I present to you all the goings on of Beaver Street (née Plum Alley) from the Monday, February 20th, 1899 edition of the Democrat and Chronicle. Have a great weekend everyone.

* An earlier version of this post incorrectly referenced the former Plum Alley as Eagle Street. Thank you to Bob for the excellent catch.

Slow news day over here, so I’d just like to post a little historical information about RIT, which you may not know, was originally located in the 3rd Ward/Corn Hill. They probably weren’t the best stewards of the neighborhood (famously buying up houses and tearing them down for parking). But they are inextricably linked with the area’s history, and only made the decision to move once it was clear most of thecurrent campus would be torn down for I490.

I’ve attached an image of the campus map from 1957 as well as a photo of a row of fraternity houses. I would love help identifying the location of the frat houses. I have the sneaking suspicion that they were on Clarissa St. and were all torn down shortly after RIT left, but if anyone can help locate them (they’re pretty distinctive), please let me know.

I was trolling additional historic maps and thought to provide a small update to the prior History post. Eagle St. does not appear on either the 1827 or 1834 city directory maps (1827 shown here), but it is on the 1845 map. One of the things that is really telling is how connected Corn Hill was to downtown before being cut off by the highway in the 60’s. I’ll post more about Corn Hill’s history in future posts.

1827:1845:

So I’ve been trying to do a little bit of research about the property. For example, we really didn’t know if there was ever a house there or not. If there was, we may very well be digging up old foundations or debris someday. Well, the first (and best) place to go was the spectacular Monroe County Map Collection. From there I checked out all of the plat maps, but I’m going to paraphrase the three primary ones here.

First is the 1875 Plat Map.
Here we can see there was already a house on the property, and it was relatively small. Interestingly, it is on the corner of Plum Alley, and not Beaver Street. Further, Eagle Street ends halfway to Adams Street. This will be the case for some time.

Fast forward to 1900.
The house is much larger and more elaborate. I don’t know if this is a result of additions to the original house, an all new house, or the addition of detail to the plat map. Records from the time period aren’t great, so it may be difficult to ever find out. We’re now at the corner of Beaver Street, though.

Finally, let’s take a look at 1926.
The house is the same shape as in 1900, but a garage has been added. One of the interesting things to me throughout these maps is how many houses front Beaver Street. These are all gone and replaced with garages or empty land now.

As you can see, even in 1926, Eagle Street ended before it ever got to Adams. With some further digging at the also excellent Fulton History, I found that 94 Adams was torn down in 1968. Even more interesting is the fact that the house at the corner of Adams and Eagle Streets was moved there from 411 Exchange Street in 1976.

Here is that house from 1927:
And here it is today: I’ll have more to write about that house in a future post.

In the meantime, Eagle Street must have been extended between 1968 and 1976, or moving the house to that corner wouldn’t have been possible. I have been completely unable to find a record of when 37 Eagle Street was torn down, but Miss Edna Berry died in her home at 37 Eagle Street on May 19th, 1960, so the house was there at least until then. There are no more recent newspaper articles referencing 37 Eagle Street that I have found yet.

I will continue to research the history of the property and update when I find out more.