File:Vars Building, Buffalo, New York - 20201024.jpg

English: The Vars Building, 344 Delaware Avenue at West Tupper Street, Buffalo, New York, October 2020. Designed by the prolific local firm of Bley & Lyman and described by Chuck LaChiusa as "perhaps the best example of an Art Deco commercial building in the city", the most eye-catching detail on the Vars Building's façade is undoubtedly the row of stone spandrel panels crowning the third-floor windows, decorated with bas-relief carvings in the geometric, floral, and sunburst motifs archetypal of the style. But look more closely and you'll see an even greater wealth of Art Deco detailing: stylized volutes between the aforementioned spandrel panels, fluted pilasters intercalated vertically between the second- and third-story windows and crowned with stylized Ionic capitals, an unusual fluted parapet at the roofline, and (difficult to see given the lighting conditions in this photograph, but present nonetheless) still more fluting and additional relief-adorned spandrel panels intercalated between the individual windows of the upper floors. Erected in 1929, the building is named in honor of Addison F. Vars (1898-1968), whose eponymous advertising firm was headquartered there for many years. Subsequent tenants over the years have comprised both commercial offices (S. H. Gow & Co. Insurance, the Schutte Group ad agency, Willcare home health care, the local branch of the Better Business Bureau, and most recently Howard Hanna Real Estate) and retail concerns (Joseph's specialty clothing store; Mendleson's Furniture Gallery).