Hornell, New York
Hornell is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States. The population was 8,563 at the 2010 census. The city is named after the Hornell family, early settlers. The City of Hornell is surrounded by Town of Hornellsville. Hornell is about south of Rochester and is near the western edge of Steuben County. Hornell is nicknamed the "Maple City" after the large maple trees that once grew throughout the town and covered the surrounding hills of the Canisteo Valley. Hornell has the largest Saint Patrick's Day parade and celebration in the area, bringing many out  to welcome spring and show their green. Hornell Municipal Airport (KHTF) is located a few miles north of the city on Route 36. History. What is now Hornell was first settled in 1790 under the name "Upper Canisteo", to distinguish it from the community of Canisteo, then known as "Lower Canisteo". The family of Benjamin Crosby were the first settlers in what is now Hornell. The area was incorporated as a town in 1820, as "Hornellsville." The name comes from early settler George Hornell Jr, who built the first gristmill here. The City of Hornell was chartered in 1888 as  the "City of Hornellsville," (having been first organized as the "Village of Hornellsville" in 1852). The name was changed to Hornell in 1906. Major flooding in 1936 put parts of the city under water, prompting the creation of a system of levees to prevent future serious flooding issues. The former city park, Union Park, was destroyed by the highway construction of the 1970s. In 1950, Hornell had a population just above 15,000 people. It had two radio stations, WWHG and WLEA, and three movie theaters - the "Steuben" and the "Majestic" were located on Broadway, the "Hornell" on Main Street. The  current mayor of Hornell is Republican John Buckley. The Hornell Armory, Hornell Public Library, Adsit House, Lincoln School, St. Ann's Federation Building, and United States Post Office are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Railroads and Hornell. Hornell had four rail lines, though the companies operating the railroads often changed names, routes, and ownership: Some grading was done in 1872–1873 for a proposed but unbuilt Rochester, Hornellsville, and Pine Creek railroad. The most important railroad in Hornell was the New York and Erie Railroad, or "Erie" for short. It arrived in Hornell in 1850 and began public  service on May 14, 1851. President Millard Fillmore, himself a native of western New York, and Secretary of State Daniel Webster rode through Hornell on the inaugural train. Hornell was a central location on the "Erie", making it a favorable location for the railroad's repair yards. According to an 1882 traveler's guide to the Erie Railroad, in Hornell "There are an immense amount of side-tracks, ample engine-houses, repair-shops, and other railroad structures, as the village is the dividing-point of the Susquehanna and Western Divisions, and the point of junction of the Buffalo Division of  the Erie Railway... It has banks, newspapers, a nourishing library association, which maintains a course of popular lectures, and is one of the most efficient and attractive institutions of the kind in the interior of the State. There are churches of various denominations, and a population of about 9,000. The cars destined for Buffalo, Niagara Falls, etc., are here detached from those going west via Salamanca or Dunkirk. At the station is a spacious dining-saloon, where meals are served to travelers at regular hours." In 1895 the "Erie" constructed "at the foot of Pine Street...an immense stock barn  for the large number of cattle being shipped east on its trains. Hornell during the railroad period (1860–1960). For the next hundred years Hornell enjoyed prosperity, with its steam engine shop doing the repairs for the entire Erie" line. The most important point in town was the train station, which survives and since 2005 houses the Hornell Erie Depot Museum. Next to it were the police station and fire department, at the beginning of Broadway, a wide street with stores, a luncheonette, and the "Steuben" and "Majestic" Theaters. Heading south, Broadway ended at Canisteo Street just before it passed under  the tracks, a route served for some decades by the Hornell Traction Company. The underpass was closed, save for a pedestrian passage, when the Route 36 arterial was built. At the five-way intersection just north of the underpass, where Broadway began, Canisteo Street ran northwestward. Near its southern end (now covered by the Route 36 arterial), was Hornell's largest hotel, the New Sherwood, the offices of the Hornell Evening Tribune and above it those of its radio station WWHG. On the east side was a storefront Greyhound station (service Elmira – Corning – Bath – Hornell – Batavia – Buffalo, no direct service  to Rochester); on the west side was Hornell's main park, Union Park, destroyed by the Hornell Arterial, with the city's high school (middle school after new high school built), containing the city's largest auditorium, and other businesses. Main Street, with the Hornell Theater, WLEA's studios, Koskie's music store, and other businesses, connected the two now-separated streets (Broadway and Canisteo/Seneca). Main St. extended east to Hornell's Carnegie Library (the Hornell Public Library), Hornell's largest grocery store, Loblaw's, the YMCA, with the only public swimming pool in the city, various medical and  dental offices, and finally (turning south and crossing the Canisteo River), the Erie repair shops. North of Main Street the downtown area extended another block with the city's pharmacy, Jacobson's, a shoe store, the United States Post Office (all now  vacant), and the Steuben Trust Company (bank). In the block north of Main Street, Church Street had Hornell's synagogue, Temple Beth-El (closed), and at the intersection with Genesee Street four churches, one on each corner; two survive today (2017). Further north on Seneca Street were Hornell's best restaurant, The Big Elms, Hornell's baseball  field (from 1942 to 1957 Hornell had a minor-league team), and car dealers. The current high school is adjacent to the baseball field. The city ended at the Canisteo River, where a bridge led to the village of North Hornell. Yet things were not idyllic in Hornell. In 1922, after a recruitment talk by "KKK organizer C. S. Fowler...at the local Grand Army of the Republic hall, the Klan announced its existence by igniting a huge cross on the side of a mountain, a demonstration evidently intended to intimidate the community's sizable immigrant population." Hornell in the  post-railroad period (1960–present). Hornell has struggled to regain its former prosperity. The population is half what it was in 1960, and still declining. Passenger service, in severe decline, ended completely by 1959. (The former station has been refurbished and, since 2006, is the Hornell Erie Depot Museum.) The railroad came upon further hard times as trucking picked up more and more of the freight business. In October, 1960 the "Erie" merged with the Lackawanna. Diesel engines, replacing older steam engines, required less maintenance; consequently, many of the staff were laid off. The Erie Accounting Office, in Hornell, was  closed and its work transferred to the Lackawanna headquarters in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In 1972, flooding from Hurricane Agnes destroyed about of roadbed along the Canisteo River, removing all hope of reoperating the railroad line southeast of Hornell. The company filed for bankruptcy soon after. The former "Erie" repair shops are still a major employer. They were completely closed for years. Later, they serviced EMD diesels as well as most of the bodywork and painting. They were operated by General Electric for a short time, and then by Morrison-Knudsen (both now part of Wabtec). Today, the Hornell shops are Alstom 's main North American assembly and manufacturing site, producing AC traction motors, railway cars and passenger locomotives. Car bodies are shipped disassembled from São Paulo, Brazil, and assembled in Hornell. Alstom won a contract worth $194 million to completely overhaul PATCO Speedline's light rail fleet, beginning in 2011. In 2013, the facility was contracted to build 34 light rail vehicles for delivery to Ottawa by 2018. In 2020 the plant began production of Acela Express Next Generation High-Speed cars for Amtrak. Highway construction. Route 36 Arterial. Hornell's central layout changed significantly when the New York Route  36 arterial was built about 1972. Prior to that, Route 36, Hornell's main north–south highway, was routed along Seneca Street (to the north) and Canisteo Street (to the south). Neither of these streets were adequate for the increased automobile and truck traffic which accompanied the decline of the railroad, and they could not be easily expanded. Canisteo Street also had a significant bottleneck (originally the "Canisteo Subway" on the Hornell-Canisteo trolley, pictured on a postcard) where the route went under the Erie Railroad tracks, just south of downtown. Route 36 between Hornell and Canisteo, also inadequate, could  not be expanded due to the adjacent Canisteo River. The decision was made to replace the route with an arterial, west of Seneca Street on the north side, crossing the downtown and exiting Hornell east of Canisteo Street on the south side. "The highway required the demolition of 245 houses and many commercial buildings, split the city in half, and sacrificed Hornell's Union Park." The four-lane route was continued to Canisteo. Unconnected fragments of the former Route 36 from Hornell to Canisteo survive; in Hornell it starts from East Avenue, east of the river, and heading north from  the Village of Canisteo it is today Dineen/McBurney Road. The impact of the relocation of Route 36 on central Hornell was profound. Much of the south end of the downtown was destroyed, either physically or economically. Seneca Street and Broadway, formerly important commercial streets, became deserted side streets. (See United States Post Office (Hornell, New York).) It is not fondly remembered, and it was something wanted by the trucking industry and its customers, not the local working class. The Southern Tier Expressway (New York Route 17, now Interstate 86). When the decision was made in the 1960s to upgrade  the western portion of New York Route 17 to expressway status, it was decided to route the expressway through the Hornell area, as it was considered to have more prospects for development than Greenwood and Jasper, along the old route (now New York Route 417). Interstate 86 runs from I-90 near Erie, Pennsylvania across New York's Southern Frontier to Windsor, NY. It crosses Route 36 between Hornell and Arkport. It is today Hornell's main highway. Geography. Hornell is located at (42.3244, -77.6603). Hornell is at an altitude of 1,160 feet (354 meters) above sea level. According to the  United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. Hornell is on the Canisteo River and surrounded by the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains. New York State Route 21 conjoined with New York State Route 36 passes through the city, which is just south of the Southern Tier Expressway (Interstate 86 / New York State Route 17). County Roads 65, 68 and 109 also lead into the city. The City is served by two railroads - it is on the Norfolk Southern's Buffalo-East Coast mainline and is the eastern terminus of the mainline of the Western  New York and Pennsylvania Railroad. Demographics. As of the census of 2000, there were 9,019 people, 3,596 households, and 2,218 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,309.0 people per square mile (1,275.6/km). There were 4,100 housing units at an average density of 1,504.2 per square mile (579.9/km). The racial makeup of the city was 95.73% White, 2.38% African American, 0.23% Native American, 0.57% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.38% from other races, and 0.67% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.29% of the population. There were 3,596 households, out of  which 32.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.9% were married couples living together, 16.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.3% were non-families. 32.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.07. In the city, the population was spread out, with 27.7% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 27.0% from 25 to 44, 19.7% from 45 to 64, and 16.0 % who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.9 males. The median income for a household in the city was $28,184, and the median income for a family was $35,000. Males had a median income of $31,727 versus $18,854 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,419. About 18.7% of families and 21.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32.1% of those under age 18  and 6.6% of those age 65 or over. Parks and recreation. There are several parks in the city of Hornell including: Education. There are four public schools and one private school located in Hornell. Public schools include: (The North Hornell School is physically located in the village of North Hornell, but is still a part of the Hornell City School District). Private Schools: The current Superintendent of Schools is Jeremy Polatti In June 2007 the "Hornell Evening Tribune" newspaper announced that a school planning committee is proposing a $100 million project to re-organize the schools and improve assessment  results. Transportation. Hornell is served by buses operated by Hornell Area Transit.