Fairport, then: what the shops on Main Street used to be
Eleven places you already know, and the buildings they moved into: a 1911 trolley station, a 1924 bank and a 1938 fire hall among them.
This page stays as the link for this issue. The latest Fairport, then is always at one address.
You can buy yarn in a trolley station, order a cocktail in a bank and drink a beer in a 1934 Pure Oil building. Many of the places you already use on Main Street moved into buildings with a past. Here are 11 of them, from the lift bridge to Perrin Street. Walk them in order and end at the museum, the one stop here that is open for the sake of the story.
The lift bridge
The Main Street lift bridge went up in 1914, built by H.S. Kerbaugh, Inc. of Philadelphia as part of Contract 63 for the Barge Canal. In 1957 the Fairport Chamber of Commerce proposed removing it, because a raised bridge blocks two streets; public outcry kept it. A 2009 federal engineering survey puts its completion in 1913, but the canal's National Register nomination and the Canal Corporation both say 1914, so 1914 is the date used here.
North Main Street
The Box Factory at 6 North Main holds three of the places on this list: Clementine Coffee, Lift Bridge Ice Cream and LULU Taqueria. It began as a DeLand factory building in the 1890s and later held York State Fruit and then Certo. A National Register form says that by 1906 Robert Douglas was making cider and vinegar in the former DeLand works, and that the pectin he drew from apple pomace was named Certo in 1921.
Lift Bridge Yarns at 23 North Main is in the 1911 Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern trolley station, a village landmark since May 5, 2011.
Barranco's Clothing at 32 North Main fills the Deal Block, which dates from about the 1870s and once housed the Fairport Herald. The store opened on North Main Street in 1914, and the village's 2014 survey says it has been in this building since 1928.
Firehouse Woodworks at 113 North Main works out of the Northside Fire Hall, built in 1938 to serve the north end of the village.
South Main Street
Bonnie & Clyde at 58 South Main was built in 1924 as the Fairport National Bank and has been a village landmark since June 19, 2008. The old vault is now a private dining room.
The Howard Hanna Fairport Office at 65 South Main went up in 1953 in Quonset hut style and was remodeled in 1987. The Town Historian writes that Church Motors, which offered Texaco products and sold Dodge and Plymouth cars, moved there from the corner of Church and Main by 1953.
Fairport Credit Union at 70 South Main is in the John E. Howard House, from the 1840s or 1850s and a village landmark since November 4, 2010. Peck's 1895 county history lists a J. E. Howard on Fairport's first board of trustees in 1867 and, with L. T. Howard, a large blacksmithing and wagonmaking business. No source says he is the man the house is named for, so take the name as the landmark list gives it.
Fairport Brewing Company at 99 South Main pours in the 1934 Pure Oil building, a village landmark since January 3, 2013.
Church Street
The First Congregational Church at 26 East Church Street, the address of Bertha Agor Memorial Nursery School, is a brick church from 1868 with additions in 1900, 1924 and 1951. The congregation began in December 1824, when nine people met at the home of Jesse Perrin to form it. Perrin and his brother Glover bought land in the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, and the town of Perinton is named for them.
Finish at the museum
The Fairport Museum at 18 Perrin Street was finished in 1938 as a WPA project and opened that February as the Fairport Public Library. In 1914 the Chamber of Commerce asked the Carnegie Foundation for a library, and the village was granted $11,000, then lost the grant when no one could agree on a site. In 1979 the school district gave the building to the village, which turned it over to the Perinton Historical Society as a museum. It is open Sundays and Tuesdays 2 to 4 pm and Saturdays 9 am to 1 pm, March through mid-December.