Fidelity Trust Building, Commercial Renaissance Revival building in downtown Buffalo, United States.
The Fidelity Trust Building at 284 Main Street is a Renaissance Revival office building of about 160,000 square feet (15,000 m2), designed by Green & Wicks and built from 1909. Its stone facade carries leaf-and-dart molding with an "F" for Fidelity, egg-and-dart and dentil moldings, block modillions and a projecting cornice. A west wing by E. B. Green was added in 1926.
The Fidelity Trust and Guaranty Company was founded in May 1893 by John J. Albright, George V. Forman, John Satterfield and Franklin D. Locke. The Weed Block, built in 1857 and once home to Millard Fillmore's law office, was demolished in 1901. In 1909 the company commissioned Green & Wicks to build the Fidelity Trust Building on the site.
The interior decoration includes plaster ceiling ornamentation with arabesques, Corinthian capitals, and brass acanthus vines and flowers. Brass guilloche also appears in the finish work. The exterior carries the same program: leaf-and-dart molding with an "F" for Fidelity carved in stone, egg-and-dart and dentil molding, and volutes on the Roman Ionic columns.
The building sits in the Joseph Ellicott Historic District, a downtown area featuring multiple historic structures from the same era. The neighborhood is walkable and allows visitors to observe Renaissance Revival architecture alongside other period buildings in the surrounding blocks.
The building's name survives in stone: leaf-and-dart molding on the facade carries a carved "F" for Fidelity. Anson Goodyear left a portrait of George V. Forman, who walked to the building each morning with George Williams, the lean Forman leaning back and the thin Williams bent forward, a pair so regular that people checked their watches by them.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,621 contributors worldwide.