The Buffalo Savings Bank renamed itself Goldome in an ill-fated 1980s rebrand, but it turns out that its eye-catching gilded dome was originally…copper? The dome of the Buffalo Savings Bank headquarters, designed by Green & Wicks and opened in 1901, was originally covered with tiles inlaid with copper until the bank gilded it in 1954. 

Goldome collapsed in 1991—killed by the Savings & Loan Crisis and risky expansion—and today this Buffalo landmark is just an incredibly ornate M&T Bank branch.

Postcard on the left, Beaux Arts stone clad bank with a reddish brown roof dome on a corner site, flanked by 3-5 story buildings, with early automobiles and many pedestrians. 2021 photo on the right, dome is gold, grey stone, fledgling street trees, catenary wires of the Buffalo Metro Rail, a handful of pedestrians.
1920s postmarked postcard | 2021 photo

So, what's changed? Everything but the Buffalo Savings Bank, clearly–it's remarkable how well preserved the bank building is, even as everything around it was demolished. Of course, the bank itself was responsible for much of that demolition, razing most of the block for its new HQ in the early 1980s. This is also a rare one where the streetscape might be more human-oriented today than it was in this 1920s postcard–the roads at least look narrower. The streetcar that ran down Main ended service in 1950, but the opening of Buffalo Metro Rail brought light rail service back to this street in 1985.

1897 article on plans for a new main office for Buffalo Savings Bank | 1897 articles on the design competition | 1897 sketch of the Green & Wicks proposal

In 1897 the Buffalo Savings Bank launched a design competition for their new main office. Amongst others, national architects like Cyrus Eidlitz and Buffalo heavy-hitters like Edward Kent, Bethune Bethune & Fuchs, and AC Esenwein submitted entries. With a whiff of a fix, the bank selected Green & Wicks’ proposal, a neoclassical building with Corinthian columns and inspired by Roman triumphal arches.

1897 articles on the objections to the selection of the Green & Wicks plan | Green & Wicks plan sketch, University at Buffalo Libraries | 1906 article about the steel dome in Building Construction and Superintendence, the Internet Archive | Construction photo in Engineering Wonders of the World, the Internet Archive | 1899 article on the placing of the last granite capital | 1900 article on the resumption of cladding the dome | 1904, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons | 1907, the American Architect and Architecture, the Internet Archive

The losing architects immediately sued, arguing that Green & Wicks plan encroached on the public right-of-way and that rectifying it would wreck the proposed floor plan. The bank's chosen expert, Boston architect George F. Newton, determined that yes, they were right, it would encroach on the public way…but that all the entries were similarly flawed, so the bank proceeded with Green & Wicks’ design. 

Founded in 1846, Buffalo Savings Bank thrived through most of the 1900s. A sedate savings bank that grew slowly and steadily through careful stewardship of its depositors money, it weathered the Civil War, the Panic of 1873, the Great Depression, and two world wars.

1901, Guide Book to the Pan-American Expo, Wikimedia Commons | Main St, undated, Library of Congress | 1913 from the General Electric Building | 1919, Wikimedia Commons | 1925 Ad | 1954 article on the gilding of the dome | 1970s photos | Undated, Jack Quinan, University at Buffalo Libraries

By the 1970s, Buffalo Savings Bank was one of the largest savings banks in the state of New York—they had outgrown this space. The bank considered two expansion plans: a lower-cost move to the suburbs, or integrating their gold domed legacy office into a full block headquarters development. With the new Buffalo Metro Rail bringing improved transit access to this location, as well as a taxpayer handout in the form of a $7 million Urban Development Action Grant, the bank chose to stay. The glassy addition, designed by William Louie of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, opened in 1982.

Kohn Pedersen Fox: buildings and projects, 1976-1986, the Internet Archive | 1987 article on Goldome going bolding | Undated, Hartill Archive of Architecture and Allied Arts, JSTOR | Goldome ad | 1989, Francis Specker, University at Buffalo Libraries | 1989, Joe Traver, University at Buffalo Libraries | 1991 article on the collapse and bailout of Goldome in Time, the Internet Archive | 1994, Douglas Levere, University at Buffalo Libraries | 2006, Douglas Levere, University at Buffalo Libraries

Renamed Goldome and led by a Merrill Lynch alum, the bank expanded aggressively in the 1980s. Perversely, the bank's relative strength contributed to its eventual collapse–because of its size and health, the federal government encouraged Goldome to take over failing banks as the Savings and Loans Crisis burned through the US banking system. With the assistance of federal funding, Goldome took over nine troubled savings and loans organizations in the 1980s. They struggled to return those acquisitions to profitability, and with regulatory changes looming the bank turned to riskier and riskier bets—leveraged buyouts, new lines of business, questionable additional acquisitions, etc.—to outrun the liabilities it assumed. By 1990, Goldome was technically insolvent and desperately looking for investors to help recapitalize the bank. In 1991 the FDIC's patience ran out—the regulator seized the insolvent bank and sold off the failed bank's assets to Key Bank and M&T Bank. Designated a Buffalo city landmark, it remains an M&T Bank branch today.

1906 postcard on the left: roof is green, two horse drawn carriages in the street, a green streetcar, many men and women wearing hats walking down the street, man on bike. Photo on the right: gold dome, one pedestrian, KPF-designed office glassy next door, catenary wires of the metro overhead.
1906 postcard | 2021 photo

Production Files

Further reading:

A New Financial District - Buffalo Place
Buffalo Place
M&T Bank: Gold Dome Restoration | HHL Architects
HHL Architects was commissioned to investigate the cause of rapid deterioration of the gold leaf on the M&T Dome. The building, topped by a glazed terra cotta dome, was originally designed for the Buffalo Savings Bank by Green & Wicks, and opened in March of 1901. The glaze quickly deteriorated and was painted with aluminum…
HHL Architects
GOLDOME LEAVES BEHIND A VALUABLE LESSON DEMISE OF THE SAVINGS INSTITUTION SHOWS HOW, AND HOW NOT, TO RUN A BANK
If fraud had caused Goldome’s death, the bank’s employees, stockholders, customers and the community would have found it a little easier to understand. There were no convenient scapegoats. Instead, an
Buffalo News

Three other articles I found interesting

1901 article on the fireproofing and the move-in | 1958 look at how the building was lit in Illuminating Engineering, the Internet Archive | 1981 article in Architectural Record

Other building designed by the firm of E.B. Green and William Sydney Wicks include the Albright Knox Gallery, the American Radiator Factory, the Marine National Bank (all in Buffalo), the Dayton Art Institute, and the Toledo Museum of Art, amongst a ton of others—the firm had an extremely productive few decades from the 1890s through the 1920s.

Albright Art Gallery, Wikimedia Commons | American Radiator Factory, Wikimedia Commons | Marine National Bank Building | Dayton Art Institute, Wikimedia Commons | Toledo Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons