File:Former Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie No. 1411, Cooper Memorial Hall, et al. - Tonawanda, New York - 20230321.jpg

English: As seen in March 2023, the three-story building at 36 Delaware Street (corner Morgan Street) in the city of Tonawanda, New York was constructed in 1949 in a Modernist style that would have been considered cutting-edge at the time, and remains eye-catching today: the roof is flat, sleek lines and right angles abound, and the exterior is nearly windowless save for a monumental column of glass that is set above the canopy-shaded entrance vestibule, stretches nearly to the roofline, and, interestingly, is recessed within a projecting brick frame. It's a simple boxy form that is echoed in the ornamentation on the Morgan Street side of the building, with its crisscrossing vertical and horizontal lines framing a trio of much smaller windows, as well as to the left of the entrance, where a stone figure of an eagle with outstretched wings perches atop one of three decorative vertical piers that similarly project outward from the façade. The sculpture presumably pays homage to the Fraternal Order of Eagles, whose local "aerie" - No. 1411, serving the twin cities of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda - was the builder and original occupant of the property. The Eagles are a fraternal society established in 1898 by a consortium of theater owners, and they'd been active in the Tonawandas since 1906, sharing facilities with the local Odd Fellows' lodge and leasing space in the former post office building on North Niagara Street before purchasing the present site in 1922 and erecting their own building. Though their first home was a fine facility - a "spacious and comfortable building, artistically decorated" and "contain[ing] fourteen rooms extensively furnished with a number of rest rooms for both women and men" - the astounding rate of growth in their membership ranks nonetheless rendered it almost immediately inadequate for their needs. The financial hardships of the Great Depression followed by the halt in the civilian construction industry during World War II put expansion plans on ice temporarily, but as early as 1945 the local press was trumpeting ambitious plans for an enormous new "super-clubhouse" to be constructed on South Niagara Street that would have included an eight-lane bowling alley, grand ballroom, formal parlors, onsite restaurant, and other amenities. The Eagles successfully completed the purchase of the lot from the state government; however, financing for construction was dependent on the sale of their previous property, which was made effectively impossible when, in December of the following year, a massive fire tore through the front half of the structure. Faced with a choice of $75,000 in repairs to the existing facility or to demolish it and rebuild on the same site, they opted for the latter approach, holding meetings in rented spaces around town until the ribbon was cut on the building seen here three years later. Interestingly, the Eagles only used the building for a little over a decade: they decamped in 1961 for an even larger facility on Ward Road just beyond the northern city limits of North Tonawanda, where they remain today. This building was then sold to the United Labor Committee of the Tonawandas, who renamed it Cooper Memorial Hall (in honor of the late local labor leader Charles Cooper) and hatched ambitious plans to use it as "the new headquarters of organized labor in the Twin Cities". It served for a few years as a venue for meetings of the local chapters of the International Association of Machinists, United Steelworkers, and other groups, but went back on the market again in 1968. It has since been subdivided, with space leased out to a succession of office and medical tenants.