Clifton Springs, NY

Clifton Springs is an Ontario County village southeast of Rochester, mostly in the Town of Manchester with its eastern edge in Phelps. The 2020 census counted 2,209 residents. Sulphur Brook and the mineral springs gave the village its name and shaped its early economy: Dr. Henry Foster's water cure turned Clifton Springs into a health center, and the former sanitarium still survives in the village's historic fabric. The village's Main Street runs just south of the New York State Thruway and near Route 96. The old health-care story remains part of everyday Clifton Springs. Clifton Springs Hospital & Clinic grew from the sanitarium and remains one of the village's largest employers, while the Foster Cottage Museum preserves the water-cure history.

Main Street Arts, the Warfield block, and the Peirce Block keep galleries, food, and small shops in the center, and John Brown Memorial Park has a playground and the spring fountain. The annual Festival of Lights brings music, vendors, wagon rides, and a Tiffany-mosaic chapel into downtown. Clifton Springs is a small Finger Lakes village where a former spa, a working hospital, and a compact Main Street still share the same map.