This imposing Medina
sandstone church was the last and most important work of John H.
Selkirk (1808-1878). Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Selkirk came to
Buffalo in 1825 and enjoyed a long career as a builder-architect. He
erected many houses, churches, and commercial buildings, including the
famous Tifft House, a hotel on Main Street long since demolished, as well
as the simple Romanesque facade (1859) of the old Illuminating Gas Co.
behind City Hall.
Like many Gothic Revival buildings for low church denominations, Selkirk's
church was designed with side galleries, old-fashioned features that
high-church congregations had long since abandoned as uncharacteristic of
medieval interiors. The original stained-glass windows ó now removed ówere
done by Booth and Reister, a local firm.
Buffalo churches being built about this time were beginning to be influenced
by the Romanesque style of H. H. Richardson's great, towered Buffalo State
Hospital, begun in 1870. However, this imposing Medina sandstone house
of worship continued to follow the Gothic
Revival trend of Upjohn's St. Paul's ( 1849-1851). The chapel was
built first at the rear of the lot; then several years later the sanctuary
was constructed.
Unusual features of the church are its Edgar Allan Poe-like catacombs
beneath the building and its old-fashioned side galleries in the nave. The
altar and trimmings on the backs of the pews are rosewood.
Originally called the Delaware Avenue Methodist Church, the name was
changed in 1917 at the time of the merger with the Asbury Methodist
congregation
In 1929, internationally known "human fly" George A. Deon was
brought in from New York City to clean the belfry and bells. Deon was said
to be the only man in the country trusted with the cleaning of the Statue
of Liberty and was under contract to clean the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The
chimes, silent since the death of President McKinley at the Pan-American
Exposition in 1901, were unusable to the accumulation of eight tons of
pigeon droppings. |
