File:Providence Social - fmr Charles Seitz & Son grocery and liquor store, Romanello's Roseland et al. - Buffalo, New York - 20220714.jpg

English: Providence Social, 490 Rhode Island Street at Chenango Street, Buffalo, New York, July 2022. Dating to 1884, this is a relatively late-period example of the Second Empire architectural style, featuring the requisite boxy proportions, mansard roof pierced by multiple dormers, and Classical detailing (rather subtle in this case) and atypical only in its use of clapboard as siding, rather than the traditional brick. Note especially the fine woodwork framing the dormers: scroll-sawn brackets undergird prominent gablets that give the suggestion of Classical pediments, elegant carvings in floral designs crown the windows themselves, and fluting extends downward along the sides. The building was constructed as a speculative venture, configured as what would today be called a mixed-use building, with two apartments upstairs and retail space below, and as Buffalo (and in particular this area of the city's West Side) was in a phase of rapid growth at the time, all of the units leased quickly. The ground-floor space was taken up by Charles Seitz (1849-1930), a young German-American immigrant who went into business as a grocer. Seitz prospered in the space, eventually purchasing the building outright, and beginning in the mid-1890s expanded his operations gradually into what might be described as a miniature hospitality empire, with dry goods added to the inventory, a saloon in the front, a wholesale wine and liquor operation, and even a bowling alley in the rear of the building. Seitz eventually took on his son Frank as a partner, who would take over the business upon his father's retirement in 1917 and continue the family's ownership of the property until moving to a larger space on West Ferry Street in 1928. However, it's the man to whom Seitz sold the building - restaurateur Charles Romanello (1875-1939) - who is most linked with the building in the public mind. He and his son-in-law Bruno Saccomagno (1894-1977) for many years operated Roseland Restaurant, an elegant Italian eatery named in honor of Charles' oldest daughter and Bruno's wife. Already at the time he bought the place, Charles was well known to Prohibition-era federal agents as a habitual server of illicit alcohol at his previous establishments, and given the Romanello family's close ties to the Buffalo Mafia, it's likely he himself was a bootlegger. The restaurant soon became well known as a mob hangout, and the sidewalk in front was the scene of the 1974 slaying of John Cammilleri, a feared lieutenant who was allegedly a rival of newly ascended boss Fred "Lupo" Randaccio. Despite this notoriety, Roseland remained a popular fine dining destination for Buffalonians until its closure in 2005, and the building has remained in use as a restaurant in the years since: the swanky steakhouse Prime 490 operated here from 2006 until 2012, followed by Providence Social, the current tenant which pays cheeky tribute to the building's history with an Art Deco-inspired "gangland" decor scheme.