Park Avenue, Rochester NY

The history of Park Avenue

Before there were houses here, there was a racetrack. The Union Race Course and its tavern stood near today’s corner of East Avenue and Vick Park A, and harness horses drew racing fans from across the state. In 1866 seedsman and florist James Vick bought the course and the tavern, planted the grounds with flowers and shrubs, and for a time people rode out East Avenue just to see the floral display.

In the early 1870s Vick divided the tract into building lots. He brought the two straightaways of the old track out to East Avenue at right angles and named them Avenue A and Avenue B, Vick Park. The curve at the south end of the track was kept, and when Park Avenue was later extended, the surveyor followed it. That is why Park Avenue still bends near Vick Park A and Vick Park B, a stretch some old-timers once called Vick circle.

Park Avenue itself started as three separate streets that were brought into the City of Rochester during the 1860s and 1870s, and its joined-up route still keeps that gentle curve. Its growth followed the mansions going up on nearby East Avenue. The oldest houses sit closest to Alexander Street, where mid-1800s Greek Revival and Italianate homes, many of them brick, give way to Queen Anne houses farther out.

Horse-drawn streetcars arrived in the 1880s, with a line running from Alexander Street to Vick Park and later extended east toward Brighton, as James Vick had predicted. The Rochester Railway Company electrified the cars in the 1890s, and middle-class houses filled the side streets. By 1890 a published view of the city already pictured residences on Avenue A, Vick Park.

East of Culver Road, the ABC streets continue the neighborhood with their own early 20th century homes. Across the Park Avenue area, many side streets carry college names. A 1951 newspaper account traces the theme to Harvard Street, first a single block from Meigs to Rowley, which Hobart Arnold named for his brother-in-law, John Harvard Castle; other streets later followed with college names.

Over the 1900s many large houses were divided into apartments, while the storefronts on Park Avenue kept serving the neighborhood. The Park Avenue Summer Art Festival, held each August along the avenue, began as a neighborhood celebration of the arts in the 1970s and has grown into a large annual event.

In 2020 the National Park Service listed the Park Avenue Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, after about three years of work by neighbors and the Landmark Society. The nomination covered roughly 1,600 properties and recognized the area’s intact early 20th century housing, including many architect-designed homes.

The homes in Park Avenue today

The neighborhood’s houses read like a timeline. Near Alexander Street you find mid-1800s Greek Revival and Italianate homes, many in brick. Moving east, Queen Annes give way to American Foursquares, Colonial Revivals, Tudor Revival homes and smaller cottages, plus brick apartment buildings. Front porches are a signature, side streets are narrow with houses set close together, and many larger houses have been converted to multiple units.

Landmarks and parks

• Park Avenue commercial strip - streetcar-era storefronts that still serve the neighborhood
• Vick Park A and Vick Park B - residential streets laid out on the old Union Race Course
• Park Avenue curve near Vick Park - follows the south turn of the old racetrack
• Vick-Allison House, 12 Vick Park A - a City of Rochester designated landmark
• Culver Road and Harvard Street triangle - small green listed in the City parks directory in 1917
• Park Avenue Historic District marker at 184 Culver Road

Buying a home in Park Avenue

Fall for the house, then do the homework. These are the first things we check here, on top of the usual inspection:

• Converted houses: many big homes were split into apartments. Check the City’s Certificate of Occupancy for the legal number of units before you buy or plan to convert back to single-family.
• Historic tax credit: owner-occupants in the National Register district may qualify for the New York State Historic Homeowner Tax Credit. Ask whether the house is a contributing property, and apply before any work begins.
• City designation: ask whether the property is a City landmark or sits in a City preservation district, since those require a Certificate of Appropriateness for exterior changes, unlike the National Register listing.
• Lead-safe condition and disclosure: nearly every house here predates 1978, so ask for the federal lead disclosure and consider a lead inspection, especially for painted porches, windows and trim.
• The full city, school and county tax bill for the exact parcel
• School assignment for the exact address, confirmed with the Rochester City School District

The bigger picture on city taxes, lead rules, two-family homes and the City’s homebuyer grant is in our City of Rochester guide.

Selling a home in Park Avenue

Buyers who search for Park Avenue are often looking for exactly what makes it Park Avenue: the homes, the history and places like Park Avenue commercial strip. We put that story in the marketing, price the home against true comparables, and launch it to draw a crowd. How we sell · What is my Park Avenue home worth?

Park Avenue FAQ

Sources

• Rochester Public Library: Historic Scrapbooks, Streets Vol. 1 (1917 Rochester Herald and 1922 Times-Union clippings on the Union Race Course and Vick Park)
• Landmark Society: Park Avenue Historic District listed
• WXXI News: Park Ave neighborhood gets historic designation (2020)
• The Daily Record: Neighborhood Focus, Park Avenue (2009)
• Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery: Roads That Lead to Mount Hope Cemetery (Harvard Street naming)
• City of Rochester: Individually Designated Landmark Properties (March 2024)
• WHEC: Construction on Park Avenue uncovers trolley tracks
• Neighborhood names and boundaries: Celebrate City Living, a City of Rochester partnership

We describe neighborhoods by their history, homes and landmarks, never by who lives there. For school or safety questions, use the official sources so you can decide for yourself.

More Rochester neighborhoods: Cobbs Hill · Highland Park · Monroe Village · Neighborhood of the Arts · South Wedge · Swillburg · Upper Monroe · Upper Mount Hope · Plymouth-Exchange · Susan B. Anthony · All 35 Rochester neighborhoods