Clarissa Street
 Pythodd Room c.1950s | |
| Address | 159 Troup Street Rochester, New York United States of America |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 43°9′3″N 77°37′7″W / 43.15083°N 77.61861°WCoordinates: 43°9′3″N 77°37′7″W / 43.15083°N 77.61861°W Fatal error: The format of the coordinate could not be determined. Parsing failed. |
| Type | Jazz Club |
| Capacity | 240 persons |
| Record attendance | Over 400 persons |
| Opened | Private opening: c.1930s, Public opening: 1953 |
| Years active | As a private meeting hall: c.1930s- 1942.
As a membership-based social club: 1942-1953. As a privately owned music venue open to the public: 1953-1966 (closed 1966-1968), 1969-1972 |
Clarissa Street is a historic area of African American businesses in Rochester, New York's Third Ward neighborhood. Originally named Caledonia Avenue, it was renamed between 1844 and 1930 to “Clarissa,” the name of Clarissa Greig, daughter of an early Rochester investor named John Greig.[1] Institutions along Clarissa Street included The Pythodd Room. Rioting in 1964 damaged businesses along the street and a helicopter surveying the scene crashed, further damaging the street and its surrounding neighborhood.[2] The neighborhood was destroyed by urban renewal programs. Its history has received renewed interest.[3]
History
The Pythodd was located along one of the major commercial arteries of the Third Ward: the Clarissa Street neighborhood. Clarissa Street’s status as a bustling majority Black-owned and operated commercial and residential district made it a key place for clubs like the Pythodd, as well as many other music venues on the street, to thrive.[4] While 70% Black during this era, the Third Ward was also home to immigrant families from Italy and Poland, as well as the original campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Rochester across the River.
This neighborhood was a hub of Black culture in Rochester with families dating back to the 1820s, before the city was incorporated. From the 1940s through 1960s, Black people began to arrive into the Third Ward and Clarissa Street more steadily from the South during the later period of the Great Migration. In response to major local employer Kodak refusing to hire Black people, some neighbors opened their own businesses, creating a self-sustaining community.
Ahh the same time, from the 1930s-1960s, as was happening across northern cities in the United States, the neighborhood was legally Redlined by HOLC maps and racially restrictive Covenants, which restricted Black people to living in Rochester’s Third or Seventh Wards only. Pressures of forcing too many people to live in a limited area, landlords subdividing single-family homes into multiple apartments, and redlining restrictions on home improvement mortgages, led to decay in the neighborhood’s infrastructure.[5]Add tensions with police and Rochester experienced one of the first urban uprisings of the 1960s.[6][7] A surveillance helicopter crashed on a Clarissa Street home contributing to five deaths during the three-day rebellion. Local organizers with FIGHT called in Saul Alinsky to assist with organizing. They focused on getting Kodak and Xerox to hire and train Black workers in higher paying skilled jobs and fighting urban renewal in neighborhoods like the Third Ward.[8]
Although it was a booming neighborhood throughout this jazz era, urban renewal and the construction of the Interstate Highway System in Rochester between the 1960s and 1980s displaced nearly all of the residents of this once thriving community. In the infamous tradition of urban planner Robert Moses, the Inner Loop expressway and Interstate 490 projects cut the neighborhood off from downtown, razed eight blocks of buildings, including the Pythodd, and led to a decline in population as displaced Clarissa Street residents were forced to leave the neighborhood and even the city in order to start over.[9]
In 1996, former Clarissa Street neighbors decided that they should celebrate the rich and diverse culture of their neighborhood by hosting the Clarissa Street Reunion on the very street that was the center of the Third Ward in the mid 20th century.[10] The Clarissa Street Reunion is an annual festival celebrating the culture and history of the Clarissa Street neighborhood. It also was started with the intention of creating a positive and festive environment for former residents to remember their time living in the neighborhood. In addition to the Reunion, Clarissa Street history has been shared with the youth of the neighborhoods that currently surround Clarissa Street itself through a partnership between the Center for Teen Empowerment and the Clarissa Street Reunion Committee called: Clarissa Street Uprooted.[11]
Rochester’s Jazz Scene
Rochester, New York has been a hub for music since as early as the 1920s with the creation of the Eastman School of Music. However, the music scene in Rochester throughout the twentieth century was more than just classical music and its instruction. The jazz scene in Rochester was exceptionally vibrant between the late 1940s through the 1960s. With many jazz clubs located within the official city limits as well as larger venues such as the Eastman Theatre catering to the local jazz enjoying audience, Rochester was able to host great jazz musicians every day. Some of the most prominent clubs included the Pythodd and two dozen clubs catering to white audiences including the Ridge Crest Inn[12], Hi-Land Inn,[12] and more.[13][14][15]
Pythodd
The Pythodd Room (“The Pythodd”) was a prominent jazz club on the national Chitlin' Circuit in the Third Ward neighborhood[16] of Rochester, New York. At 159 Troup Street, it was originally intended as a meeting space for two local Black-run benevolent societies, the Knights of Pythias and the Odd Fellows. By the 1950s, notable jazz musicians such as Pee Wee Ellis, Ron Carter, Roy McCurdy, and brothers Chuck and Gap Mangione began their careers as young regular performers at the Pythodd.
The Pythodd began its story as a meeting house for the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows, two benevolent societies with chapters in the Rochester region in the 1930s.[17] In 1942, it became a membership based club meeting space.[18]
Around 1953, the benevolent societies sold the land and the Pythodd became a music venue open to the public.[18] When the club opened to the public after 1953, it was originally managed by jazz singer Jon Hendricks’ brother, Stewart Hendricks[19] and Roy King[17]. In 1965, Hendricks and King handed the management of the Pythodd over to the Thomas family. Stanley Thomas, Jr. worked for the club from the late 1950s until he took over as manager in 1967 when his family purchased the club. After a brief closure, he reopened the club for business from 1968 to 1973.[17][18]
Throughout the 1950s and 60s the Pythodd was one of the most popular jazz venues in Western New York, rivaling major venues in New York City and across the country.[20] The Pythodd was located on the corner of Troup and Clarissa Streets in the thriving Black community of the Third Ward in the Southwest Quadrant of the city of Rochester. Its location is significant since the Clarissa Street community, where Frederick Douglass first published his North Star newspaper out of the Memorial AME Zion Church[21], was especially vibrant and booming following World War II. The Pythodd itself was one of the many Black-owned businesses on Clarissa Street that provided the Third Ward with entertainment and charm. The Pythodd was also a key stop on the Chitlin' Circuit, a network of mostly Black jazz venues around the United States that welcomed Black performers during Legalized Racial segregation in the United States and in turn fostered the American jazz scene. In his 2012 interview for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, saxophonist Lou Donaldson described touring from New York to California as “The greatest circuit in the world...We started in Rochester at a place called the Pythodd” for a one-week residency and then would move on the Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, with stops all the way to San Francisco and Oakland.[22]
In the early days of The Pythodd, the club itself was considered more of a community gathering place for the neighbors of Clarissa Street and the greater Third Ward that hosted jazz performances, but was not specifically a jazz club.[13] Moving into the 1950s and early 1960s, however, The Pythodd became both a meeting space for regulars as well as an intimate venue for jazz lovers from Rochester and beyond to watch up-and-coming musicians like George Benson, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, the Jazz Brothers (Chuck and Gap Mangione’s group), Roy McCurdy, and Alice Coltrane.[13] [23][24][25][14][26] Paul Hoeffler, whose images appear in Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary miniseries, got his start as a jazz photographer at the Pythodd.[27] Some of Hoeffler’s most iconic images taken at The Pythodd appear in biographical media about Pee Wee Ellis,[28] and in Ron Carter’s documentary Finding the Right Notes[29] where Carter and Ellis describe their formative years playing at The Pythodd.
The Pythodd’s thirty year history came to an end in the September 1973 when the surrounding Clarissa Street neighborhood fell victim to urban renewal[30] as well as a decline in the popularity of jazz among young people.[citation needed] As the audiences left the Pythodd, its management tried to resurrect it by hiring Disco artists in an attempt to bolster the draw of the club, but eventually this stopped working. The Pythodd Room closed its doors forever in 1973, and it was eventually demolished and replaced with a parking lot. Music director Derrick Lucas for radio station Jazz 90.1 in Rochester, makes the point, “The Pythodd survived the riots in July 1964, but couldn’t survive urban renewal.”[15]
This action upset many locals and regulars at the Pythodd, as the city of Rochester seemed to love historic monuments, but the cultural and social importance of the Pythodd went largely unremembered except by those who vowed to keep the spirit of the Pythodd alive. Beginning in the late 1980s, the Pythodd Jazz Reunion ran for seven years before merging with the inaugural Clarissa Street Reunion in 1996.
Legacy
Wider interest in remembering the cultural impact of the Clarissa Street neighborhood and its important sense of community, legacy as Rochester’s version of Black Wall Street, stories, and landmarks has only grown, resulting in a renewed interest in the Pythodd and the deep legacy of jazz greatness in Rochester and the surrounding Western New York region. With this renewed interest, researchers and various community organizations in Rochester began to look more into the history and legacy of the Pythodd. Contemporary examples include Tina Chapman’s film, Remembering the Pythodd (2013).[31]
The Clarissa Street Reunion celebrates the area's history.[32]
Since 2019, through a partnership between The Center for Teen Empowerment and the Clarissa Street Reunion Committee (now known as Clarissa Street Legacy), Youth History Ambassadors, and elders who grew up in the neighborhood created Clarissa Uprooted. They recorded oral histories, created a documentary that won multiple national media and film festival awards. These partners also researched and designed a museum-quality exhibit to share Clarissa Street’s history and its lessons with the next generation. A full-sized replica of The Pythodd stage forms a centerpiece of the Clarissa Uprooted exhibit.[33]
In 2020, the Public History course at the University of Rochester created a website dedicated to chronicling and digitally archiving the history of Jazz in Rochester and the Pythodd Room called “The Spirit of the Pythodd”[16]
In the summer and fall of 2023, Teen Empowerment Rochester along with local artists, youth, and elders, commissioned a mural to be painted on the I-490 overpass over Main Street in Rochester to commemorate the Pythodd and Clarissa Street neighborhood.[34]
See also
References
- ↑ "Clarissa Street". cornhill.org. 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ↑ "The Crisis". January 1965.
- ↑ https://www.wxxinews.org/show/connections/2022-06-03/what-can-the-history-of-clarissa-street-teach-us-about-impact-of-urban-renewal
- ↑ Oral histories collection with elders who grew up in the Clarissa Street neighborhood. ClarissaUprooted.org
- ↑ "Resistance Mapping · Welcome · m". resistancemapping.org. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ↑ TV, Rochester Community (2014-07-07), IL-July'64 4vimeo, retrieved 2023-12-19
- ↑ "Gap Mangione: 'A lot of logs' on the fire that led to 1964 riots". WXXI News. 2022-08-19. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ↑ Warren Hill, Laura (2022). Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940-1970.
- ↑ "Urban Renewal". Clarissa Uprooted. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
- ↑ "About". CLARISSA STREET REUNION. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
- ↑ "About Us - Clarissa Uprooted - Rochester, NY". Clarissa Uprooted. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Oh so cool, the Ridge Crest was the place to go". Democrat and Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-05-23.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Gap Mangione, interviewed by Diego Turner 18 May 2023
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Gudell, Steve (2021-03-23). "Roy McCurdy: From Cannonball To The Rochester Music Hall Of Fame – Rochester Music Hall of Fame". Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Lucas, Derrick, Jazz 90.1 University Class 1: History Of Jazz In Rochester, retrieved 2023-08-11
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 "The Spirit of the Pythodd". Retrieved May 8, 2023.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Monroe, Stephen A. (May 29, 1977). "Jazz: The beat goes on...but it's faint and growing fainter". Democrat and Chronicle. pp. 12–15.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Laudon, Bennett (March 31, 1989). "Obituary: Stanley Thomas, Jr". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, NY. p. 16.
- ↑ Martin, Lee Ellen (2010). Jon Hendricks, Father of Vocalese: A Toledo Story (Thesis). University of Toledo.
- ↑ Moore, Milton (April 10, 1983). "The Pythodd". Upstate Magazine. p. 20.
- ↑ McKelvey, Blake (October 1959). "Lights and Shadows in Local Negro History" (PDF). Rochester History. 21 (4).
- ↑ Panken, Ted (1 November 2014). "For Lou Donaldson's 86th Birthday, the Complete Transcript of a June 2012 Conversation for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project" (PDF). Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
- ↑ "Chasin' the Past Pt. 4- Lost Jazz Clubs of Rochester". Local History ROCs!. 2019-06-28. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ Carter, Ron. "Shout out to Pee Wee Ellis with photo". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ Chinen, Nate (2020-04-07). "Steve Gadd: The JazzTimes Interview". JazzTimes. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ Allen, Jim (Winter 2023). "Beat Master Roy McCurdy: Innovates the Art of the Drum". About Time Magazine. pp. 10–15.
- ↑ Netsky, Ron. "Rhapsody in black and white". CITY Magazine. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ "Pee Wee Ellis, James Brown's Partner in Funk, Dies at 80 (Published 2021)". 2021-09-27. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ↑ Finding the Right Notes (Motion picture). PBS. 21 November 2022. Event occurs at 36:52-37:28.
- ↑ Du Bois, Eugene E. (1994). The City of Frederick Douglass. The Landmark Society of Western New York. pp. 20–21. ISBN 9780964170605. Search this book on
- ↑ Macaluso, Tim Louis (August 14, 2013). The Pythodd Lives Again” City Newspaper features Tina Chapman DaCosta’s film Remembering the Pythodd.
- ↑ https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2023-08-20/clarissa-street-reunion-celebrates-the-cultural-legacy-of-that-rochester-neighborhood
- ↑ "Pythodd". Clarissa Uprooted. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ↑ "'I still cry': Powerful Rochester mural captures what was lost in anti-urban destruction". Democrat and Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
External links
Newspaper and Public Library Articles and Interviews
Interview with Pythodd drummer Roy McCurdy by WXXI (2022)
O’Brien, Bill (September 6, 1970). "The Pythodd Feeling". Upstate Magazine, a former Democrat & Chronicle Sunday insert, p. 90. (image of article)
Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division Blog about Rochester’s Jazz Clubs
Stanley Thomas, Jr. Obituary in the Democrat and Chronicle (1989)
Still and Moving Image Collections
Paul Hoeffler Collection Archiveworks (1955-2003)
Gitterman Gallery Pythodd Picture Collections by Paul Hoeffler (1958)
Gitterman Gallery Pythodd Picture Collections by Paul Hoeffler (1959)
Democrat and Chronicle Clarissa Street Reunion Pictures (2019)
Other Resources
Poetry inspired by Clarissa Street and The Pythodd: bobby johnson (sic.) Bard of Clarissa Street (AKA the Bebop poet). (1982) “Death of a Friend and Our Favorite People,” YouTube. (3’11”-3’21”)
Teen Empowerment. (2020) “Youth History Ambassadors mark Clarissa St. landmarks,” YouTube.
Noal Cohen’s Website feature on Jazz in Rochester (1955-1961)
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