File:Electric Tower, Washington Street and Genesee Street, Buffalo, NY - 52686145108.jpg

English: Built in 1912, this Beaux Arts-style 14-story skyscraper was designed by Esenwein and Johnson and Edward B. Green. Inspired by the landmark centerpiece of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition and the Pharos Lighthouse that was a wonder of the ancient world in Alexandria, Egypt, the tower became the tallest building in Buffalo upon its completion, surpassing the earlier St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, which had been Buffalo’s tallest building since 1851, and remained the tallest building until the Liberty Building was built in 1925. The building originally was home to the Buffalo General Electric Company after which it was named, and was expanded with seven-story additions to the east and northeast of the original building in 1924-1927, designed by Edward B. Green and Sons, and a three-story addition to the roof of the building’s original east wing. The building was renovated in the 1930s, adding several Art Deco elements to the building’s interior. The building utilized electric lighting to help it stand out on the city’s skyline, and housed a series of local electrical utility companies, with Buffalo General Electric being absorbed into Niagara Hudson, and eventually becoming Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, remaining in the building until they sold it in 2003. The building’s lobby and office spaces were altered between the 1970s and 1990s in a series of renovations attempting to modernize the space, covering up and removing several decorative elements, while the exterior terra cotta was treated with care and repaired or replaced in a long-term maintenance program.

The building features two seven-story wings forming a “podium” to the east of the tower, which feature large banks o windows, pilasters, white terra cotta cladding, simple cornices, and storefronts along Genesee Street and part of Huron Street, with a light well capped by a skylight sitting in the middle of this section of the building. The most iconic part of the structure, however, is the octagonal white terra cotta-clad tower that rises from the corner of Washington Street and Huron Street, which features a tripartite composition to the main section, and a spire on top. The base features large arched bays with storefronts surrounded by decorative trim and featuring metal mullions and spandrels, with the most decorative trim being at the bay on the Genesee Street side of the tower, which projects from the building and features a rooftop terra above flanked by decorative margents, with all of the openings at the base featuring decorative keystones with wreaths. Additionally, decorative multi-globe metal lampposts flank the main entrance. Above this, the building features four window bays per side flanked by common pilasters an featuring terra cotta spandrels with triglyphs and roman lattice motif, with larger pilasters at the corners, terminating at massive oversized headers at the top of the thirteenth floor windows, with large decorative keystones featuring wreaths. Above this are five smaller recessed windows on each side of the fourteenth floor, flanked by large margents, with the capitals of the pilasters featuring decorative trim including smaller margents, and half-sphere caps atop the pilasters, with the parapets on each side featuring rounded middle sections and terra cotta caps. Above the fourteenth floor is the building’s two-story spire, which features doric columns at the corners with margents and egg and dart motif at the capitals on the first level, ionic columns with margents at the corners of the second level, large roman lattice screens on each side of the levels, decorative terra cotta cladding, keystones with argents, cornices with dentils, parapets with square sections above the columns and arched sections over the windows with margents, and low-slope roofs around the base of each level of the spire, with each level getting smaller and having a setback as the building gets taller. At the top, the building is crowned with a domed terra cotta open lantern with corinthian columns and pilasters, a cornice with dentils, ribbed dome with festoons, and a copper finial with a cylindrical lower section and a spherical upper section.

The building’s interior was partially restored after it was purchased by developers in 2004, and features Art Deco elements in the lobby, including aluminum trim and doors, plaster medallions on the ceilings, geometric motifs, stone cladding on the walls, decorative plaster trim at the transition between the ceilings and walls, an aluminum letterbox, chrome grilles, terrazzo floors, and a restored second-story balcony ringed by an Art Deco railing, creating an octagonal two-story space in the middle of the lobby with chrome wall sconces and light fixtures, art deco ceiling ornament, and a staircase with an art deco railing being present in this space as well. The lobby was partially modernized as part of the renovation, but any remaining historic material was maintained and reproduced to create a more cohesive visual character in the space. Additionally, the building features an intact original staircase with a Beaux Arts-style railing, Beaux Arts-style board rooms with intact original wooden paneling and trim on the walls, plaster ceilings with decorative plasterwork trim, plaster grilles, wall sconces, and a Classical Revival-style board room in one of the wings added in the 1920s, which features corinthian pilasters, wooden paneling, a decorative fireplace surround, and an arcade made up of wooden arches supported by wooden doric columns. The remnants of a photo room can be found on the fourteenth floor, which was originally the men’s lounge and steam room, with the space now being occupied by mechanical equipment. The remnants of a small lecture hall remain in the form of a concrete stage and concrete risers within the fifteenth floor, one of the spaces within the lantern, though structural elements added in 1995 during building renovations now cut through the space. This room now functions as utility space for the building. The interior was further modified in the conversion of the building to apartments in the 2000s.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, and is presently owned by the Iskalo Development Company, and today is home to a variety of commercial office tenants. The building today is regularly lit up with various colored lights to commemorate special events, and is where the Buffalo Ball Drop is held on New Years Eve each year. The building remains the 7th tallest building in Buffalo, today succeeded by several towers built in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as those built later in the 1960s and 1970s. The building anchors the east side of Roosevelt Square.