File:Hotel Lafayette, Washington Street and Clinton Street, Buffalo, NY - 52685129637.jpg

English: Initially built in 1902-1904, this Renaissance Revival-style seven-story hotel, long considered one of the finest hotels in the United States, was designed by Louise Bethune, an early female architect of the firm Bethune, Bethune and Fuchs, and was subsequently expanded under the direction of the original firm in 1906-1912, and then expanded further and renovated under the direction of Esenwein and Johnson in 1916-1917 and 1924-26. The site previously contained several buildings, most notably being the small brick Greek Revival-style Eglise Francaise St. Pierre, or the French Church, which had stood on the site since 1844, and was demolished in 1900. The hotel was previously intended be designed by Henry Ives Cobb, was to be nine stories tall, and was intended to be open for guests during the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, but the investors pulled out before the hotel could be completed, leaving part of the foundation and an excavated plot of dirt for about a year, until a new group of investors took on the project. The initial section of the hotel was just the western half of the present building, which is the end closest to Lafayette Square, for which the hotel was named. The section added between 1906 and 1912 contained hotel rooms with private bathrooms, a feature absent from the original section of the hotel, prompting renovations under the direction of the more experienced firm Esenwein and Johnson, whom had previously been commissioned to add a semi-circular canopy over the main entrance. The addition of bathrooms and replacement of communal bathing facilities with hotel rooms was carried out in a manner coordinated and organized to ensure that hotel operations could continue without interruption. A ballroom was added to the south side of the hotel’s 1912 addition under the direction of Esenwein and Johnson in 1916-1917, which extended the hotel to an adjacent alleyway, and the firm designed another addition that was built on the south side of the original building in 1924, adding additional hotel service space, guest rooms, and a billiard room that later became a bar, which stood seven stories high above the street, but was only two stories tall to the east, so as to not block the hotel’s south-facing light courts. Further renovations were carried out to the hotel from 1924-1926. A notable event occurred in 1919, when an organization known as Quota International, an international women’s service organization was founded at the hotel. Quota International operated until 2020, when declining membership led to the dissolution of the organization. The building’s elevators were replaced in 1928-1929, with the new shafts filling in the south ends of the easternmost and westernmost light wells, the lobby was renovated in the Art Moderne style in 1942, and the hotel’s main dining room was renovated in 1946. In 1952, all the guest room windows were replaced, in 1953, a 318-foot-tall antenna was installed atop the roof of the 1912 eastern wing of the building to house telecommunications equipment, and in 1956, the iron canopies over the entrances were removed, and replaced with new, more modern canopies. The hotel was sold by the original proprietors, the Yates family, to the Carter hotel chain in 1962, and in 1970, the interior was renovated with the installation of drop ceilings in the common areas, before the hotel was sold, again, in 1978...