At its peak in the 1980s, Kodak employed more than 60,000 people in Rochester, New York —more than a quarter of the city’s population at the time. When George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892, it quickly became an American business legend, ultimately making Rochester’s economy the second largest in the state after that of New York City.

Eastman not only provided jobs in Kodak Park, but he also had a hand in every aspect of Rochester’s civic life. He founded its illustrious music and dental schools, endowed its university, and created the Community Chest (later known as the United Way). Over the course of the twentieth century the city became known as “Smugtown,” in part because its economy seemed invincible. Depressions and economic downturns had no significant effect: people always needed film. To be employed by Kodak meant having a lifetime job with a good salary and benefits. George Eastman was one of the first businessmen in America to grant employees dividends and profit sharing. “Bonus Days” were well-known to retailers in Rochester, who extended store hours so Kodak employees could spend their annual windfalls.

The first rumblings of trouble for Kodak came in the early 1990s, when the company began to face stiff competition from overseas, and embarked upon disastrous forays into new products and businesses. By 2000, the digital revolution and the subsequent huge drop in demand for traditional films and papers had pushed the company into economic free-fall. By 2011, Kodak employed fewer than 7,000 people in Rochester, and was struggling to transform itself into a digital company.

There are two Kodak building complexes in Rochester: the company’s head offices in Kodak Tower located in the downtown core on State Street; and the manufacturing, research, and warehousing operations in Kodak Park located in the northwestern part of the city. Upon its completion in 1916, Kodak Tower was Rochester’s tallest building. When, in 1929, he saw the plans for the new Times Square Building, also to be located in downtown Rochester, George Eastman added three floors and a spire to Kodak Tower so that the company’s headquarters could maintain its status as the city’s tallest structure.