the footings used to support the station being used to also support a pedestrian walkway called the Genesee Riverway Promenade. From the promenade, one can see the former braces on the station deck that once helped support the train platform and tracks.
Gallery
File:Rochester Downtown - Late 1930s.jpg, An aerial view of Rochester Downtown in the late 1930s, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Station is on the lower right
File:Lehigh_Valley_Railroad_Station,_Rochester,_New_York.jpg, Bar-B-Que restaurant in 2022
See also
*Court Street Bridge (Genesee River)
Court Street Bridge is a historic stone arch bridge located at Rochester in Monroe County, New York. It was designed by city engineer J. Y. McClintock, constructed in 1893, and spans the Genesee River. It has six shallow arches over the river and ...
*Rundel Memorial Library
The Rundel Memorial Building is a historic library building located at Rochester in Monroe County, New York. It is the original downtown site of the Rochester Public Library, and along with the Bausch & Lomb Library Building directly across the str ...
References
Railway stations in Rochester, New York
Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Former Lehigh Valley Railroad stations
Railway stations in Monroe County, New York
Gothic Revival architecture in New York (state)
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1905
National Register of Historic Places in Rochester, New York
Former railway stations in New York (state)
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