Gladiolus—The Pronunciation.

Gladiolus from Vick's Flower & Gardening Guide 1876

A correspondent writes :—”Vick accents the first syllable ; Webster, the second; and those not favored with the perusal of either, the third. Among those who wish to be governed by authority, the question arises: ‘Under which king?’ We were inclined to follow Webster, but examination reveals the fact that he has not followed his own analogy. For he has glad^- iator and glad^- iole both from the same root as gladiolus. So that apart from the consideration of whether Vick is not the higher authority in such things, he certainly has followed what seems to be correct analogy”.  We surrender  to Rochester, while awaiting the decision of the Editor.

Gladi’- olus.” [The analogy is not with its root but with the class to which it belongs. Diminutives have  their penults short, in this respect differing from adjectives which have their penultimae long. The classical pronunciation therefore is gladi'-olus,  that is, " a little sword."—Ed. G. M.]

Themes for the first seven tours in the 2011-2012 series:

• May 14, 2011: ”Pinetum in Spring”
• May 22, 2011: “Trees from the Era of Ellwanger & Barry and Other Favorites”
• June 18, 2011: “Expansion of the Park and Secret Spaces”
• July 16, 2011:  “Pinetum in Summer”
• September 17, 2011: “The Very End of Summer”  **
• October 15, 2011: “Autumn in Our Highlands”
• November 19,2011 “Pinetum in Fall”

Amy Priestley, a neighborhood resident and former board member of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association,  was the tour guide for six of the seven tours. Amy attended graduate school at Oregon State University’s College of Forest Science and her love of all that grows has extended to her business ventures.  ** Thomas Jones,  who is a long time friend of the Highland Park Neighborhood’s tours and exhibits and a member of  Rochester’s Highland Park Conservancy, conducted the September tour.

Below is a photo album dedicated from tours that took place during 2011…look for a special entry called “Journey to the Dove Tree”  on this site for an interesting tie-in to our “Nominated Trees” series. Click on any picture thumbnail to start a slideshow of this album.  Each slide will also contain a “permalink”  to a page of information with full size version of the photo.

London's Crystal Palace built in the 1850s

Rochester’s most beloved Glass House recently celebrated its 100th birthday.   To honor this distinguished resident of the neighborhood, the scrapbook decided to mark the occasion with a special gallery of photos taken during the birthday weekend. (scroll down for the gallery or click here.)  We start with an illustrated, introductory essay on the historical context of  Lamberton Conservatory.

Conservatories have been with us for a while, at the very least since the first “glass house” was erected  in the Oxford, England Botanic Garden in 1675.   The last half of the 19th century brought refinements in the manufacturing, including that of iron and steel, that allowed economical construction of reinforced glass panels for roofs and building sides.  The first results were spectacular structures such as London’s Crystal Palace.

Buffalo's Central Palm Dome - The Conservatory in South Park

Closer to home, very similar methods were used to construct  Buffalo’s tri-dome  masterpiece, the conservatory of South Park which after 120 years, remains one of the jewels of that’s city’s Olmstead designed park system.  With a Central Palm Dome 67 feet high, South Park’s Conservatory  is much larger than Rochester’s Lamberton, including the older buildings two additional end domes and long passages that connect the three main rooms.   It was also more expensive by a several factors.   By the end of the 1970s, it was in crisis and so, by the early 80s, Erie County purchased the facility and restored portions in order to keep the conservatory from closure.

Within the expansive garden journals, guides  and other related publications of the mid to late 1800s, conservatories were often mentioned.   From the late 1860s, Rochester’s James Vick published a series of “Garden and Floral” guides which eventually evolved into an annual catalog.  Around 1877,  Vick also published a hard bound volume from which the illustration at left is taken (click on it for a larger version).   At that time the author had these comments on the worth of a conservatory:

The Winter Garden proper, or Conservatory, is a delightful spot in which to spend an hour occasionally during the cold storms of winter, a little Eden of our own making, a tropical summer brought to our own doors…What a blessing a rich man would be to a neighborhood, if he were to build such a conservatory as we have described, and say to his neighbors and their children that it was constructed partly for their pleasure, and that, at certain times, say two or three days in a week, all were invited to call and enjoy its pleasures at their convenience.

Portrait of Lamberton Conservatory 2006

It is interesting to note this long-ago author’s view of a conservatory as something “a rich man” would share with his neighbors.  Such was the typical thinking prior to the explosion in the development of public parks in the United States – a movement that began in the 1850s.  Fortunately, with Buffalo’s system serving as an example, the public park system phenomenon swept through Rochester after 1888.  And by 1911, a public conservatory was dedicated in our Highland Botanical Park to honor Alexander B. Lamberton, the reigning president of Rochester’s park commission.

Upper Dome of Conservatory -2006

Lamberton’s own family donated $20,000 for the building construction.  The Lord & Burnham Company provided the plans and materials as they had for the public conservatories in Buffalo, San Francisco, and the United States Botanic Garden on the Capitol mall.  Over time Lamberton was expanded, and as must happen to all glass houses, rebuilt and restored.  That tradition is also old, for the gardeners of Oxford soon realized that neither glass house nor greenhouse with a slate roof gave the plants within enough light to thrive.  But a transparent roof is like most other roofs as it represents a problem that must revisited with new materials and methods again and again over time.  Unlike other roofs, however, undertaking to rebuild a transparent roof  is something that takes an institutional-level commitment. Fortunately, this is a  county that values the heritage of our park and its structures.

Open Dome: April 3, 2009 - Lamberton Re-opens

The latest reconstruction cost nearly $1 million to rebuild the original dome using modern glass and materials during 2008 -2009.  When the Monroe County Parks Department had completed this work, I took the picture at left (which, like all illustrations on this page,links to a much bigger version) moments after the ribbon cutting ceremony on re-opening day: April 3, 2009.  The dome was also restored to its original plan of one story – a site-seeing platform was removed ( see picture above for vestiges of the platform).

Lamberton on Holiday Night

And another attraction was added later that year as Monroe County Parks open the building for evening holiday hours and a tasteful light show within the conservatory rooms. During one of the first of these, I captured another slide show that is on an earlier scrapbook page – click at right to go there

Highland Park’s Lamberton Conservatory celebrated its 100th birthday over the weekend of November 5-6, 2011.  That week was  unusually balmy for mid Autumn in Rochester.  As in recent years,  the leaves lingered on the trees later than most of us have come to expect.   All of this contributed to a very colorful exterior, even when under glass.   Using multiple exposures and the digital technique known as HDR, I worked to capture the colors inside and out for the following album. I also made extensive use of a fish-eye lens  in order to portray the sense of space.  Please enjoy my tribute to one of the favorite buildings in the park and the neighborhood.  Happy 100th Birthday Lamberton, you are looking good!

Suggested References:

Monroe County Parks - Highland Park and Lamberton Conservatory

Downloadable Map of Lamberton Conservatory from Monroe County Parks

Parks: Protecting Highland’s Rainforest: 2007 Article at City Newspaper

Lamberton Conservatory at RocWiki.org

The Botanical Gardens at South Park, Buffalo.

History of the Conservatory by Hardwood Conservatories UK

Records of the Lord & Burnham Company

Vick’s Flower and Vegetable Garden as Reproduced at Archive.org

The Crystal Palace – Topic at Wikipedia

© michaelino.com and Virtual Scrapbook of The Highland Park Neighborhood,  2009-2012  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to michaelino.com and Virtual Scrapbook of The Highland Park Neighborhood with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

In September the Highland Park neighborhood suffered a great loss when Kristine Smith passed away. She was a civil servant for more than 30 years, retiring from her last position as Branch Head at the Maplewood Library. For several years, she served as secretary for our Ellwanger-Barry Neighborhood Association (known today as the Highland Park Neighborhood Association).  More recently she started walking on our PAC TAC pizza walks and eventually became a fully trained PAC TACer.The cold of winter or rain of spring did not deter Kris and many times she was the only other walker with me and my wife Beth.  She was always very helpful and full of
spunk and energy. Her beautiful spirit will be be sorely missed by us all.

For the second year, the music of “The Highlanders” (a band made up primarily of neighbors)  filled the park even as the jugglers from “Airplay” entertained young and old on Linden Street.   When the band was on break,  demonstrations of Zumba dancing and other skills were on display.   And many among us enjoyed the art of conversation among neighbors and friends all afternoon…while other, younger residents created a large hopscotch area on Meigs St or just revisited their favorite playground apparatus.

Below are few panorama photos of a people-filled Ellwanger & Barry Park on the festive day.   Each of these pictures links to a much larger version. Let these serve as one remembrance of how our community of neighbors  spends one Sunday in September every year…

Click for Sheila Kinsky's Stories

Former Resident Sheila Kinsky  previously shared an article about the Generations on Meigs St  of her family that have lived at a house built for her grandfather around 1910.  She included stories about her own childhood, other people and descriptions of many parts of the neighborhood. Find that story by clicking on the picture to the right. 

Recently Sheila sent us several picturesof her family from early in the 20th Century taken  outside her family’s house on Meigs Street.

Connolly Family in 1911 on Meigs St

Marie Connolly on Meigs St

1918 City Directory Showing Connolly Residence

At the time of the pictures, Meigs Street extended only to Rockingham as this was during the era that the Ellwanger & Barry Realty Company was continuing to develop former nursery grounds and extending the Neighborhood from Linden to the edge of Highland Park.  If you click on the pictures to get a bigger view you will be able to see that the area south of the house is sparsely developed.

Shown above is a clip taken from the 1918 City Directory for the City of Rochester that shows James & Marie Connolly (Sheila’s grandparents)  were at that time living at the 929 Meigs address.   When looking to traces a relative from long ago or business (including vintage ads),   browse online  in The Rochester Directory  site (maintained by the Monroe County Library System).  The site currently has City Directory volumes available from the 1840s to 1930, later volumes are found within the stacks of the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County at 115 South Avenue.

Panorama of Book & Mike Concert - July 13, 2011 - Version 1

Panorama of Book & Mike Concert - July 13, 2011 - Version 2

And of course, there is also a video…