DescriptionFormer Sacred Heart RC Church, Buffalo, New York - 20200116 - 02.jpg
English: The former Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, 200 Emslie Street at Bristol Street, Buffalo, New York, January 2020. Arguably the East Side church most in danger of demolition by neglect, the church was built in 1915 from a design by local architect Karl Schmill, working here in Flemish-bonded brick with Ohio sandstone trim. Moderately rounded arches abound, the largest crowning the massive stained-glass window on the Emslie Street façade and in turn crowned by a Dutch gable and a niche statue of Jesus pointing to his Sacred Heart. The same façade is flanked by a pair of octagonal turrets and a row of buttresses. Sacred Heart traces its roots to the Hydraulics neighborhood, whose German Catholic populace first held services weekly in a rented space on Seneca Street, then in a proper church building situated in what soon became the midst of the Larkin Company's factory compex. The Sacred Heart parish was dissolved in 1973; in subsequent years the building was used as home of a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation (1973-1988) and Witness Cathedral Church of God in Christ (1989-2008), both of whom were unable to afford the costs of proper building maintenance; in fact, Reverend Ronald Kirk, the pastor of the latter church, was issued an arrest warrant by the city's Housing Court due to the severity of the building code violations. Witness Cathedral was forcibly evicted from the building in 2008 for safety reasons. A demolition order has been pending for the church itself since February 2012, while the former school and rectory, located north of the church (i.e. the grassy lot at right in this photo), were razed in 2008 and 2017 respectively.
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