File:Former Holy Trinity RC Church convent, Niagara Falls, New York - 20201119.jpg

English: The convent at the former Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Niagara Falls, New York, November 2020, as seen from 15th Street. By contrast with the church itself which is the work of Schmill & Gould, the convent as well as all the other outbuildings on the site were designed by Buffalo-based architect Władysław Zawadzki, whose work on prominent buildings related to local Polish-American culture is notable in the Western New York area. Unusually for Zawadzki's work, his design for the rectory incorporates distinct Arts and Crafts influences, albeit more subtle than those you see on the former rectory: the rectangular forms, hipped roof with dormer, and simplified lines almost call to mind the American Foursquare style in particular. As with the rest of the buildings on the site, the rough-textured exterior walls were built of stone that was excavated during one of the many expansions of the nearby Hydraulic Canal, which at the time was being repurposed to draw water from the Niagara River toward the new hydroelectric works to the north and west. Lintels in somewhat smoother-textured stone crown all the windows as well as the entrance, which is contained within a small projecting vestibule with a decorative wrought-iron balconet on top, matched by ornate wrought iron rails flanking the front steps. Holy Trinity's convent was constructed in 1910, a year after the opening of the school where its residents, the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph - as many as twelve of them at the time - taught. The school remained in operation until the end of the 1973-74 school year - its closure the result of a decreased parish population due to changing neighborhood demographics and the urban decline that had begun to plague the neighborhood - whereupon the convent too became disused. In 2009, a year after the closure of the church, the convent along with the rest of the complex was purchased from the diocese by a not-for-profit group, who continues to operate the facility as a tourable historic site playing homage to Niagara Falls' Polish-American history as well as renting it out for private events.