History

Since 1917, the building at the corner of Hertel and Saranac Avenues has been a North Buffalo landmark. In its early years, 1391 Hertel Avenue served as both a church and a school for the Roman Catholic parish of St. Margaret’s. Three different buildings have served as St. Margaret’s church since Fr. Thomas Timmons was assigned to start a parish on a swampy plot of land in the growing Hertel Avenue/North Park neighborhood in 1916.

Early the following year [1918], a temporary church was consecrated and open to serve the Catholics in North Buffalo. A façade was added to the building in the 1960s for the use of the school after the current St. Margaret’s church building was built in 1957. From then until 2012, St. Margaret’s School educated generations of neighborhood children within its walls.

The building experienced new life as the Cornelius, a 23-apartment residence in the heart of the Hertel Avenue commercial district. Cornelius Creek Road, from which the building takes its name, was an earlier name for Hertel Avenue.