I used to work in Geneseo, back in 1995 – part-time on the Lake and Valley Clarion weekly newspaper of glorious memory. I liked the town. One day I walked down to the courthouse and sat on the steps to eat my lunch. The sun’s heat reflected up from the stone, making me drowsy. From down on the flat I heard a biplane revving up, then stepping into the air, then saw it stitching slowly across the view like a dragonfly, engine humming away. With the place and the warmth and the sight and the sound and the drowsiness, for a few seconds I slipped into the still-peaceful summer of 1939.
*Geneseo’s the county seat and a courthouse town. It’s also a college town, home to SUNY Geneseo, which started out as a normal school in 1871 and became a state liberal arts college in 1948.
*Towns have their waves of ups and downs, thanks in part to local, regional, national, and world economic vagaries. I have to say that the town looks better now than it did when I worked there. There’s more business on the Main Street, and almost all the business fronts sparkle – they’ve been cared for, and made to look good, and that rather recently. Even the parking meters are new, attractive, and easily functional (take THAT, Corning!).
*The whole downtown area is on the National Register of Historic Places, but it also has the far rarer designation of National Historic Landmark. There are 90,000 Register sites, and 2500 Historic Landmarks. The only others in the seven-county area are Newtown Battlefield and the Lamoka archaeological site.
*Main Street is good strolling: flat, straight, level, and plenty of good sightlines. Westward the land slopes down (into the university); buildings on the west side of Main have rear parking that’s often a full story lower than the front door. You also soon encounter a rise eastward, deeper into the (very large) historic district.
*The courthouse anchors the north end of Main Street, with attractive old homes stretching southward, shaded by large lovely trees. If you needed to, you could orient yourself by the tall stone spire on the Episcopal church.
*Geneseo would be a different place without the Big Tree Inn, part of which goes back to 1833. Renovated and expanded for a hotel in 1886, it has welcomed travelers ever since.
*Also historical is the bronze bear, surmounting an old fountain right in the center of the intersection at the midpoint of Main. It has been known for the bear to be whimsically decorated (sometimes under cover of darkness), but he (she?) endures right athwart the way because the through routes are now a few blocks south or west, leaving Main Street busy, but not frantic.
*Those who know Geneseo from of old are always pleased to learn that Sundance Books still thrives at its crowded-yet-welcoming space. There’s also a comic book store on Main Street, and peering through the windows I see that it’s current, but I have literally never yet found it open. (I only visit three or four times a year.)
*Walk eastward on Center Street and you’ll come to the Wadsworth Library, hugging the slope and meting out parking space so as to use all of its real estate to maximum benefit. Built in 1867 (!) and expanded since then, it wears its old-fashioned mantle of wood, brick, and glass with an up-to-date flair. And a few steps away, also on Center Street, is the Livingston County Historical Society Museum.
*If you need chain stores and chain food, they’re five minutes away on Route 20A. If you want a modern university, it’s just a few steps downhill. Otherwise you can stroll, stride, or drift through the historic district… stopping in the shops, getting coffee or baked goods, and maybe even slipping into 1939.