File:St. Paul RC Church, Kenmore, New York - 20220225.jpg

English: St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, 2930 Delaware Avenue at Victoria Boulevard, Kenmore, New York, February 2022. A National Register of Historic Places-eligible work of Buffalo architect Mortimer J. Murphy, here we see a splendid example of the Late Gothic Revival style that was so favored by its designer, and which was still quite a popular trend in ecclesiastical architecture in the local area at the time the church was built (1954). The enormous stained-glass window with its geometrical bar tracery, the triple entrance with pointed compound arches, and the simple stepped buttresses are of course requisite for the style; the stout, flat-roofed, crenellated tower placed in the corner of the building's footprint is one of the architect's signature tropes, and the relatively sleek lines and simplified forms betray the clear influence of Modernism. Founded in 1892, St. Paul's was created to serve the residents of the then-newly founded village of Kenmore, which was quickly growing into its planned role as Buffalo's first proper suburb and whose predicted rapid population growth was quickly becoming a reality. The present-day church replaced a simple wood-frame structure built in 1897 with the volunteer labor of a community of Jesuit priests from St. Michael's on Washington Street in downtown Buffalo.