STATION OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,1852-1882

(See Editor's Note on page 112)

drawing of it for his highly pictorial Drawing Room Companion. He showed a train "issuing on its career" from the center of its three fine brick arches at the west end of the shed. And called attention to its architectural impressiveness. [See illustration herein.]

That West Side station stood for thirty honorable years. At its west end Lincoln tarried on his one memorable visit to Rochester. The first time that ever I came to Rochester I entered at the old station. I can well remember it; with its lofty vaulted arches and the small doorways for the comings and goings of the trains. The Brackett House, builded into the station. What a superb location for a hotel, so close to the cars, was all that I could think!

Thirty honorable years. And then they tore it down to make way for the first East Side station, between St. Paul and Clinton, which oddly enough stood just another thirty years before it, too, disappeared, in favor of the present really fine edifice. The extensive grade crossing removal plan of 1882— the first large step of its kind in America outside of New York City-necessitated the tearing down of the West Side station. When the old depot went a host of memories went with it; ghostly reminders of the traveled past!

Into the New York Central scheme of things had come, what for many years has been known colloquially as the "Falls road" the direct line, also paralleling the canal-from Rochester west to Lockport and Suspension Bridge, connecting at each of these points with New York Central branches into Buffalo. This line had been organized as far back as 1834, but it was not until 1853 that it was actually opened from Rochester as far as Lockport-a little later on to the Bridge, with all the important connections there to the west.

As a through travel route it leaped at once into high popularity. Because of it, Rochester became for almost three decades one of the most important railroad junctions in America. Heavy trains rolled into the old West Side station from New York and Boston and the East to be broken in two within it; and to continue forward as separate trains, due west to Suspension Bridge, Detroit and Chicago, and southwest to Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago. There was much switching of the many express cars and the sleeping cars. All through trains

tarried in Rochester at least twenty minutes. Plenty of time for a bite in the Brackett House, or perhaps a snack in the even more famous Congress Hall, nearby.

After which, back into the long lines of yellow cars, once again. And if one were ticketed by the Bridge the train swerving off sharply to the right just beyond State Street and through the pleasant greenery of Brown Square-then new and smart and fine, where on summer nights the youth of Rochester chatted or held hands-just like youth from time immemorial. Off and away and past the square. Across the canal and perhaps halting for coal or wood or water at the fine big engine house near Lyell Avenue (also honored pictorially by Ballou) before really getting on its way again.

A later generation of New York Central management robbed Rochester of its just importance as a junction and sent all the through passenger trains and traffic by way of Buffalo, making that city the chief intersecting point and reducing the Falls road to the humbleness of a mere local branch. Some day a far-sighted administration in the Grand Central Station may restore this line to its pristine glory, and again make it, as it rightfully deserves to be, a traffic link of real importance between Rochester and the West.

Many changes and sweeping ones were destined to come to New York Central. In the year that marked the very beginning of its corporate existence-1853-a direct railroad had been built up the east bank of the Hudson from New York to a point just opposite Albany. This direct road-the Hudson River Railroad-had been constructed against the bitter opposition of the steamboat men, so similar to that of the greedy canal interests. With its fortunes there had come into the limelight the magic name of Vanderbilt, erstwhile Commodore of the steamboats, but now, sagely, determined to carve his monument in inland transport of a more enduring sort. Cornelius Vanderbilt had made himself a commanding figure, first in the New York and Harlem which prior to the completion of the Hudson River road, was the rail connection between New York and Albany by the roundabout and tedious way of Chatham and the Boston and Albany. Yet it was from the outset a prosperous road.

Gradually the power of the Hudson River and the Harlem increased. Battles followed between these roads-now closely linked—and the conservative first New York Central. The old Central crowd went down. Vanderbilt emerged the conqueror. The three roads were merged-under the generic title of New York Central and Hudson River-and the Hudson at Albany finally spanned by a fine bridge. That was all in 1869, and two years later the first Grand Central Station-in its day considered a world masterpiece among railroad stations-was opened. Thenceforth one could go from New York to Buffalo or Suspension Bridge without changing cars and Rochester still remained a junction point of prime importance.

Until 1914 the New York Central and Hudson River continued its great career with name and general organization practically unchanged. In those long years it accomplished many things: in the 'seventies it four-tracked its main line all the way from Albany to Buffalo-which at the time was regarded as a most foolhardy venture-and in the following decade it added to itself the unfortunate New York, West Shore and Buffalo. The West Shore had been built by its promoters in the sublime thought that it might become a real competitor of the Central. That thought quickly perished. The road died a'borning. For a few brief months in 1884, it attempted to run competing trains into the present Pennsylvania station in West Avenue here, but thereafter it was part and parcel of the New York Central, and its trains, as long as they were continued as separate entities, used the New York Central stations, at Rochester and elsewhere across the state.

Similarly, in 1891, the important Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg was acquired and merged. Five years before the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg had forced an entrance, against considerable opposition, into Rochester and had opened its own station in State Street here. For many years before that it had threaded Charlotte in. its attenuated arm from Oswego to Suspension Bridge. But the Rochester move-and some others like it-alarmed New York Central. It made overtures for the Watertown road, and eventually secured it, although it paid a generous price for it. The State Street station was abandoned for passenger purposes a few years later,