File:North entrance gate, Niagara Falls Memorial Park, Lewiston, New York - 20221222.jpg

English: The main (north) entrance to the Niagara Falls Memorial Park in Lewiston, New York, as seen on an overcast December 2022 afternoon. A simple yet elegant triple-arched gate built of blocks of dressed stone, the Neoclassical architecture of the structure (note the projecting cornice, engraved entablature, and Doric pilaster strips flanking its outward ends) stands in stark contrast to the Gothic Revival aesthetic employed later by architect Louis Greenstein in his designs for the chapel and south entrance gate. The placement of the gate's cornerstone, seen at bottom left, was the culmination of a June 1929 ceremony attended by of a crowd of some 300 onlookers, with Niagara Falls City Court Frank Nicholson as emcee and Buffalo City Councilman Frank E. Freedman delivering an oration on the topic of the cemetery's design philosophy, which its founders described as "a significant step forward in the annals of cemetery construction". The exact contents of the speech are lost to time, but an advertisement in the Niagara Falls Gazette in advance of its 1929 dedication elucidated its differences from the competition in what one imagines is a similar way: the Memorial Park's ambience was to be that of "a park in every sense of the word". "Unsightly shafts or markers" were strictly prohibited in favor of "grave[s]… marked only with a green bronze plate, 12x16 inches, set flush with the ground, erected upon a concrete base", from which "no variation of size or design… [were] allowed". The expert landscaping was characterized by "green lawns, neatly trimmed hedges, and winding boulevards… all nature blending together in a plan of loveliness", and the cemetery's operations were to be financed courtesy of a permanent perpetual-care fund, thus assuring against the possibility of "any assessments, added expenses or any form of charge" for lot holders beyond that of their initial purchase. Now, nearly a century later, the only major deviations from the vision set forth by its founders was the construction of the aforementioned chapel in 1937 and a cluster of small columbaria in the 2010s, where cremains are stored in niches.