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BACK TO
THE FUTURE
Corning celebrates 40 years of leading
the American Main Street retrolution
By Alison Fromme
The Fall of the American Chestnut
The Return of Road Food
A Streetcar Arrives in Wellsboro
MAY 2014
Back to the Future
Corning celebrates 40 years of leading
the American Main Street retrolution
Courtesy of Corning’s Gaffer District
By Alison Fromme
After the Agnes flood, Corning was reborn.
See Back to the Future on page 10
8
Courtesy of Corning’s Gaffer District
S
oon after Virginia Wright moved to Corning in 1958, she went downtown with her
six-month-old baby to look around. But she didn’t stay out long that day. “I came home
and cried,” she says. “There were basically only bars and men’s shoe stores. I thought, ‘I
can’t raise a family here.’”
Virginia wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting. The downtown she encountered
clearly catered to the men who worked at Corning Glass Works—not their families. Her
husband, Jerry Wright, was one of those workers, just starting a position as a product
designer. Corning was a company town in every way, good and bad.
Virginia wasn’t the only one who noticed that there were problems on Market Street.
Vacant storefronts plagued the street. The buildings sported an odd assortment of neon
signs and aluminum siding. It lacked vitality.
But, during the 1960s and ’70s, Virginia, along with city leaders, business owners, and
others, helped spark a movement that reinvigorated Corning’s historic Market Street, and
offered a model for renewing main streets across the country—one that continues to inspire
cities to this day.
9
Back to the Future continued from page 9
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10
At the time, Virginia’s discontent
with Corning’s downtown wouldn’t rest.
Jean Wosinski, the wife of a Corning
Glassworks scientist, commiserated
with her. Jean suggested that they do
something. She was, says Virginia, the
“mover and shaker” of the pair.
Virginia and Jean noticed that
Market Street’s upper stories were
quite ornate, and they felt other people
should pay attention to the beauty
of the buildings. Constructed during
the 19th century, they were mostly
made with materials straight from the
local Corning Brick and Terra Cotta
Works factory that operated from 1878
through the 1930s. Along the five blocks
of Market Street, terra cotta moldings
adorned buildings, and ornaments like
lions and stately owls topped them.
Cornices decorated doorways and
arches swept over windows. Accents,
swags, corbelling, and ironwork dressed
up façades. Varied building heights,
plus polychromatic and patterned
brickwork, offered interest in what were
otherwise monotonous walls.
Together, Virginia and Jean created a
presentation, complete with a slideshow
and accompanied by Petula Clark’s song
“Downtown,” detailing the neglected
beauty within the community. The
pair offered the show to anyone who
would listen, including library-goers,
the Kiwanis Club, and the Common
Council.
After one event, a Common
Council member told her, “Virginia,
you can’t legislate beauty.” And then he
patted her on the head.
“Neither one of us had any power,”
says Virginia. She didn’t even have a
clear vision of what Market Street, the
five-block backbone of downtown,
could become. Before moving to
Corning, Virginia had studied botany
at Denison College in Granview, Ohio,
where she lived in a dormitory in a
house built in 1866. She then lived in
Chicago, where she remembers standing
on the platform of the ‘L’ and noticing
one of the buildings that survived
the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In
Corning, she became the librarian at
the community college, and then at
the Corning Museum of Glass. She
appreciated history and aesthetics. But
mainly she wanted a downtown that
served as the center of her community,
one where she could enjoy spending
time. And she wanted others to think
about how to create that, too.
“If people don’t pay attention,
buildings crumble,” Virginia says. And
they were quite literally crumbling, in
part to make room for new development,
and she didn’t want her community to
crumble with them.
At the time, downtowns across the
country were changing. New shopping
malls popped up in the outskirts of
town. In Corning, population 17,000,
a 1966 urban renewal plan called for
the demolition of 175 downtown
buildings to make room for a modern
civic center, a library, and more. At
the same time, ground was broken at
the Arnot Mall, the largest shopping
center in the Southern Tier at the time.
It was modern and big: enclosed and
air conditioned, it spanned thirty-eight
acres.
The Rice Building on East Market
Street—with possibly the only example
of continuous terra cotta garland
ornamentation around a building in
Corning—was just one of the many
demolished structures. At one point,
Virginia’s husband pulled terra cotta
moldings from a trash heap, bicycled
home with them, and transformed
them into a “brick and board” bookcase,
which still stands in their living room
today. Another active preservationist,
Ernestine King, salvaged a sculpture
from the rubble of the opera house
demolition site by loading it into her
red wagon—then making her kids walk
home. Today, that salvaged sculpture
of the god Pan is displayed at the
Information Center of Corning, One
West Market Street.
The merchants remaining in
downtown Corning tried to keep up
with the times. They added signs to
attract attention. They updated their
storefronts by covering up outdated
styles.
In one display of progress, builders
transformed Ecker’s Drugstore at 47
East Market Street to demonstrate a
new Corning Glassworks product,
Pyroceram, as cladding on the building’s
exterior. In the local paper, the drugstore
management announced innovation
inside and out: the use of an innovative
IBM computer system for “fast, accurate
processing” and the thin-but-strong,
low maintenance Pyroceram that would
create a “distinctive store unlike any
other” with “permanent beauty.”
Later, in 1970, the Corning Glass
Works Foundation gave the city more
than $1.4 million to implement the
1966 downtown plan for the new
expansive civic center plaza.
Despite the cultural push to
modernize, many eyes looked up at the
buildings, back in history, and inward at
their own ideas of progress. Virginia and
Jean’s humble appeals to pay attention
to the existing beauty on Market Street
started a conversation, and soon many
people were concerned with the state of
Corning’s downtown.
During the early 1970s,
downtown efforts multiplied. Care
for Corning, an informal group of
t h e A m e r i c a n Association of
University Women, was formed with
Ernestine King’s help, and then later
became the Council on Urban and
Cultural Development. Grants funded
professional recommendations from
architects and preservationists, public
exhibitions, and a pilot program to
improve building façades. On the
recommendation of the Corning
Glassworks Foundation, Corning
executives traveled to other cities to
see their restoration projects, like San
Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square and New
Orleans’ Vieux Carré. Relationships
between the City, Corning Glass
Works, the Corning Foundation, and
the Corning Urban Renewal Agency
strengthened.
In 1971, Tom Buechner, founding
director of the Corning Glass Museum
(and Virginia’s boss), returned to
Corning after about a decade away
working at museums in New York City.
While away, Tom had created a sculpture
garden at the Brooklyn museum,
featuring salvaged architectural elements
from demolished buildings.
Upon his return, Tom championed
the Market Street restoration effort that
honored historic buildings. He brought
a concrete vision and organizational
skills to make that vision a reality. In
early 1972, he said, “Corning is our
environment. It reflects us and affects us
and our children. What this place looks
like reflects the kind of people we are,
and, in time, the kind of people we will
become.”
Regarding one restoration proposal
put forth, Tom said, “The sum of money
involved is much less than the new
library, the new city hall, or the new
skating rink, but what it could mean
for the future of this community is
greater than all three put together.” In
March 1972, the Corning Foundation
gave $72,000 to establish a twentyone-person committee to oversee the
creation of a Market Street Restoration
Plan.
Then, disaster struck. In June of
1972, Hurricane Agnes ripped through
the region and flooded Corning.
Sixty percent of the community was
underwater, including Market Street.
For Virginia Wright, the flood was lifechanging: as a librarian of the Corning
Glass Museum, she worked seventeenhour days to save precious and oneof-a-kind books; at home, she took in
another family who had lost their house.
With a gaggle of kids and four fighting
cats in one house for six weeks, things
were chaotic. She focused her attention
on her job and her family, and she was
relieved that the restoration of Market
Street was already in good hands.
Many in the community agree that
a silver lining emerged from the disaster.
See Back to the Future on page 13
11
AlisonFromme
Courtesy of Corning’s Gaffer District
Corning is now rated one of the most charming small cities in America, and Virginia Wright (right) helped make it happen.
Back to the Future continued from page 11
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Before the flood, skepticism about the
restoration effort hung like a cloud,
with the nagging question: what if we
do everything right, create a physical
renaissance, and no one responds,
nothing changes? When the floodwaters
receded and the mud was washed away,
residents had a chance to reconsider the
future of their community. Everyone
lost something in the flood, and some
say that the divide between blue- and
white-collar workers was washed away,
too, that the flood leveled class barriers,
at least somewhat. Amo Houghton, Jr.,
CEO of Corning Glass Works at the
time, said with conviction, “We are not
licked, we are going to bounce back.”
What the flood could not wash
away was the vision that was taking
hold in the community. When federal
relief funds came in, the community
built brick sidewalks, created a park,
and planted more than 100 honey
locust trees. These were the same
ideas that originated during the early
conversations about Market Street.
That vision, which had started
as a conversation more than a decade
earlier, coalesced with three goals
in mind: to re-establish Market
Street as a commercial center, to
establish an attractive environment,
and to preserve buildings with rare
architectural elements. All this, two
full years before Jackie Kennedy rallied
for the preservation of Grand Central
Station in New York City.
In 1973, Mayor Joseph J. Nasser
wrote, “We are not dealing with a
world of make believe. The plan calls
for restoration of real buildings; for
the preservation of an honest heritage,
and for valid public improvements…
[the plan] avoids the sameness of the
average shopping center. It does not
tear down, but builds upon something
which exists and already has great value.
The project will add warmth and style
to this important thoroughfare.”
But who would lead this effort? And
what exactly would it entail? Vision was
one thing, but imagine the task. Tom
described it this way: “Nowhere has the
main street of an industrial American
city been restored to its turn of the
century appearance while serving as a
lively, modern, shopping center. We
could become a model for the nation—
an 1870s living museum street merging
in a 1970s renewal complex. Perhaps we
could do it by 1976, the bicentennial
year.”
Market Street’s 125 buildings had
various owners, some of whom were
absentee landlords, and many different
tenants. Merchants worried about
their bottom lines, and most wanted
their businesses to stand out in order
to attract customers, and they did that
with gaudy signs.
Tom put out a call to find someone
to work on the restoration efforts
full time. Norman Mintz, a graduate
student at Columbia University, heard
that call from a professor.
Norman was an ideal candidate.
With a master’s degree in historic
preservation and a bachelor’s degree
in industrial design, he was the former
owner of an antique shop. He and his
new wife were looking for a change
from New York City, and when they
were offered that chance they took it.
When the couple arrived in April
of 1974, snow still dusted the ground.
But, despite that cold welcome,
Norman said he felt right at home.
Everyone he met—business leaders,
community members—was open,
inviting, welcoming, and warm. Plus,
the architecture was exceptional, he
says, particularly the uninterrupted
façades.
In 1974, with Tom Buechner’s
leadership, the nonprofit Market Street
Restoration Agency (MSRA) was
See Back to the Future on page 14
13
Courtesy of Corning’s Gaffer District
Amo Houghton, Jr., then
CEO of Corning Glass
Works, helped lead
downtown Corning on
its path to the future.
Back to the Future continued from page 13
formed to implement the restoration
plan. Norman Mintz became the first
director and “main street manager.” No
blueprint for this type of job existed.
A main street manager? How would
he convince building owners and
shopkeepers to change the look of the
street? Certainly no shopkeeper wanted
an out-of-towner telling him what to
do.
Norman couldn’t exactly tell people
what to do, even if he had wanted to.
The central Market Street blocks had
been listed on the National Register
of Historic Places in 1974, giving
the area formal recognition. But the
improvements Norman wanted to see
weren’t written into law.
The idea was to offer people free
advice and design help for their signs
and façades. Norman started his job
by talking, chatting up merchants,
and listening to their troubles. He
never mentioned the words “historic
preservation.”
“In that first year, I bought so many
things that I didn’t need,” says Norman.
He bought items as an excuse to go in
and talk with business owners, to gain
their trust. Eventually, he would walk
outside with them, cross the street, and
14
take a look at their stores. He worked
with the merchants to convince them
that restoration was often easy, and
good for business. Norman would offer
a vision for what the storefront could
become, and explain how an attractive
storefront could attract more customers.
After all, 750,000 tourists visited
the Glass Museum every year. Imagine
if they had a reason to stop at Market
Street.
The first building restored was
Brown’s Cigar Store. “It didn’t need
much help,” says Norman, who peeled
away layers of paint to determine the
original color—and then recommended
repainting in that color. Norman
estimates that the paint job cost the
owner about $300.
Such small improvements created
a buzz, and neighbors began to look
critically at their own storefronts.
Norman sometimes helped with the
improvements himself, using a crowbar
to take some coverings off and reveal the
original fabric of the building beneath.
Not every recommendation was as
clear-cut as Brown’s. When Norman
was asked to advise the owner of
Harold’s Army and Navy store, he drew
up plans to recreate a Victorian-era
wooden façade, replacing its structural
pigmented glass, known as Carrara
glass, installed in the 1930s. Norman
considered Tom Buechner’s vision of
a Victorian era streetscape his mission,
but something didn’t sit right about this
particular project.
“I realized I did something wrong,”
he says. So he redid the drawing,
leaving the façade in its 1930s state,
but suggesting other smaller changes
that respected the good design changes.
“By trying to educate the owner, I was
educating myself. The exciting thing
about main streets is that they continue
to evolve.”
And evolve they do. By 1979,
the white Pyroceram cladding that
encased Ecker’s Drug Store at 47 East
Market Street came down, in a funding
collaboration between the owners, the
Corning Glass Works Foundation,
and New York State. Originally, the
Victorian building housed the offices
of architect H.C. Tuthill. Today, the
Tommy Hilfiger store resides there.
“With all the work that was done,”
says Norman, “it soon became apparent
that we had to do more than just restore
buildings.” The MSRA, which celebrates
its fortieth anniversary this year, began
collaborating with other organizations,
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See Back to the Future on page 17
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Back to the Future continued from page 14
and is now part of Corning’s Gaffer District, which plans
promotions and events to draw people downtown, all in
the effort to revitalize and energize the community. One of
those events—GlassFest—marks its fifth anniversary this
month. In tribute to all of this, AIASNY (The American
Institute of Architects Southern New York), along with the
Preservation League of New York State, Corning’s Gaffer
District, and MSRA are holding a two-day conference this
month in Corning, with Norman Mintz back in town as a
keynote speaker.
Corning was on to something. Other small cities and
towns heard the buzz. Articles were written about Corning
in architecture and preservation magazines. Norman was
soon asked to speak in small towns in upstate New York
and beyond.
Norman then received a visit from the Director of
the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Midwest
office, Mary Means, and talked about his experiences in
Corning and what it meant to be a “main street manager.”
She had seen that small town downtowns were in trouble
all over the United States, wanted to do something about
it, and met with people who were making improvements
in several small towns. Norman was one of those people.
With a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,
she selected three Midwest towns to work with as pilots
for the National Main Street Program.
“Originally, we had no intent of having a staff person in
each of our three pilot towns, but seeing Norman in action
on Market Street caused us to make that commitment,”
she says. “It turned out to be a central decision, for we
learned the importance of a full-time main street manager
for momentum and quality control.”
Mary’s intention was to complete the National Trust’s
pilot program and then move on. But the idea caught on,
and the organizations expanded to even more states.
“Corning was quite important to the birth of what
is now the National Main Street Center, and more than
1,200 towns and cities in the US and Canada have used
its technical assistance and trainings to bring life back to
their historic downtowns,” Mary says.
After almost a decade with the organization, Norman
returned to New York City, where he eventually became
senior director of Main Streets and Downtowns for the
Project for Public Spaces.
By 1986, the Agency had grown to administer a
$100,000 annual budget. The vacancy rate on Market
Street dropped from 18 percent in 1974 to 3 percent in
1986. Façade renovations were completed on fifty-five of
the 125 buildings. Ninety buildings displayed new signage.
Since the restoration efforts began, more than $32 million
has been invested in major downtown projects.
See Back to the Future on page 56
16
17
Mountain Home
Alison Fromme is an award-winning
freelance writer in Ithaca, NY.
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Back to the Future continued from page 17
Today, you can stroll down
Market Street and meet some of
the pioneers of the main street
movement. At the Glass Menagerie,
owners Jackie and Dick Pope can
show you the white glazed terra
cotta “egg and dart” design on
their façade, the original high tin
ceiling inside, and the stained glass
transom window they had custom
made by J. R. Thurman, an artisan
in Trumansburg. In 1978, when
the couple bought the building,
the Beaux Arts Renaissance style
was hidden: the entrance had been
moved to the side, the ceilings
inside were lowered, and the dirty
1972 flood line still hidden behind
wood paneling. They had their
work cut out for them, but they
didn’t cut corners, says Norman.
Today, the couple stocks the store
with sparkling American art glass by
regional and national artists.
Corning’s Gaffer District and the
MSRA team keep the momentum
going by continuing their sign and
storefront design services, fostering
new upper story development
opportunities for upscale living,
and organizing events like GlassFest.
In 2013, $5 million was invested in
building rehabilitation, storefront
vacancy rates in the district were at
8 percent, and Corning was voted
the most fun small town in America.
And when Virginia Wright
walks down Market Street today?
She says, “I just thrill. A small, active
community is just great to live in.”
And that’s powerful.
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