In
1960, Marine Trust Bank gave The Amherst National Bank Building, 415 Amherst Street to the Assumption Church next
door, when they built their new branch in 1960 at Amherst &
Tonawanda Streets. That was just before the Church brought
Jozef Slawinski from Poland to Buffalo to execute his first
sgraffito murals in this country at the Chuch.
Slawinski
lived for the year he was working at Assumption in a small apartment
which was in the bank building's mezzanine.
Father Richard Jedrzejewski,
the Priest at Assumption Church, remembered seeing large easels
in the apartment, with charcoal drawings of Slawinski's, which were the
studies for the final murals.
I purchased the Bank Building in 1996, and have since been engaged
in a restoration and adaptive re-use of this magnificant
structure. The building is now my home & office.