File:Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church - fmr Hedstrom Memorial Baptist Church - Buffalo, New York - 20201110.jpg

English: Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, 167 Doat Street at Burgard Place, Buffalo, New York, November 2020. A stout edifice with heavy massing, the church exemplifies the Romanesque Revival school of architecture with such features as round-arched windows adorned with voussoirs at the bases of the arches and in the keystone position, a low-pitched roof gable facing Burgard Place with a dentil row and raking corbel table beneath to match an identical motif under the eaves on the side elevations, a blind-arched front entrance bedecked with another keystone as well as bas reliefs in a floral or sunburst pattern, and - rather unusually - a robust, octagonal, flat-roofed corner tower with stepped parapets, still more decorative corbeling, and a modest cornice. The building was originally home to the Hedstrom Memorial Baptist Church, a mission congregation intended to minister to the spiritual needs of the Far East Side Baptist community, and named after the recently deceased Eric L. Hedstrom (1835-1894), a Swedish-born coal dealer whose widow's bequest of $5,000 to the Buffalo Baptist Union enabled the construction of their original church building, which was dedicated three years later. Prior to that, the congregation had met in the private homes of its members as well as in a rented space above a drugstore. The 1897 building was replaced by the one seen here in 1931. Due to changing neighborhood demographics, Hedstrom Baptist relocated to the suburb of Cheektowaga in 1988, and sold it to its current owners at that time.