|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
On the corner of Joseph Avenue and Loomis Street in Northeast Rochester, a portion of an impressive brick building stands. The nearly 100-year-old former synagogue is a striking sight next to modern residential units and corner convenience stores.
On its lawn, a sign was displayed seven years ago proclaiming: “Joseph Avenue Arts and Culture Alliance Performing Arts Center, coming 2018.”
Five years after that, the date changed to “Early 2023.”
Now, more than two years later, the Congression B’Nai Israel synagogue entryway still stands, blueprints for a new building exist, a sign is still displayed, but no date is set and no arts center has been constructed.
The need for an arts education and performance center in the Joseph Avenue neighborhood has been studied, surveyed, and planned for the last decade. Now, JAACA says securing funding is the last hurdle. To date, JAACA has raised $2.8 million for the arts center. However, a $1.9 million gap remains.
“It can feel like a long journey when you look back at it, but we have come so far,” says Neil Scheier M.D., JAACA president.
About a decade ago, as part of a vision plan, Scheier discussed prospects for the center with community organizations to find the best way to revitalize and provide arts and culture programming for the neighborhood. The JAACA Center for Performing and Visual Arts is expected to be built on the national historic site, with a 300-seat theater, practice space, community meeting area, and a permanent exhibit on the history of the neighborhood.
Scheier envisions a central location for JAACA’s programming: daytime designated for seniors, after-school hours for young people, and the weekends for families.
Currently, the organization uses a variety of local schools, libraries, and churches for its free arts and arts education programs. Establishing those features even without a building was important to JAACA and its belief in transformative work.
“I know it’s not the wealthiest of neighborhoods, but education has always been, to me, the great equalizer. If you learn how to do something, they can’t take that away from you,” agrees Ted Baumhauer, a leadership developer and performer who has worked with JAACA. “(JAACA) is providing opportunities that are sorely needed in the Northeast.”
“I’m very happy to sit here a decade later and say, even through just our programming, it has really helped to put the needs of the (Joseph Avenue) community on the front burner for a lot of other agencies and funders as well,” Scheier says. “We have been banging the drum for an area that did not have a banging of a drum since World War II.”
Immigrant history
The building itself is baked into the long history of Rochester’s Northeast.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, waves of eastern and southern European immigrants came to the area. Many worked in the city’s burgeoning garment industry at companies like Hickey-Freeman, which had its production factory only one block over from Joseph Avenue.
Rochester has a long history of Jewish immigration. Early immigrants were mostly from Germany, had carved out their place in American society, and now worked to help newly arrived immigrants. For example, the Baden Street Settlement house, a mile south of Hickey-Freeman, was started in 1901 by the German-Jewish Temple B’rith Kodesh.
Contrasting with the already established reformist B’rith Kodesh and conservative Temple Beth El congregations, the synagogue at Joseph Avenue was part of the Orthodox tradition. This aligned with the new immigrants who typically adhered to the Jewish law.
The synagogue was first formed in 1921 by Austrian immigrants as Congregation Ahavas Achim Anshi Austria and was reformed as Congregation B’Nai Israel in 1937. The building itself was finished in 1928 and designed by local draftsman Louis Friedman.
Scheier says that until 2004, the building was used as a synagogue, then briefly as a church for an African-American congregation, until it finally became vacant.
Classified as Georgian Revival, the brick building reflected contemporary architectural styles and American character.
“One of the reasons it’s so significant of a site is because of that architectural history,” says Scheier, who oversaw its designation on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The entrance was marked by two tall end columns and a recessed entry, which still stands at the site. The interior contained a worship space with a balcony along three sides where women would sit during service, with a painting simulating the sky on the ceiling, and a chandelier.
A combination of water and fire damage in 2022 caused structural damage. As a result, all but the front entranceway had to be torn down.
“The roof was leaking throughout those vacant years and then there was a small fire which didn’t really do much internal damage but made us take an engineering look at the building,” Scheier says. “And the engineers said the entire back part of the building is just not salvageable here. So, that’s why you only see the front part now.”
A changing neighborhood
Just as the former synagogue has changed over the past century, the demographics of the Joseph Avenue neighborhood, within the boundaries of what is now known as the 14261 area, has as well.
Due to a variety of forces, including white residents exiting the city for the suburbs and the Second Great Black Migration, the neighborhood has become primarily one of people of color. Forty-five percent of households are Black, compared to 36 percent across the city. Joseph Avenue also now has one of the largest Hispanic concentrations in Rochester: 42 percent of the population is Hispanic, compared to 19 percent citywide.
This is reflected in physical spaces, with the bilingual Eugenio Maria De Hostos Charter School, International Plaza event space and marketplace, as well as advocacy organizations Ibero-American Action League and the Father Tracy Center all located close by.
The region is more economically disadvantaged than the city as a whole, with 39 percent of Joseph Avenue households falling into poverty status, compared with 25 percent across all of Rochester. It also tends to suffer from more violent incidents, including firearm-related crime.
Even so, the neighborhood has followed the citywide trend of decreasing crime incidents overall. Examples of revitalization efforts exist as well: the Avenue Blackbox Theater opened in 2018 in a former storefront, the Lincoln branch library completed renovations in 2023, and Edna Craven Estates added 164 affordable housing units to the area the same year.
Scheier believes stereotypes of high crime or impoverished streets have damaged Joseph Avenue’s reputation, which, for him, is vibrant and community-centered.
“For a long time, the reputation was if you worked in the center city of Rochester and lived in Irondequoit, you did not go up Joseph Avenue. You’d go all the way around through 390 and up to Ridge Road,” he says. “Today, you drive right through Joseph Ave, no problem.
“But it still has that reputation because any time something good happens there, it gets the backpage. Every time something bad happens there it gets the front page,” Scheier says of media coverage. “And there’s plenty of good things happening up there that people just don’t seem to be aware of.”
Support for the arts center building itself has been strongly consistent among both the community and city leaders. The Rochester 2034 comprehensive plan sang the praises of JAACA when it was adopted in 2019, and it received letters of support by then-Mayor Lovely Warren, state Sen. Joe Robach, and Rep. Joe Morelle.
The site was named a “Five to Revive” site by the Landmark Society of Western New York in 2021 and received $400,000 for the building from the National Parks Service in 2023. Locally, Daisy Marquis Jones, the Adler Family, and ESL foundations are all supporting the project.
Scheier says that once all funds are secured, the site approval process through the city will take another 60 to 90 days, after which construction can begin.
“The financial component really is the last hurdle for us,” he says. “We want to come through this clean, so to speak. We don’t want to have a mortgage at the end of this and burden our organization financially for the many years to come after the building is complete.
“We are now searching for the company or the family who would really like to make a difference and put their name on this building and help us bridge this gap,” Scheier adds.
Making it work
JAACA has been dedicated to providing free and accessible arts programming since its inception, even without a building.
“It was the community that said to us, ‘Let’s not wait for a center, do something now,’” says Scheier. “And it boomed. Hundreds and hundreds of people showing up for the programming we did.”
JAACA has partnered with both larger organizations, such as the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hochstein School of Music, and individual performers to provide arts and arts education with partnering schools, libraries, and other performance spaces.
Baumhauer has been able to run multiple programs through JAACA for young people focused on his art form, juggling.
“Jugglers are traditionally not held very high on the totem pole of performing, but I consider juggling a deep and rich metaphor,” he says. “It teaches you self-correcting behavior, it teaches you perseverance, it teaches you how to learn.”
Most recently, he completed the first session of a weekly afterschool program through JAACA with middle schoolers at the Eugenio Maria De Hostos Charter School. Participating students receive juggling balls and a diabolo yoyo, which they can keep —a fact that fascinates them.
“I had to tell them multiple times, ‘Yes, these are yours to keep! Take them home and practice,’” says Baumhauer, who is already encouraged by their progress even after only one session. “I’m hopeful that, since they’ll be working on it until December, they will pick up the skill well enough that they will be able to put on a show.”
Another program Baumhauer created was “Breakfast and Boomerangs,” which provided both food and the creative arts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, young people could pick up a breakfast meal at the Lincoln library, then use the leftover paperboard from the cereal box to create their own boomerangs using Baumhauer’s video tutorial.
He has also taught his “Cirque 101” program for multiple years through JAACA. During the hour-long class, students learn the basics of juggling using feathers or handkerchiefs.
“I had this one guy who came in who I think has been to the last three years (of “Cirque 101”) and this year he brought his grandkids to the program at Lincoln library. He said, ‘We’ll be back next year and they’ll have the whole year to practice so we can really get into some fun stuff,’” Baumhauer recalls. “Those are the types of ripple effects and feedback loops we can create.”
As in past years, “Cirque 101” was part of the 2025 Rochester Fringe Festival, a feat JAACA is proud to have accomplished. Scheier recalls years when the Fringe Festival had no programming in the Northeast, and the community felt it was another way the neighborhood was cast off from the rest of the city.
“For many years, we had a Fringe Festival that was not in the Northeast quadrant. The people in that area didn’t feel like part of the Rochester community in that sense,” he says. “‘Everyone else goes to the Fringe Festival? Why can’t we have one too?’ Well, now they do.”
Even with that continued success and appreciation for the participating locales, having a genuine performance stage would make a difference.
“As a performer, I have seen time and time again the audience get what they expect,” says Baumhauer. “The performer wants to create a mindset when presenting something to an audience. But the audience is also part of that equation.
“The environment and the space that you’re in sets a tone from the very beginning,” he continues. “You wouldn’t be here unless you were good. I say that when I teach college and graduate-level courses. ‘I’m assuming you’re smart because you wouldn’t be in this room otherwise.’”
Scheier says the center can be a home for many arts organizations that are currently forced to move from place to place. Beyond that boost for performers, he also still believes that the building has the power to revitalize the surrounding area.
JAACA has already systematically acquired and demolished vacant, derelict homes to make room for the center. The final one sits on the corner of Loomis Street, which will now serve as a parking area for the future building.
“The easy part is getting the site approvals and getting the architect to make the final plans. The financials really are the final step,” Scheier says. “Having a Rochester family or company put their name on the building will be an affirmation that the Northeast quadrant is no longer isolated from the rest of the city, but it is part of it.”
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected]