Along the way, NY 36 passes through the villages of Canisteo, Dansville, Mount Morris, Caledonia, and Churchville and the city of Hornell.

It was truncated in 1927 to end in Geneseo, but was subsequently realigned and extended as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to continue north from Mount Morris to Ogden.

NY 36 was extended again, this time southwestward to Andover, in the early 1940s, but was realigned just a decade later to continue southeast from Hornell to the Pennsylvania state line.

Heading north from the state line in Steuben County, the route follows Troups Creek northward through rural Troupsburg on its way to the equally isolated town of Jasper, where it meets NY 417 at a junction 1.25 miles (2.01 km) west of the small hamlet of Jasper.

Across the town line, NY 36 turns toward the northwest and serves the hamlet of South Canisteo, which marks the southern end of both Colonel Hills Creek and a valley formed by the waterway.

At this point, NY 36 curves sharply to the northwest, passing over Colonel Hills and Bennetts Creeks prior to entering the village as Main Street.

From here northward, the highway takes on a more northeasterly routing as it crosses the northwest corner of the county, where it runs along the west side of Stony Brook State Park and briefly enters the park before emerging from the area just south of the Livingston County line.

Due to the angle at which I-390 crosses NY 36 here, the northbound entrance and exit ramps are located another 0.5 miles (0.8 km) to the north.

The highway turns again just six blocks later to follow Dock and Franklin streets northwest toward Dansville Municipal Airport.

[5] NY 36 continues on, passing through the hamlet of Sonyea and serving the Groveland Correctional Facility on its way into the town of Mount Morris and the village of the same name, where it becomes Main Street in the latter.

Along this stretch, it passes over the New York State Thruway (I-90) a short distance south of the Wheatland–Riga town line.

The route continues into the hamlet of Riga, where it intersects and briefly overlaps with NY 33A westward along Chili–Riga Center Road.

North of this point, NY 36 becomes South Main Street as it enters the southern portion of Churchville.

The highway proceeds into the village's central business district, centered on the junction of Main and Buffalo streets, the latter designated as NY 33.

The route continues through the mostly rural town toward the hamlet of Adams Basin, located west of Spencerport and east of Brockport.

[5] NY 36 ends at the latter intersection;[4] however, Washington Street continues north as County Route 212 to serve Adams Basin and the nearby Erie Canal.

[5] Like many New York State highways, NY 36 was not designed at one time as a single route; it consists of pieces of various projects later cobbled together and relabeled or renumbered.

[2] The remaining sections of contemporary NY 36—from Jasper to the Pennsylvania state line and north of Mount Morris—were state-maintained but unnumbered.