Midtown Plaza (Rochester)
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Midtown Plaza is a shopping mall in downtown Rochester, New York.
Designed by Victor Gruen, Midtown Plaza was dedicated on April 10, 1962 as the first downtown indoor mall in the United States. The first enclosed shopping center had been Southdale Center 1956, also designed by Gruen. The idea for this mall started with discussions between Gilbert J.C. McCurdy, owner of the McCurdy's department stores and Maurice F. Forman, owner of the B. Forman Co. department stores. At that time strip plazas were growing in popularity. Though both owners had opened branch stores they were concerned about Downtown Rochester's viability and came up with the idea of an indoor shopping center.
Gruen was at the height of his influence when Midtown was completed and the project attracted international attention. City officials and planners from around the globe came to see Gruen's solution to the mid-century urban crisis. Midtown won several design awards.
Gruen described the aerial view of Rochester as a giant parking lot with a few buildings to inconvenience traffic flow. His intention was to create a pedestrian friendly town square for Rochester, NY, a medium sized city near the mouth of the Genesee River. He incorporated art, benches, fountains, a four hundred seat auditorium and a sidewalk cafe into his plans hoping to encourage the sort of social intermingling that he saw as the enriching essence of urban life.
Later in life Gruen dismissed the strictly commercial suburban malls as "those bastard developments" but continued to hold Midtown in high regard. It is probably the project that most closely followed his plan and shared his civic vision. In addition to the shopping center, the Plaza also includes a skyscraper office building.
Midtown Plaza was economically vibrant into the early eighties when suburban shopping malls opened outside of the city. Surrounded by high pockets of poverty, Midtown has struggled to keep tenants since then. Midtown's struggles increased in the mid-1990s when the mall's two anchors, McCurdy's and Forman's, closed in 1994. Their closing was quickly followed by the closing of the Midtown branch of a regional high end grocery chain, Wegmans. Once considered the sign of a new urbanism, the Plaza was placed on the list of 2002 Empire Zones.
Current tenants include Peebles department store, Radio Shack, Payless Shoes, some downscale clothing stores, a dollar store, two jewelry stores (one is scheduled to leave Midtown Plaza in February of 2008), a gift shop and a US post office. Located directly underneath Midtown Plaza is a three level, 1,843 space parking garage. Midtown Plaza is also famous for its Clock of Nations designed by Geri Kavanaugh. The clock, which represents 12 nations, has 12 cylinders each with a scene with puppets for each nation. Considered a significant piece of art when it was unveiled, the original puppetry was not well maintained and was replaced in the mid-70's with the work of a local housewife.
It was announced on October 16, 2007 that Midtown Plaza will be knocked down to make way for the new PAETEC headquarters via eminent domain. The PAETEC complex will include two office buildings, one five-story building with some offices and PAETEC employee recreation and daycare facilities, and a tall (30+ story) office tower for up to 1500 company employees with a public observation deck on its highest floor. PAETEC chief executive Arunas Chesonis says the central PAETEC office tower will be Rochester's tallest office building, exceeding the 443 foot height of the nearby Xerox Building, when completed late in 2011.
The final Christmas season at Midtown Plaza took place in 2007. A 40-foot Douglas Fir was donated to the mall by Dave Manioci, Midtown's Chief Engineer. A tribute to Midtown took place on December 1, 2007, which attracted thousands of people from Rochester, NY and the surrounding areas to what was called "a magical event." The beloved Monorail had its last run on December 24, 2007. All retail and office space at Midtown except for the adjoining Euclid Building wing will close to the public for the last time on August 1, 2008, while some demolition work on unoccupied portions of the building will already have begun before that date. The Euclid building, which houses some offices and the studios of Clear Channel Communications' six Rochester area radio stations, will close at midnight on December 31, 2008 and all of its occupants will move to new quarters elsewhere in the city on or before that date.
[edit] Former Anchors
B. Forman Closed 1994; company no longer in business
McCurdy's Midtown store closed 1994; suburban stores acquired and operated by the Bon-Ton chain
Wegmans Midtown store closed 1995
[edit] Further reading
The Heart of Our Cities, Victor Gruen
Mall Maker, M. Jeffrey Hardwick
