Original photo of Harold Jewett Cook’s 1921 South Side Bank at 2221 Seneca Street.

Through the generosity of Judge Norman E. Joslin, WNY Heritage has obtained a photo album of bank buildings designed by Buffalo architect Harold Jewett Cook. All of the designs are Classical Revival in style except one, the South Side Bank. The composition and ornament of the building resembles that of Louis Sullivan’s Midwest banks. It has multiple similarities to a bank designed by Purcell & Elmslie in 1911. Both men had worked for Sullivan. Their Merchants National Bank of Winona, Minnesota has the same heavy cornice projecting between corner piers that are draped in Sullivanesque terra-cotta ornament.

Today the entrance and the windows of the Seneca Street bank have been replaced. A horizontal line of leaded glass windows between the column capitals has been blanked out. The ornamental light fixtures flanking the entrance have also been removed. But, fortunately, the essence of the façade design remains intact and well preserved, including the deeply patterned brickwork between the columns.

The 1911 Purcell & Elmslie bank from Louis Sullivan: The Function of Ornament, 1986.