The former Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church at 1419 Falls Street (corner 15th Street), Niagara Falls, New York, November 2010. A handsome Victorian Romanesque structure designed by the Buffalo-based architectural firm of Schmill & Gould, the exterior walls of Holy Trinity Church - much the same as that of the other buildings on the complex - were built of stone that was excavated during one of the many expansions of the nearby Hydraulic Canal, which at the time was being repurposed to draw water from the Niagara River toward the new hydroelectric works to the north and west. The design of the church sees a steeply-pitched side gable roof covering a lateral narthex with a central tower dominating the façade, topped with a slender hexagonal spire. Triskelion designs are a recurring motif in the tracery at the top of the round-arched stained-glass window on the spire as well as in the transoms above the triple entrances at ground level. Further round-arched openings on the tower feature louvered windows and a niche statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Located in what was once a thriving immigrant community named "Tunnel Town" among whom Italians and Poles predominated, Holy Trinity was founded in 1901 by a consortium of 21 Polish-American families desirous of a place to celebrate Mass in their native language. Several years of worship in a small temporary church on 12th Street were followed by the construction and dedication of the present-day church in 1906, with convent, parochial school, and other outbuildings following over the next half-dozen years. At its height, Holy Trinity was the second-largest Polish-American parish in the diocese, behind only St. Stanislaus on Buffalo's East Side; a highlight of its history was a 1976 visit by then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, during a tour of Western New York. However, the ensuing decades saw changing neighborhood demographics and urban decline take over the neighborhood, and the parish population diminished accordingly; the school had already closed by the time of Wojtyla's visit, and the parish itself eventually merged with several other Niagara Falls congregations as part of the "Journey in Faith & Grace" diocesan consolidation program. The last Mass at Holy Trinity was held on Easter Sunday of 2008. The following year, the building was purchased from the diocese by a not-for-profit group, who continues to operate the facility as a tourable historic site playing homage to Niagara Falls' Polish-American history as well as renting it out for private events.