File:Stamps The Bar - fmr Hotel Compton et al. - Tonawanda, New York - 20230106.jpg

English: Stamps The Bar, 98 Main Street at Morgan Street, Tonawanda, New York, January 2023. Three stories in height and faced in dark red brick with sandstone trim, this is a typical example of late-19th century small-scale commercial architecture whose aesthetic is characterized by an eclectic, vernacularized take on the Neo-Renaissance style: note the light-on-its-feet massing and the horizontal layering effect achieved by the continuous stone lintel above the second-story windows, the dentillated architrave crowning the ground-floor storefront, and the stone blocks that punctuate the pilaster strips between the shop windows. The most exquisite detailing is found in the upper reaches of the façade, namely the projecting metal cornice at the roofline and the twin rectangles of decorative masonry work just below, which in turn flank a dressed-stone panel that bears the date 1888. The latter jibes with reports from the previous year in the Buffalo Express stating that local entrepreneur Ulrich Maul was "getting the foundation ready for a new three-story brick hotel on the corner of Main and Morgan Streets, opposite the Central Depot". Over the next several decades, the building continued operating as a hotel but passed rapidly through the hands of a multitude of owners. Some of the names by which it was known in those early years include the Hotel Lawton, the Assembly Hotel, and its most well-known and enduring moniker, the Hotel Compton: the property was purchased by Norman H. Compton in 1902 and still bore his name twelve years later, when a report in the Tonawanda Evening News proudly trumpted the purchase of the property by new owner William Lockwood, who "took possession at once and announced his intention to make extensive improvements on the building... converting it into a first-class hotel". Unfortunately, any high hopes that may have been generated from such a lofty announcement were dashed just a few months later when Lockwood was arrested and convicted of operating the place as a brothel, the penalty for which was loss of his liquor license for one year. No doubt this was a major factor behind his bankruptcy in 1918. By the following year, the hotel had closed and the building was serving as home to the city post office. Subsequently, 98 Main has served mostly as a bar and restaurant, again under a variety of different names and owners (Robillard's in the 1930s and '40s, Eddie's from the '50s at least through the '60s). Now known as Stamps (and stylized lately as "Stamps... The Bar"), it's renowned locally not only for its cheap drinks and delightfully dive-y ambience but also as a live music venue: the backroom stage regularly hosts performances by a diverse slate of artists.