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Circa 1904. "State Street, Rochester, New York." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
Take a look on the left sidewalk next to the street clock: there is an elaborate black cast-iron street lamp with two clear globes suspended from a crossbar.
Fellow Rochesterians, here it is colorized.
The Fidelity Trust building is actually the Powers Building -- see full history and current pix here:
While there do not appear to be any street lamps, there are poles that appear to be suited to support lamps - and they do not seem to have any other function.
[Look closer. Those are supports for the streetcar wires. - Dave]
When I was a kid, my dentist had a sign in the office that read "Painless Dentist Upstairs" - off-putting to say the least as there was no second floor in his establishment.
But in Rochester it seems to have been true - examine the windows in the building on the upper right, where Oxide Gas - I take that to be Nitrous - is on offer.
This must have been around the time that the bicyle craze hit Rochester.
You look at these old pictures and wonder when jaywalking became illegal. Maybe in the 1930s when there were more cars in the big cities.
I love how different my city is in the past than what it is today. This was taken about 90 years before I was born so it was pretty amazing.
Love to see pictures of the mid-size and smaller cities that you have been showing. Especially, since many of them we might not get to visit in person. Read where Rochester is second only to NYC in size of economy even though it is third in population in the state. Busy looking street here in 1904.
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