File:New Bethel Community Church - fmr Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church - Buffalo, New York - 20201222.jpg

English: New Bethel Community Church, 175 Englewood Avenue at Devereaux Avenue, Buffalo, New York, December 2020. A work of architect Charles F. Obenhack, the architectural design begins with a Tudor Revival substrate (note the half-timbering on the projecting front gable and on the left wing of the main façade) and adds elements of Late English Gothicism (the slender massing; the quatrefoil and curved-diamond patterns underneath said front gable). The building's original occupant was Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church, a congregation founded in 1921 to serve the rapidly urbanizing areas in the far northeast corner of Buffalo. After initially holding services at the Kenilworth Fire Hall just across the city line in Tonawanda, the congregation laid the cornerstone for the present building in July 1928. Construction lasted only four months and was effected at a cost of $20,000. It was thought at the time that a larger building would eventually be needed, and (as you can see from the presence of the lawn and parking lot to the left of the church in this photograph) a large additional lot directly at the corner of Englewood and Devereaux was purchased to that effect, at which time the current building would have reverted to use as the church meeting hall. Ultimately this proved unnecessary, as the congregation's previously rapid growth stalled out with the onset of the Great Depression and never really picked up again. Bethel Lutheran finally dissolved in 1995, superseded that same year by the non-denominational New Bethel Community Church.