Begun in stages in 1865 and dedicated on January 18, 1871, the Powers Building commands the Four Corners above you. Designed by local architect Andrew Jackson Warner in the Second Empire style, this was Rochester’s first large fireproof office building and the first in the city to have elevators. It carries the name of banker Daniel William Powers, born in Batavia in 1818, who came to Rochester as a young man to work at a hardware store and later became the owner determined to reach the skyline.
Those ambitions show in the building’s distinctive layered triple mansard roof and its observation tower — the result of repeated upward expansions over two decades as Powers sought to own the tallest building in the city. A commemorative plaque on the Main Street side marks the spot where Rochester’s first permanent residence once stood: Hamlet Scrantom’s 1812 log cabin. The Powers Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and the adjacent Powers Hotel was added to the listing in 2019.
A commemorative plaque on the Main Street side marks where Hamlet Scrantom's 1812 log cabin once stood, Rochester's first permanent residence, for you to find.