English: Mizpah Tower, 215 East Jefferson Street at Columbus Circle, Syracuse, New York, May 2021. Erected in 1912, this magnificent building served a mix of purposes that is rare in New York State today and was even rarer at the time of its construction: the ground floor served as the worship space for First Baptist Church - which had merged two years prior with Central Baptist Church and was in need of larger quarters for its newly expanded congregation - while the upper three floors consisted of apartments that originally contained elegant Stickley furniture and were once intended for visitors to the YMCA next door (this portion of the building was taken over by the church directly in 1969 and converted to apartments and rooms for single women, dubbed the Mizpah Hotel in reference to a passage in the Book of Judges). The building's noteworthiness extends into the domain of architecture too: locally-based architect Gordon Wright used Canterbury Cathedral as his model for this Gothic Revival wonder of light-colored tile blocks arranged around a central structural steel skeleton. The characteristic vertical orientation of the style is very much in evidence here courtesy of the narrow windows, motif of sharply pointed arches, and the numerous spires and finials along the building's roofline, not to mention the imposing corner bell tower. Recent years have not been kind to the venerable old landmark: First Baptist's 1988 departure for a suburban campus in Jamesville left the building underutilized, and the City of Syracuse mothballed it in 1998 when they took over ownership. Vacant ever since, it's been the subject of several reuse proposals over the years, none of which have come to fruition.