Sibley Square revives bygone downtown Rochester holiday tradition

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A collection of holiday animatronic characters, for decades a staple of the Christmas season in downtown Rochester, will again be on display in their former home.

Ken Greene, director of commercial development for Sibley Square, led efforts to bring back to life the carolers, reindeer, elves and artisans that helped make the Sibley Building a holiday season destination for generations of Rochesterians.

The collection of 30 restored characters will be unveiled to the public at 4 p.m. Friday in the Mercantile on Main as WinnCompanies renews a once-revered holiday tradition at Sibley Square.

“We’re going to reconnect Rochesterians with the history of the holidays and reintroduce the animatronics to grandparents and parents, and introduce them to children and grandchildren,” Greene said.

For perhaps 50 years, the figures were the focal point of grand window displays at the Sibley Building during December. But the pieces have been in storage for close to 30 years, discarded in the building’s basement and left to collect dust and crumble.

On a trip to the basement a few months back, Greene decided that these pieces of Rochester history — cherished by so many — shouldn’t be neglected.

So he went to work, clearing the dust, repainting each figure, rebuilding limbs and antlers, and creating scenery vignettes for many characters. For example, the artist now has an easel, a paint tray and a brush that goes up and down.

When Greene ran into mechanical issues, he called in the experts at the Strong Museum of Play to get the motors running again.

“I’m pretty good with a saw and a screwdriver, and I’m pretty creative so I can build vignettes,” he said, “but I’m not very good mechanically and with motors.”

He began work in earnest on the project about two months ago.

“I asked the maintenance team here, ‘Can you buy me an air compressor?’ and then I brought in a half-dozen tables from my home so I could create a work bench,” he said.

“I took the ones that, if I plugged them in, they moved, and started to restore those. I started blowing them off and wiping them down. I tried to do one or two a day. The best part of it was that it was in the basement of Sibley’s and my cell phone didn’t work.”

As he worked, he used social media to document a little progress and realized the impact the finished product would have on Rochesterians.

“I posted a couple in-process pictures on Instagram or LinkedIn or X, and the response was overwhelming,” Greene said. “I’d post something and there were 1,200 views in a day. I knew at that moment that there was an emotional connection to these things.”

That wasn’t necessarily true for the owners of Sibley when the building closed in 1990.

“I’m both surprised they weren’t thrown out and I’m surprised they weren’t taken care of,” Greene said. “They were stored in a way they could only get damaged.

“They fell over and got cracked, their arms broke off, they got disconnected from their bases, their faces got smashed, their antlers fell off.”

Thus, rebuilding each piece was a process.

“I’d work on one or two a day and then I can see what was needed and go to hardware store or Hobby Lobby and buy the supplies I needed for the next round,” he said.

In charge of WinnCompanies restoration and re-creation of the Sibley Building, a project that began with purchase of the property in 2012, Greene found bringing the animatronic characters back to life to be ultra-satisfying.

“When you can take your vocation as a developer and intersect it with your avocation as a craftsman, there’s nothing more fulfilling,” Greene said, “especially around a project like this, where there is such an emotional connection.”

Greene already has seen what historical elements of the Sibley Building mean to the community. During renovation, the historic clock was refurbished and put back on display.

Beneath the clock is a table, engraved with the words, “Meet me under the clock,” which for decades was a common refrain for building visitors.

“When we opened the Mercantile, and memorialized ‘meet me under the clock’ by etching it in the table, the comments we got were just so overwhelming about the emotional connection people have to this building,” Greene said.

Now another connection to the past has been restored, and with the help of Rochester artist Ryan Tamer and WinnCompanies’ commercial operations manager Sean Brooks, they are prominently and creatively displayed in the Mercantile.

“There were 40 total so we have 10 more to restore for next year,” Greene said.

Friday’s unveiling will feature hot chocolate, cookies and kazoos, and is open to the public, Greene said. Rochester Mayor Malik Evans and Monroe County Executive Adam Bello are scheduled to speak and share their memories of Christmas at the Sibley Building.

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