Written by Georgia Pressley

When Diane Sheffield spoke about the Pythodd Room she closed her eyes. She swirled her hands through the humidity, as if she were coaxing memories of her youth from the air around her.

Where she grew up, near Clarissa Street, the Pythodd jazz club was the place to be.

Although she was only 15, she frequently snuck in. The owner would sit her at her own table with a soda, and Sheffield would let the music wash over her.

“When you walked in, the atmosphere was just so different,” Sheffield said. “If you come in there stressed, you left unstressed.” 

Orange, Africa-shaped earrings dangled near her shoulders bobbed as she talked recently. Trees reflected in her eyeglasses. Her words were punctuated by the sounds of cars rushing above as she sat on a folding chair in a grassy plot nestled below the throbbing of Interstate 490.

The Democrat and Chronicle was there to see the mural. But more importantly, we wanted to learn about what it means and will continue to mean.

Just under the highway was the freshly painted mural. Clarissa Street Uprooted, a partnership between youth from Teen Empowerment and elders from Clarissa Street Legacy, designed the mural with other Rochester artists to honor the Clarissa Street community’s golden era.

Friends, neighbors, and mural contributors would soon be arriving to see the mural’s unveiling. People bustled around Sheffield — strumming guitars, testing speakers, unloading balloons and cookies onto tables cloaked in blue plastic.

Sheffield sat next to Joan Coles Howard in the sea of plastic event furniture. They both had grown up near Clarissa Street. They were two of many neighborhood elders who were about to attend the event.

In its prime, the street was known as “Black Wall Street,” and many people who were raised there can recount beloved businesses, neighbors and shop owners.

And, of course, they would reminisce about the renowned Pythodd club. “It was the most wonderful experience,” Sheffield said “And then when urban renewal—”

“Removal,” Howards interjected. “The urban removal.” 

What happened to Clarissa Street in Rochester? 

Both Sheffield and Howard were old enough to remember the street at its height, but they also remember the time when the street was carved away. 

Beginning in the early 1950s, the city of Rochester began urban renewal projects that cut through many neighborhoods in the city. Clarissa Street was severely affected during the construction of the I-490 highway. But elders remember it being senseless: the highway didn’t reach parts of the street that were removed.

“I cry when I go down there,” said Jean Cardin Harris. She was a Clarissa Street elder who had shuffled in waiting for the event to begin. “I still cry.”

The elders have many stories about the heartbreak of losing Clarissa Street. It represented a place of community and togetherness. It was a hub of Black prosperity torn out by white-dominated power structures of the period.

At the recent celebration of the mural's completion, a handful of people doubled, then tripled. Teenagers, older people, artists and city officials appeared at this plot.

The mural was an homage to the Pythodd Room jazz club which had made many local musicians well known. On the mural: Ron Carter, Pee Wee Ellis, Chuck Mangione, Gap Mangione and Roy McCurdy were all depicted.  

"It means everything,” said Janice Scott, one of Pee Wee Ellis’ three sisters who were at the event. “Growing up down at the Pythodd and Shep's Paradise, that's where the jazz guys got together, all of them would get down there and jam every weekend. I remember being a little girl in my lace ankle socks sitting on the bar." 

Legacy of racial harm: What does the mural represent?

Many people spoke at the unveiling — Mayor Malik Evans, Assemblymember Demond Meeks, Teen Empowerment youth history ambassadors, Clarissa Street Legacy elders and others.

The speeches and poems explained the mural’s importance and artistic symbolism. The businesses and musicians represented the prosperous art scene and Black owned businesses in an era where segregation and racism made life extremely difficult. The youth depicted are members of Teen Empowerment, they represent the importance of remembering history and carrying it through generations.

The mural’s physical placement represents a reclamation of the highway route that tore though the Clarissa Street community. Although the neighborhood is not what it once was, the wider community is still united — attempting to hold tight the memory of the sacred place that was Rochester’s Black Wall Street.