File:Crosby Building aka Niagara Life Building, Buffalo, New York - 20221010.jpg

English: The Crosby Building, otherwise known as the Niagara Life Building, 166 Franklin Street at West Mohawk Street, Buffalo, New York, October 2022. An early work of the soon-to-be-prolific locally-based architecture practice of North & Shelgren, this handsome structure stands eight stories in height at the south end of the proposed YMCA/YWCA Historic District in the city's downtown area and is a textbook example of Neoclassical architecture as it was typically applied to tall commercial and office buildings of its era. Greco-Roman-inspired decorative elements visible on the façade come mainly in the form of relief carvings on the stone cladding of the bottom two stories and along the frieze that undergirds the flat roof: urns, shields and scrolls in the former location, and urns and wreaths in the latter. Note also the egg-and-dart motif on the cornice. Financed by and named for local insurance magnate William H. Crosby, the building's one-year construction process was completed in October 1916. At the outset, its ground-floor space was leased by six retail tenants, with offices above, including those of Crosby's own Niagara Life Insurance Company, which occupied the entire second story. It's now best known as home of Osteria 166, serving upscale Italian cuisine. More recently, the Crosby Building was one of those that came under threat of demolition due to a proposed expansion of the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center - a project that was later scuttled by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the unexpected death of its most prominent backer, local developer Mark Croce, in a helicopter accident.