File:Redeemed Christian Church of God - fmr St. Joseph RC Church and School - North Tonawanda, New York - 20230211.jpg

English: Redeemed Christian Church of God, 1469 Payne Avenue, North Tonawanda, New York, February 2023. Local architect Frank Mazurowski is the designer of this 1949-vintage edifice whose structure is of tan brick reinforced with steel and whose breathtakingly unusual style draws in equal measure from late-period Art Deco (stylized Classical elements include stepped corbel tables at the roofline as well as pilaster strips running vertically up the projecting central portion of the façade, and note the decorative basketweave pattern in the brickwork of the recessed panels in between) and the Gothic Revival (which makes its influence known in the stepped buttresses flanking the lateral wings and the overall vertical orientation). The building was constructed as home of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, a principally Polish-American congregation that was the fourth to be founded in the Tonawandas. Tracing its history to June 1947 - a time when the northern outskirts of North Tonawanda were developing at a breakneck pace as middle-class homebuyers nationwide sought escape from crowded inner cities - the parish was placed under the leadership of the Rev. Czeslaw (Chester) Polewicz, a young priest native to Niagara Falls who would remain in his post for the next twenty years. Ground was broken just a month later on the building seen here, during whose construction Mass was held variously in an outdoor tent on the church grounds and in a rented room behind a restaurant. May 1948 saw Buffalo bishop John O'Hara helm a cornerstone-laying ceremony that was attended by a crowd of some 3,000 townspeople and featured a procession led by the local Knights of Columbus council and musical performances by the choirs of St. Joseph's Cathedral and Blessed Trinity Church of Buffalo, St. Joseph's own choir, and the Tonawandas Children's Chorus, as well as the dedication of a temporary chapel in the basement auditorium of the unfinished structure which would serve their needs for the remaining eleven months of construction. To be precise, the building was intended at the outset to be a combination church and school, with Mass held in a sanctuary on the ground floor and six classrooms above; however, parish leaders made it clear that they forecast steady growth of their flock, and that this was intended to be only the first element of what would ultimately be a five-building complex that would also comprise a purpose-built church, rectory, convent, and boiler house. Accordingly, after the completion of the permanent sanctuary about 1966, the building seen here was converted for use entirely by the school, with the downstairs space subdivided into additional classrooms. Sadly, the new sanctuary, which was designed to accommodate future growth, instead came at the peak of St. Joseph's size, after which time population decline, the end of the Baby Boom, and a general trend toward secularization in society would combine to gradually reverse the parish's formerly rosy fortunes. The school building ceased to be used as such in 1990, when all of the city's parochial students were merged into the newly established North Tonawanda Catholic School on the campus of Ascension parish, and in 2008, as part of an early phase of the Buffalo Diocese's much-maligned Journey in Faith and Grace program, the parish itself was merged out of existence, with the diminished remnant of its flock sent off to Our Lady of Czestochowa. From there, the complex was split up and the buildings on it sold off individually: the 1966 sanctuary building went to the Disciples of Christ-affiliated Payne Avenue Christian Church, while the 1949 sanctuary-turned-school came full circle in reverting to use as a worship space, namely that of the local affiliate of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal congregation headquartered in Nigeria and with a membership composed largely of immigrants from that country.