English: St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 576 Delaware Road, Tonawanda, New York, February 2023. Completed in 1949 to blueprints by the Buffalo-based architectural partnership of Shelgren & Whitman, this sprawling red brick church complex sports what was described in the pages of the Buffalo Evening News as a "modified Colonial design", and it's a typical example of the firm's stylistic œuvre of the era. The Classical-by-way-of-Georgian derivation of the decorative elements is plainly evident despite the period-appropriate streamlining and stylization: brick quoins frame the entrance and delineate exterior corners; soffit returns on the gables imitate broken pediments; a large oculus window at right is studded with a quartet of keystones. Note also the spire rising in the rear; narrow, needlelike and understated in the firm's typical manner. Organized in 1927 as a mission for the Lutheran residents in the outskirts of the nearby village of Kenmore, St. Mark's initially held services first in a variety of rented locations, then in a converted house on Somerton Avenue. At the time of the original building's dedication in 1931, the congregation was small but growing explosively - the tally of 84 members was double what it had been just a year previous - and it was already understood that future growth would eventually necessitate a larger, purpose-built church. The Great Depression and the Second World War forestalled any new construction temporarily, but the effort was revived in October 1948 when ground was broken for the $70,000 structure seen here. The eight-month construction process was undertaken by the Frederick T. Williams contracting company, a frequent collaborator of Shelgren & Whitman in the early part of the latter firm's existence, and culminated in a dedication ceremony chaired by Dr. Frederick R. Knubel, the president of the United Lutheran Synod of New York, and the Rev. Eugene C. Kreider, a former pastor of St. Mark's who was by then working as synodical superintendent of home missions. In 2022, St. Mark's began serving double duty as home to Kenmore Presbyterian Church, which had downsized and sold off its former building on Delaware Avenue for conversion to apartments.