Making room to get bigger and brighter — the Clarissa Street Reunion will return to Rochester on Saturday in grand form as both a reminder of the past and a welcome to the future.
Extending even further down Clarissa Street this year, there will be three stages: A gospel stage at Clarissa and Adams Street, an R&B stage at the intersection with Doctor Samuel McCree Way, and finally the Jazz stage will sit at the corner of Clarissa and Troup — the former site of the historic Pythodd Room.
The legendary jazz club was one of many Black businesses torn down between the late 1950s and 1970s when the Third Ward Urban Renewal project displaced nearly 900 families in what is now the Corn Hill neighborhood.
"It was primarily an African-American, Black-owned business community that was uprooted, and you know, lots of children, young people, even adults don't know that it existed," said Renee Long, president of Clarissa Street Legacy.
Long said there's a lot to celebrate this year. The Pythodd Room entered the 2026 Rochester Music Hall of Fame, the legacy organization made a new comic book to engage young people to learn local Black history, and they're working on a permanent home for the Clarissa Uprooted exhibit at the local library.
George Fontenette is one of the elders serving on the Clarissa Street Legacy board. He says he's served for 15 years and now in his 80s, it's a gratifying experience to see the next generation start to take up the torch.
"The story is still continuing," he said. "It's not unique what we went through. It means a whole lot when people come and ask questions and then they know what happened here."
