During the summer of 1887, Rochester’s population was about 50,000 but rapidly on the rise. Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, French’s, and Sibley’s were all in their infancy. Downtown, where the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee via what is now the Broad Street viaduct, was already densely urban. But only a mile or so to the east, the landscape was still largely rural. …