File:Creek Bend Heights Apartments, Hamburg, New York - 20230308.jpg

English: The Creek Bend Heights senior apartment complex at 25 Buffalo Street in Hamburg, New York, as seen in March 2023. Standing six stories in height and faced in brown brick, this is quite a visually striking example of Modernist architecture that dates from an era when many examples of the style were anything but. The bow-shaped footprint of the building and interesting staggering of the façade elevations gives off a grandiose effect. Conceived as a collaborative project between Hamburg's SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in nearby Buffalo and financed with assistance from the Niagara Frontier Housing Development Corporation, Creek Bend Heights' three-and-a-half-year, $3 million journey from idea to proposal to construction to completion began with a November 1971 pitch to the Hamburg Village Council by SS. Peter and Paul Parish Council president Carl Krist, but really picked up steam the following September, when the church auditorium played host to a public meeting where architects' renderings were formally presented. The original blueprints prepared by the Buffalo-based firm of Shelgren, Patterson & Marzec were substantially different in appearance from what was ultimately built: plans then called for a blocky, L-shaped building eight stories in height and containing 132 one-bedroom and efficiency units marketed to seniors on fixed incomes and priced on a sliding scale, plus a community room on the ground floor. By 1973, the New York partnership of Joe and Mary Merz had been hired as associate architects and the plans were altered to essentially their present configuration. Despite predictable opposition among some elements of the citizenry and leadership to the construction of a modern high-rise building in Hamburg's charming village center, construction was underway by October 1973, and the first units were opened to residents in June 1975.