SCVNGR Sanctuary to Speakeasy Trek

Tour Locations

• Babeville (formerly Asbury United Methodist Church (1876)

  John H. Selkirk

  Asbury was the last, and perhaps most important, commission realized by John H. Selkirk.  The imposing Medina sandstone church is designed in a Gothic Revival style, and includes side galleries, something that had been abandoned by many Gothic Revival architects of the time as uncharacteristic of medieval interiors.  The original stained-glass windows were designed by the Buffalo firm of Booth and Reister, and the building also boasts a system of basement catacombs.  

• Buffalo Religious Arts Center (formerly St. Francis Xavier RCC) (1911-1913)

  Max Beierl

  Founded by the large community of German immigrants who settled in Black Rock, St. Francis Xavier is a Romanesque revival church, evincing a traditional Basilica plan.  The tall asymmetrical tower joins those of other churches in the Black Rock area, as well as those of the Richardson Center, to create a skyline rich in Gothic allusions to the kind of pastoral past hypothesized by Arts and Crafts theorists like John Ruskin and A. W. N. Pugin.  The deep tones of the churches exterior are complemented well by white detailing, which gives the exterior a certain reserved playfulness, especially in its gable, corbelled table and rose window, and noticeably throughout the exterior of the building. 

• Colored Musician's Club (c. 1890)

  Incorporated on May 13, 1935, the Colored Musician’s Club was created by local African American musicians as a venue for practicing, performing and meeting.  It’s original membership comprised musicians who had unionized as Buffalo Local 533 in 1917, separately from the all white American Federation of Musicians Local 43, which was segregated at that time.  While all of the musicians who were instrumental in organizing the Club were members of Local 533, it was organized outside of the union, as a independent venture; this prevented it from being taken over the larger, predominantly white Local 533, when desegregation led to an integration of Buffalo’s musician unions.

• Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church (1907-1909)

  Schmil and Gould

  Built for the large Polish community that once lived in this area, Corpus Christi’s somber dark sandstone exterior conceals an interior of incredible vitality.  In addition to its vocabulary of arches, vaulting and stained-glass windows, there are many colorful paintings that enliven the interior of this church – all of which is complemented by the hand-hewn column capitals, carved by the Scottish immigrant J. Shepperd Craig.  

• First Presbyterian Church (1889-1891)

  Green and Wicks

  The First Presbyterian Church echoes the romantic medievalism of H. H. Richardson’s State Hospital.  Its slender tower is derived from the 12thcentury church of St. Philibert at Tournus, France, while its interior vaulting and domed ceiling recalls St. Mark’s in Venice.  It boasts stained-glass windows by Tiffany, and an elaborate painted iconographic program devised in 1924 by William C. Francis, a local artist and member of the congregation.

• Karpeles Manuscript Museum (formerly First Church of Christ, Scientist) (1911)

  Salon S. Beman

  This Church is notable for its overt Neo-Classicism, referencing both ancient Roman and Greek architecture in its classical porch, complete with ionic columns, coffered ceiling and pediment.  The interior continues this classical vocabulary with its large column-lined isles and coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling.  This emphasis on classical forms is rare in church architecture, as many churches sought to distance themselves from the pagan associations of classical forms.  

• Kings Charter School (formerly St. Mary of Sorrows RCC) (1891)

  Adolphus Druiding

  This Rhenish Romanesque Revival church was designed to express the congregation’s German heritage, and was inspired by Worms Cathedral, in the Rhineland.  The architect borrowed the pilaster strips, the arched corbelled tables and the round-headed arches from this church, while also symbolizing the congregations new home by building the church out of locally sourced Buffalo Plains blue limestone.  The heavy rustication of the architecture emphasizes the mass and monumentality of the building; creating a sense of permanence and stability.  

• Michigan Street Church (Founded: 1837; Built: 1845-1849)

  (builder) Samuel H. Davis

  The Michigan Street Church was the first African American church of any denomination in the city of Buffalo.  Its congregation flourished from 1837, until the California Gold Rush of 1849, which caused an exodus of African Americans moving West to seek their fortunes in the restricted job markets of the time.  While the original congregation may have floundered under the pressures and promises of Western expansion, the influx of Southern African Americans who arrived after the Civil War and in the early 20th century helped to replenished it.  

• St. Gerard's RCC (1911)

  Schmil and Gould

  This Classical church marked a period of expansion for the congregation of St. Gerard’s, which was originally founded in 1911.  Based on St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome, and one-third the scale of its precedent, this church is a Roman Basilica in form, with a single asymmetrical tower (the only Gothic attribute of this rigidly classical structure).  The interior presents 12 monolithic granite columns and contains fifteen murals depicting the fifteen mysteries of the rosary.  

• Unitarian Universalist Church (1904)

  Edward Kent

  Dedicated in 1906 on land donated by John J. Albright, the Unitarian Universalist Church is designed in an English Gothic Style, reminiscent in both scale and style of parish churches in the English countryside.  It is unique for its lack of interior plastering, the expression of stone and wood structures and the oak hammerbeam roof truss, which provides the intimately scaled interior with tremendous visual power.  The windows were designed by Harry E. Goodhue of Boston.