Black Rock

Last week Carl and I went on a tour of Black Rock.  A lot of unexpected beautiful architecture.  Black Rock originally started as its own city that was vying for the terminus of the Erie Canal.  It was a growing area with a heavily Germanic population.  Now, unfortunately, it seems like it has seen better days.  Some of the houses seem to be falling into neglect while others are doing quite well.  Near the start of the tour, we saw a house, one of the oldest in the area, as well as another house that, over the last ten years, I believe, has been totally rehabbed.  The little house in front of the church to the left has been rehabbed wonderfully while the grey house below is one of the oldest.  At least the left half.  It is a federalist style house which you can tell by the stone blocks used to top the windows instead of the same type of stone used for the rest of the house.  The right half can easily been seen as an addition.

From the beginning, Black Rock has been a working man's town and it still is.  I remember growing up thinking that this wasn't a great neighborhood to wander around in.  Definitely not an area to been seen in a non American car and I grew up driving Nissans and Hondas.  I think I was way off growing up, you know, you're never too old to learn a lesson!

OK, so, working man's town.  You can tell by the architecture that the people building these home and businesses knew what they were doing. From the churches to the fire hall, all had some beautiful art attached to the buildings.  I really liked the eaves of the fire hall as well as the red light on the building.  Not sure the light was original, but I still thought it was cool.  More reasons you could tell it's a working man's town was the fact the most street corners in the area originally had three things on them:   a grocery store, a church and a tavern.  Sounds like a good part of town to me...

The tour also included a tour of one of the former churches of the area that is now a religious center.  Inside were many different styles of the stations of the cross as well as beautiful frescos that have been restored.  Also present there were a few artifacts of a Jewish temple that had closed a couple of years ago.  I thought it interesting that the religious "border" had been crossed and the view of religious artifacts as art had been taken. I'd have to say, my favorite pieces at the center were the art deco stations of the cross with matching crucifix and candle holders.

The tour was a good eye opener for me with respect to the area.  A lot of interesting architecture as well as cool history.  Not  just a good neighborhood for the beer (Flying Bison Brewery calls Black Rock its home) or a way to get to great BBQ (Suzy Q's BBQ shack in Riverside).  Not to mention the largest collection of garden gnomes I have ever seen!!