English: St. Joseph University Parish Roman Catholic Church, 3269 Main Street, Buffalo, New York, May 2020. Sporting a magnificent Norman Gothic Revival design that's the work of local firm Bley & Lyman, the salient architectural feature here is the steeple: octagonal and sheathed in copper, it's faced with crockets and topped with a fleur-de-lys finial. To its right, the main façade features more crockets on the gable, a rose window where the tracery takes a flame motif, and niche statues on either side. The sanctuary in the interior is decorated with mural paintings of the life of St. Joseph executed in 1968 by artist George Raggi, and an altarpiece and statuary imported from Pietransanta, Italy. Though located far from downtown in what was then a rural area, St. Joseph's is in fact one of the oldest parishes in Buffalo, founded in 1850, with a congregation made up in its early years of farmers from the hamlets of Elysville (present-day University Heights) and North Bush (now subsumed into the postwar suburbia of the Town of Tonawanda) largely of French and German extraction, and led alternately by Jesuits who travelled to the parish from St. Michael, itinerant Redemptorist preachers (including for a time the future St. John Neumann), and generally a revolving door of ministers at a rate of a new one every couple of years. Stability came with urbanization, the first signs of which began to appear at the end of the 19th century, and eventually the growth of the congregation led to the replacement of the original wood-framed country church with a larger brick structure, and that in turn with the present building dedicated in December 1926. St. Joseph remains an active parish in the Buffalo diocese today and is known locally for the diversity of its congregation and, relative to other area Catholic churches, its inclusive atmosphere.