Old Stone Warehouse is city's oldest commercial building
The Old Stone Warehouse on Mount Hope Avenue, Rochester's oldest commercial building, was built in 1822 and constructed to fit into an unusually shaped site that would be formed by waterways.
Built at the proposed juncture of the Erie Canal and a feeder channel (used to carry boats from the Genesee River to the canal), the massive trapezoid-shaped warehouse became a key part of Rochester's industrial, commercial and transportation history.
The warehouse was built by Myron Holley and John Gilbert, who secured its location before the canal network around the site was completed. Myron Holley, for whom the village of Holley was named, also helped finance the Erie Canal. Holley and Gilbert built a basin in front of their warehouse for boats waiting to be loaded or to go east over the nearby Broad Street Aqueduct.
The irregular shape of the warehouse was dictated by the meeting place of the planned canal routes, and its stone walls and thick wooden columns were necessary for the heavy loads to be stored there. Masons built the structure with large blocks of Medina sandstone extracted from the banks of the Genesee River.
By 1838, the warehouse had been converted into a foundry where stoves and other iron products were cast. The original building measured 40 by 100 feet, and in 1864, it was enlarged to 74 by 150 feet. Over the years, the building was used as a foundry, reverted back to a warehouse for tile and pottery, was then used as a malt-house and brewery, and then went back into use as a warehouse. After being abandoned in 1968, local developers bought it in 1986 and converted it into office space.
Bivona Child Advocacy Center, located on Lake Avenue, expects to make the building its new home sometime next summer.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.