File:Frank A. Sedita City Court Building, Delaware Avenue and Niagara Square, Buffalo, NY - 52686137228.jpg

English: Built in 1971-1974, this modern Brutalist-style ten-story building was designed by Pfohl, Roberts and Biggie to house the Buffalo City Courts, and was later named for former Buffalo mayor Frank A. Sedita upon his death in 1975. The building is clad in rough ribbed concrete panels with limited window openings, with the limited window openings having very strong vertical emphasis, with larger, deeply recessed glass curtain walls above the building’s two entrances on the east and west facades, bifurcating the building’s composition. The building has a greek cross footprint, with tall exterior walls featuring vertical slits containing glass curtain walls at the ends, topped with cantilevered concrete headers that are much like abstractions of keystones, with the walls tapering at the first floor. Behind the outward-facing walls, the building’s roofline is lower, with a shorter parapet enclosing the low-slope roof in these areas. The building has plazas paved with brick to the north and south, with the northern plaza, along Niagara Square, being larger, and hosting a modern sculpture known as “Coronation Day,” created by artist Kenneth Snelson. In the past decade, vines have been allowed to grow up the facade of the building, helping to soften its otherwise harsh, rough, geometric exterior appearance. The building is an excellent example of Brutalism, and, despite being newer than most of the better-loved monumental buildings around Niagara Square, is an architecturally significant building.