Voices of the 19th Ward

Josie McClary found two dogs while walking her own near School 16.

They were barely a few months old, left out in the cold and rain that clung to Rochester in early May. Two or three pounds, tops. You could see their ribs, every bone showing through.

“My heart just went out for them,” she says.

McClary scooped them up and brought them to the shelter. They got the works—shots, treatment, everything they needed. A month later, she brought them home for good.

“Oh, my goodness, I tell you, it felt like I got newborn kids in the house,” she says.

Another morning, John and Joanne DeMott were getting ready for a tradition that’s been part of Genesee Street for a quarter century. Fifty kids and their chaperones, hands in the dirt, planting flowers in more than 60 concrete planters. Local businesses pitch in with food, turning it into a neighborhood event.

“The whole idea is that the kids get excited about knowing that they have beautified the neighborhood where they go to school,” John DeMott says. “The street looks beautiful.”

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Flynn Clayborne-Djan was once walking home from a corner store when they heard neighbors singing karaoke from a nearby roof.

“I would sing back at them, and they’d sing back at me,” Clayborne-Djan says. “It was a very cute little interaction.”

You won’t find these moments in a crime report or a real estate listing. But they’re the ethos of one of Rochester’s most unique and examined communities: the 19th Ward. (This article, the second in a series on the 19th Ward, is part of the Rochester Beacon’s From the Ground Up project.)

This community stretches from West Avenue down to Scottsville Road, with Genesee Street on one side and the Erie Canal on the other. It sits just across the river from the University of Rochester, mixing quiet residential blocks with busy stretches like Thurston Road, Chili Avenue, and Genesee Street.

The neighborhood began as an early river settlement sometimes called the Rapids or Castletown. It later developed into a streetcar suburb filled with American Foursquare, Colonial Revival, and other houses from the early 20th century, and became Rochester’s 19th Ward in 1902.

Today, the 19th Ward is known for its mix of old houses, its diversity—racial, economic, and otherwise—and its spot close to some of Rochester’s biggest institutions.

But those same things have also made it a place where outsiders sometimes project their fears.

McClary, a former president of the 19th Ward Community Association who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly 29 years, believes news coverage has cast a “black cloud” over the area.

“Everybody wants a story,” she says. “But at the end of the day, make sure your facts are facts, and make sure that you’re not blaming, shaming, and putting that black cloud over an entity or a neighborhood.”

John DeMott sees a similar pattern in television news.

“You know, watch the evening news, and how many times did they flash up a picture of a police car and street sign?” he says. “And that’s your impression of the city.”

No one here pretends the 19th Ward is without its challenges. Neighbors often point to speeding traffic, unsafe street crossings, and long-neglected infrastructure—concerns made painfully clear after 6-year-old Ryan “RJ” Grantham Jr. was struck and killed near Thurston Road and Sawyer Street in June 2023.

Neighbors turned their grief into action, gathering thousands of petition signatures and pressing the city for safer crossings and traffic-calming measures. In November 2023, the city added a 12-stripe crosswalk at the intersection and installed a green bench in RJ’s memory. However, residents will also tell you that tragedy is not the whole story. Too often, the headlines drown out the people who repair their homes, organize block parties, support local businesses, fight for safer streets, and quietly look out for the family next door. 

The real question isn’t whether the 19th Ward has challenges. It’s what someone gets back when they choose to live there, challenges and all.

A neighborhood transformed

Rochester’s Black population grew substantially during the Great Migration, the movement of Black Southerners into Northern and Western cities during much of the 20th century.

From 1940 to 1970, Rochester’s Black population grew by about 300 percent. Some came seeking industrial or agricultural work. Many encountered a city where housing restrictions confined Black residents largely to the Third and Seventh wards.

Overcrowding, urban renewal, discriminatory real estate practices and government-backed segregation helped create the conditions that preceded Rochester’s 1964 uprising. Historical records include restrictive racial covenants that explicitly barred Black people and members of other ethnic groups from purchasing certain properties.

When Black families began moving into the predominantly white 19th Ward, some real estate agents used blockbusting to frighten white homeowners into selling quickly and cheaply.

The DeMotts saw it happen.

John DeMott moved to Rochester from Elmira in 1964 to study electrical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, when its campus was still downtown. Joanne DeMott was raised on Rochester’s east side. Each lived in the 19th Ward before they married.

John DeMott remembers real estate agents sending postcards to homeowners after a Black family bought a house nearby.

“We literally watched white flight unfold in front of our eyes, with people putting their houses for sale, blockbusting with Realtors,” he says.

The postcards would identify a recent buyer with what DeMott describes as an African-American name, then offer to sell neighboring homes quickly.

The fear was profitable.

“We thought we were getting a bad shake from the real estate industry,” DeMott says. “They were profiting from the hysteria, you know, the fear.”

Some residents refused to participate. They placed small signs in their windows bearing two words: “I’m staying.”

The message, DeMott says, was direct: “I’m not leaving. You’re not gonna frighten me out of my neighborhood. I’m gonna look forward to meeting new people.”

The 19th Ward Community Association was established in 1965 to fight blockbusting and redlining while building a neighborhood that was diverse by race, age, and class. It remains one of the country’s oldest neighborhood associations.

But integration on paper did not automatically create relationships between people.

“When I first moved here, I felt that it was a lot of isolation,” McClary says. “You had your white people. And then you had your Black people, and they didn’t mix.”

She began inserting herself into conversations about what the neighborhood needed.

“It wasn’t easy,” she says. “But I broke down some barriers.”

Decades after the Great Migration helped reshape Rochester, Clayborne-Djan made a much smaller migration of their own.

They grew up in the Baltimore, Md., area and moved to Rochester about six years ago to study software engineering at RIT. They had not visited the city before enrolling.

The move was partly an act of independence. Clayborne-Djan grew up in a large family, sometimes with about eight people in the house.

“I just wanted to be alone,” they say. “And I got it, and I decided I didn’t like it.”

Their introduction to Rochester was hardly romantic. College applications had been completed virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the process did not feel entirely “real.”

At first, Clayborne-Djan did not expect to remain in Rochester.

“I felt like the mayor didn’t really care about the city,” they say.

Their conclusion was blunt: “You gotta take care of the people better.”

RIT did not give Clayborne-Djan community either. They described it as an environment that fostered institutional relationships that were more transactional than personal, in their opinion.

After living on campus for a while, Clayborne-Djan left school and found a four-bedroom house through Facebook Marketplace that they would eventually share with roommates. It was affordable and located in the 19th Ward.

Who owns the neighborhood?

The 19th Ward remains a competitive housing market in the city of Rochester.

Over the spring months, homes here were selling for a median price of around $170,000, which is about $5,000 higher than the city average. According to Redfin, most houses spent just 13 days on the market before finding a buyer, and many went for more than the asking price.

That demand does not surprise DeMott.

“A house goes up for sale, and it doesn’t stay,” he says. 

He believes part of the neighborhood’s stability comes from its range of incomes and occupations.

“We have folks who are on public assistance,” DeMott says. “And at the other end of the spectrum, we have people in the six-figure category—university professors, doctors, attorneys, professionals, teachers, administrators.”

Joanne DeMott also sees younger families with children moving in.

That turnover raises questions about whether a new generation, folks like Clayborne-Djan, will join the neighborhood’s traditions or simply occupy its houses.

Clayborne-Djan has adoration for the neighborhood. They can walk to corner stores, Caribbean and halal restaurants, and bike to nearby bars and Genesee Valley Park across the river.

However, tribulations seem too close for comfort at times.

A roommate owned a Hyundai Elantra during the period when certain Hyundai and Kia models were frequently targeted for theft because they lacked engine immobilizers. The trend spread nationally through social media demonstrations showing how some models could be started with simple tools.

The car thieves were dubbed “The Kia Boys” in the media.

“My neighbors, without knowing me, left their houses in their free time to come to my house, to knock on my door and tell me what was going on,” Clayborne-Djan says. “I thought it was awesome.”

Some might have called it nosy, maybe even a little intrusive. Clayborne-Djan saw something else: people paying attention.

The work that does not become news

McClary’s work in the 19th Ward has often begun with what she notices while walking.

“I love talking to neighbors,” she says. “That’s how you get to know people, how you get to know what some of the challenges are in the area.”

On evening walks, she noticed dark stretches where porch lights were not working. Around the same period, she received information about home burglaries near Arnett Boulevard and Thurston Road.

She asked residents why their lights were off. Some needed new bulbs. Others had fixtures that were not working.

“Sometimes a bulb is the last thing you think about, because if your lights are on in the house, you don’t think about the outside,” she says. “But that’s public safety.”

McClary took action. She contacted Rochester Gas and Electric, which provided 100 LED bulbs. She began canvassing the area and giving bulbs to residents through a campaign called Find the Light.

It’s the kind of simple fix that can get lost in bigger debates about crime and policing. For McClary, public safety means more than just police—it’s about having a grocery store nearby, a pharmacy, slowing down cars, and making sure an older neighbor can cross Chili Avenue to get to Tops.

“Public safety is much broader than law enforcement,” she says.

The same goes for the neighborhood’s economy.

Residents regularly say they want coffee shops, bakeries, sit-down restaurants, and other neighborhood amenities. John DeMott has heard those requests during decades of meetings and revitalization efforts. He and Joanne have also watched businesses matching those descriptions struggle.

“They can’t survive unless we’re out there supporting them,” Joanne DeMott says. “We’ve seen a lot close.”

She says residents must help the businesses that remain.

“We just want to make sure that those who are there stay there, because we do need the services that they provide.”

McClary approaches the issue through the lens of financial wellness. She helped establish a collaborative of community organizations, the 19th Ward Collaborative, that focused on homeownership, repairs, financial education, and the Thurston Road business corridor.

“You can’t just have businesses come to the Thurston Road corridor if people financially cannot support those businesses,” she says. “We can want whatever we want there, but are we financially in the position to support them?”

A lower barrier to care

Clayborne-Djan’s car once broke down near a corner store in the 19th Ward.

A man came out of the store and told them about someone down the street who repaired cars. He called the mechanic, who arrived on a bicycle. They moved the car and spent the rest of the day working on it.

Neither man had been obligated to become involved.

In broader society, Clayborne-Djan says, the response to another person’s difficulty can be: “You’re going through a problem. I don’t really care.”

In the 19th Ward, “it’s my personal business, but also, they care about it for some reason.”

Clayborne-Djan does not claim that the neighborhood is free of stressors. Their own car mirror was damaged. Parking is frustrating. They keep their windows closed, as they believe anyone living in a city should.

Still, they say, “I’m not worried for my physical safety.”

What they’ve found is a place where people step in before things get out of hand.

A person does not have to be shot or harassed before someone asks whether they are all right, Clayborne-Djan says.

“It feels more like they just care for their neighbor.”

The kind of place people choose to stay

John and Joanne DeMott met through a Catholic support group for divorced adults at St. Monica Church.

They have now been married for 47 years and have lived in the same six-bedroom house on Genesee Park Boulevard for just as long. Together, they raised seven children.

The house checked all the boxes—big enough for a family, sure—but it also had what draws so many people to the 19th Ward: natural wood, a fireplace, big rooms, and enough character to picture a whole life unfolding inside.

“It was just a good place to raise a family,” Joanne DeMott says.

The family could walk to stores, schools, the post office, and Genesee Valley Park. Their children attended different schools, all within the neighborhood.

Over the decades, the DeMotts became part of the civic machinery around them: the community association, business groups, university partnerships, house tours, public-safety discussions, and annual events.

The flower planting along Genesee Street brings the story back to St. Monica, as the church served as the headquarters for the network of churches, schools, children, and businesses that sustained the flower-planting project.

Stories in the 19th Ward have a way of circling back on themselves.

The dogs McClary adopted were found near Dr. David and Ruth B. Anderson School No. 16.

Years earlier, residents organized when the Rochester City School District considered permanently closing the school. Their advocacy helped secure an agreement to renovate and reopen the building. The 19th Ward Community Association described it as one of the neighborhood’s major collective victories.

The headlines about the 19th Ward come and go, but the connective tissue and fabric of the community seem to persist in every story told.

“The doors are closed physically, but not emotionally,” Clayborne-Djan says. “And that does so much more for me than anything else.”

They once expected to leave Rochester and still want to travel, but the city no longer feels temporary.

“I do think this is my home,” Clayborne-Djan says. “And I think I see myself staying here long term.”

Part of the reason is the 19th Ward.

“I can feel alone in my bedroom when I’m resetting myself,” they say. “But I know for a fact, every weekend or so, my neighbor’s gonna grill, and I can sit in my backyard and talk to him over the fence.”

When the wider world becomes isolating, Clayborne-Djan says, that kind of connection matters.

“It’s a large chunk of why I haven’t left.”

Rob Bell is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and former Democrat and Chronicle reporter, photographer and editor. He also produces and hosts “Plants & Beats,” a podcast exploring mindfulness, music and culture. 

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