File:Buffalo Temple of God in Christ Church of the Nazarene - fmr Salem German Evangelical Church - Buffalo, New York - 20200925.jpg

English: Buffalo Temple of God in Christ Church of the Nazarene, 25 Calumet Place at Garfield Street, Buffalo, New York, September 2020. This clapboard-faced building presents a highly simplified Greek Revival design that must have seemed quite an anachronism when the building was completed in 1892: the dominant architectural feature here are the cornice returns on the front roof gable, suggestive of a broken pediment which is echoed below in the pediment that crowns the front entrance. Otherwise, the aesthetic of the building is characterized by an almost minimalist austerity, as best seen in the nearly windowless façade. Salem German Evangelical Church was the congregation that built and originally occupied the building; they would last nearly ninety years here, persevering despite a fire in 1929 that destroyed much of the church's early records as well as denominational mergers that would require the church's name to be changed repeatedly: it became Salem Evangelical & Reformed in 1938, Salem United Church of Christ in 1957, and later took on the name Riverside-Salem United Church of Christ (this probably happened shortly after the merger by which the UCC was founded, to avoid confusion with the now-identically named Salem UCC on Sherman Street). The congregation dissolved in 1980, and the building was then purchased by the Upstate New York District of the Church of the Nazarene. The Buffalo Temple of God in Christ has met there ever since.