585 Area Code – Rochester, New York: Location, Time Zone & History

Susan B. Anthony was arrested in Rochester in 1872 for casting a vote, and Frederick Douglass lived in the city for 25 years while publishing his abolitionist newspaper The North Star — a legacy that placed the region at the center of nineteenth-century American reform movements well before it had its own telephone area code. That came in 2001, when NANPA split area code 716 to relieve numbering exhaustion in western New York, separating Rochester from Buffalo. New York's request had initially been denied in 2000 over rate-center concerns before approval followed in a 2001 planning letter; 585 went into service on November 15, 2001, becoming the 308th area code activated in North America and the 14th in New York State, with mandatory dialing following a nine-month permissive period in August 2002.

The numbering plan area reaches beyond Rochester to Batavia, Canandaigua, Geneseo, Albion, and Victor. Its economy carries the imprint of Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb, which built Rochester's long-standing reputation as a hub of American photography and optics, alongside present-day strengths in higher education, healthcare, food and beverage companies like Wegmans and Constellation Brands, and the business services firm Paychex.