File:Lai Baptist Church - fmr Brighton Community Baptist Church - Tonawanda, New York - 20221116.jpg

English: Lai Baptist Church, 1225 Brighton Road at Parkhurst Boulevard, Tonawanda, New York, November 2022. Stylistically speaking, the design of this 1956 building captures a transitional phase in the work of Buffalo-based architectural firm of Shelgren & Whitman, when their favored aesthetic was evolving from late-period Colonial Revival to a full embrace of Modernism. Here we see the former's trademark tropes - white wooden trim offering a stark color contrast vis-à-vis red brick exterior walls, symmetrically arrayed triple and quadruple windows, and a front-gabled roof styled in a manner suggestive of a Classical pediment - simplified into austere and minimalist forms, while the concrete open bell tower breaks with traditionalism altogether. The building was constructed as home to the Brighton Community Baptist Church, a congregation that had been founded in 1953 to serve the religious needs of the Baptist residents of the Green Acres section of Tonawanda, which, like many areas of Buffalo's suburban periphery, was at the time rapidly growing and developing due to the post-World War II outflow of middle-class families from the inner city. Indeed, membership had already increased to about 200 families by July 1955, when the cornerstone of the main sanctuary was laid. This first phase of construction lasted about a year and cost $100,000, while a pair of 1960s-era additions (right and far left) increased capacity further. However, as the 20th century wore on into the 21st, a combination of stalled population growth in Buffalo's first-ring suburbs and an overall trend of secularization throughout society led the church's membership to slowly dwindle, such that by 2018, when it closed its doors for good, attendance at the typical Sunday service was down to about 30. The building was purchased the same year by Lai Baptist Church, a Chin Baptist Convention affiliate founded a few years earlier on Buffalo's West Side and with a congregation composed of members of the local Burmese immigrant community.