Oxbow Demolition

Originally founded in the 1920s for boathouses, the Oxbow evolved into a place filled with year-round homes. Articles from the early 1980's explain that residents of the Oxbow cherished their simple lifestyle on the Erie Canal near Fairport...

However, the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) planned to develop the area for recreation, leading to the demolition of abandoned cottages. Despite assurances from DOT officials that current residents could remain if they agreed not to sell or transfer their cottages, concerns arose about potential eviction. The settlement's charm lay in its waterfront location and affordable living, though some cottages were in disrepair and struggling with sewage and waste disposal challenges. Residents feared changes in state policy and the encroachment of neighboring housing developments. By 1972, the state had initiated plans to bulldoze cottages upon vacancy, prompting mixed reactions from residents, some defiant and others resigned to the settlement's fate.

 

"After a cottage is abandoned, it is demolished. Ten abandoned cottages were bulldozed earlier this year by DOT crews, according to state officials. Department officials insist that Oxbow residents are not being evicted. They say the residents can stay as long as they agree not to sell their cottages or pass them on to anyone else. "We want to leave them alone - let them all live out their years in peace," said Richard Barley, assistant to DOT regional waterways director, Clarence Burkwit. Under a 10-year-old policy, cottages are supposed to be demolished once they are vacated. This is to assure that no, on else moves in, Barley said. Once there were more than 50 cottages. Now only 17 are occupied on a U-shaped canal spur south of the village."

Jim Myers, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 5th, 1979.

Browse all Oxbow history here.