File:Former Crippled Children's Guild, Buffalo, New York - 20210318.jpg

English: The former Crippled Children's Guild, 936 Delaware Avenue at Hodge Avenue, Buffalo, New York, as seen in March 2021. Dedicated in February 1939 after a year and a half of construction, the building is an example of late-period Neoclassical architecture which - despite occasional smatterings of old-school elegance such as the swag reliefs that serve as spandrel panels between the first- and second-story windows in the lateral wings - by and large is characterized by sleek lines and a simplified design that presage the Modernism that would come into vogue less than a decade later. Particularly notable in that regard is the entrance, austere in design and almost completely lacking in ornamentation. Initially four floors in height, 1989 saw the addition of a fifth story that brought to the table Postmodern design elements whose own simplified and modernized take on Classicism melds well with the original portion of the building. Parapets at the roofline in the form of pediments, as well as a large arched window overlooking Delaware Avenue above the main entrance, are salient features of this expansion. The Crippled Children's Guild has its roots in a tradition shared by charitably-minded members of Buffalo's Gilded Age aristocracy, whereby handicapped children were invited for relaxing summer sojourns at their country estates in what are now Buffalo's suburbs. What was once an informal arrangement was formalized in 1910 by the New York State Department of Social Welfare, which incorporated the Guild and operated it for the first quarter-century of its history out of a converted house on Niagara Street in the Lower West Side, with room enough to house fifteen youngsters suffering from a variety of different physical disabilities. During this initial period, the Guild forged productive relationships with the Joint Charities & Community Fund, the Children's Hospital of Buffalo, and the Boy Scouts of America (with whose help it founded the first scout troop in the U.S. for the disabled). This culminated in 1920, when, thanks additionally to its support for innovating new treatments for disabling conditions and special educational services, it was named the nation's leading advocacy group for children with special needs. Ground was broken for the building seen here in 1937, which multiplied its occupancy by a factor of five and which served as its headquarters until 2006. Still in existence, the organization is known today simply as The Children's Guild and keeps its head offices in the Larkin @ Exchange building. In the years since, 936 Delaware has been subdivided and now houses a number of smaller medical offices, including those of Pediatric Cardiology Associates and the Hemophilia Center of Western New York.