Squeezer’s

Whereas the previous tenant at 47 Front Street, the Ottman Brothers sausage shop, gained fame for their white hots, musicians Sammy Proff and Andy Laplaca took “white hot” into a new direction when they turned the historic landmark of regional hot dogs into a jazz club in 1948. Late English professor and WXXI broadcast producer Robert Koch remembered Otmen’s in the late forties and mid-fifties as “pulsat[ing] with swing era small combo sounds” that effectively drew a crowd in the narrow, cramped building. “The soul of that sound,” Koch continued, “was Herbie Brock,” whose Art Tatum-inspired piano technique created “often the best jazz we’d heard.” However, Brock left Rochester’s jazz scene for Miami’s in the 50s, and thereafter, the once-bustling Front Street commenced its steady decline. In 1965, urban renewal exchanged much of the hot dog-slinging, jazz-singing neighborhood for Charles Carroll Park.