Jim Moore / September 21, 2026
According to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation of the 23 New York State properties and districts nominated to the National Registers of Historic Places 3 are right here in the Finger Lakes. 2 of the new registrants are in Ontario County and 1 is in Steuben County. The office provides the following history of the 3 unique properties:
Bank of Geneva, Geneva, Ontario County ─ Built in 1831, the Bank of Geneva is one of New York State’s earliest surviving Classical temple-form bank buildings and is closely associated with Geneva’s commercial and women’s history. It housed the city’s earliest and longest-lived banking institution until 1864 and later, from 1885 to circa 1903, served as the headquarters of Rosecoe G. Chase & Co., the region’s largest Victorian-era nurseries, shipping hundreds of thousands of ornamental and edible plants across the nation. In 1904, undertakers Kennedy & Kennedy purchased the building and added a large rear room to accommodate large funerals. The first space of its kind in Geneva, this addition indicated a shift to larger ceremonies made possible by the era’s improved embalming techniques. In 1921, the Geneva Woman’s Club and the Business Women’s Club (which it would later absorb) purchased the building for civic, dramatic, and social activities. A successor to the women’s suffrage organization, the Geneva Political Equity Club, the Geneva Woman’s Club continued to use the building through 2025, making it a longstanding center of women’s civic life.
Village of Hammondsport Historic District (Boundary Extension), Steuben County ─ Following the 2024 National Register listing of the Village of Hammondsport Historic District, additional research identified two residences on the north side of the village built within the district’s period of significance: 2 Pulteney Street, built in 1862, and 14 Pulteney Street, built in 1876, for inclusion in an 8.03-acre district expansion. The two surviving residences were owned and lived in by grape vineyardists and farmers, with deep ties to the rest of the village and to the wine industry. The expansion documents the village’s growth due to the economic success of the local winemaking industry, recognizes two additional examples of the Victorian architecture locally marking that era, and notes the loss of other historic residences once located on the surrounding parcels.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Clifton Springs, Ontario County ─ Known locally as “The Church on the Hill,” St. John’s Episcopal Church has been a religious and architectural fixture of the Clifton Springs community since the nineteenth century. While the congregation formed in 1807, this permanent home was not completed until 1883. The New York City architectural firm building of William Appleton Potter and Robert Henderson Robertson designed the building, which the B.B. Dean Company of Buffalo constructed from local Medina sandstone in a striking style that combines Richardsonian Romanesque and Gothic Revival elements. The multi-colored stonework, prominent belltower, carved stone details, and stained-glass windows make this a distinguished landmark.
