File:Memorial Hall, Tonawanda, New York - 20220504.jpg

English: Memorial Hall, 3354 Delaware Avenue, Tonawanda, New York, May 2022. On this late-period example of the so-called "Stripped Classical" architecture that was popular among government and institutional buildings in the early part of the 20th century, we see the typical array of simplified, streamlined Greco-Roman tropes: the red brick façade is trimmed with such cast stone ornamentation as Doric pilaster strips "supporting" an entablature with paterae and a modestly projecting cornice. The two-story stone entry surround is impressive as well, incorporating ancones and scroll buttresses. Stylized shield reliefs figure in the tympanums of the arched ground-floor windows. The interior decoration subtly hints at Art Deco, with a terrazzo floor of colorful tiles laid out in geometric patterns, dark-stained wood Classical moldings on the walls, and a trio of mural paintings by local artist Carlo Nisita. This is the longtime home of the Milton J. Brounshidle Post 205 of the American Legion, founded in 1919 and named for the first town resident to lose his life in the First World War (at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September of the previous year). For the first few years of its existence, the post met in rented space in the old Village Hall and in the Odd Fellows Temple before the Town Board agreed to earmark $50,000 in funding for its first purpose-built home, a memorial (hence its name) not only to Brounshidle but all seven of Tonawanda's World War I casualties. Construction began in June 1926 and wrapped up the following year. Today, the American Legion shares the building with the Tonawanda Veterans Club and the Harry E. Crosby Post 2472 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.