Nine Mile Point

My parents moved us from the city to Webster when I was ten. My father saved some money by finishing the family room and the bedroom above it himself. We made frequent trips out there when the house was going up and sort of helped my father as he cut and hung the paneling in the two rooms. The bedroom was designated for my three youngest brothers. The five of us boys were sharing one bedroom in the city.

The housing development was in an old corn field and it was surrounded by corn fields. Webster, pre-Xerox, was a real frontier. They had not yet built the bay bridge so the two routes we took were Empire Boulevard and the “the Dugway,” Browncroft Boulevard. Empire Boulevard, which starts in the city as Clifford Avenue, was a three lane road. The middle lane, a turning or passing lane, was shared by traffic in both directions. There was a gas station near Howard Johnson’s in Eastway Plaza where they collected the head-ons.

We lived on the other side of the four corners on the fringe of the village. 250 or Webster Fairport Road was called North and South Avenue when it crossed the four corners. And somewhere in there it was called Nine Mile Point Road. I always pictured the point as the the big sand cliff overlooking Lake Ontario. It was just to the east of Andy Finn‘s cottage, sort of across Lake Road from that little grocery store between 250 and Philips Road.

There was a little creek there, labeled Four Mile Creek on today’s map, that flowed into the lake and it was lined with funky summer homes. Andy Finn’s father owned the Texaco Station in town. His family rented a big green cottage on Lake Ontario right near Nine Mile Point and we spent a lot of time there. His parents sat around with their friends drinking beer from the can while the flip tops piled up around them. A community of summer homes was just to the west of them, near where Hedge’s is today. It seemed like the Finns had the nicest place. Its been torn down and the whole area has been redeveloped. 

When Peggi and I moved back here in the mid seventies I revisited that spot and took these photos. I was taking a photo class at the UofR then and I used it a class project. It is interesting to me how I am still taking the same photos today. The cropping was a little clumsy but the chunky composition and flattening of the plane are still my tendencies. 

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