How did the neighborhood begin?
The Ellwanger and Barry Nursery was founded in May 1840 by George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry.
The partners entered the real estate business as the city expanded southward. In 1856 they laid out and divided Cypress Street into deep lots and there built modest frame houses intended for their senior workmen.
Patrick Barry died in 1890 and was succeeded by his son William Crawford Barry. By this time the nursery business suffered from competition. The real estate company continued to subdivide and build up former nursery land to the east, extending Mt. Vernon, Meigs, Crawford, Mulberry and Rockingham Streets. That part of the business assumed increasing importance as the nursery declined.
After the death of W.C. Barry in 1916, the third generation, faced with declining sales and rising costs, closed the nursery business in 1918. The real estate company continued to build on former nursery land and between 1918 and 1929 laid out the land which extended to South Clinton Avenue: Mulberry, Rockingham, Gregory Hill Road and Highland Parkway. The real estate business was liquidated in 1963.The Ellwanger and Barry Company made a number of gifts to the City of Rochester. Among these were specimen trees for the Mt. Hope cemetery in 1847 and land on Meigs Street at Crawford for School #24. They also donated to the city in 1888 20 acres near the city reservoir on South Avenue, which became the nucleus of the first park in Rochester, Highland Park. With the gift of land went a three story wooden pavilion, dedicated to the children of Rochester.
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