English: The former Bank of East Aurora building at 649 Main Street in East Aurora, New York, as seen in February 2023. Completed in 1923 to a design by Aaron Riley Merritt - an architect who, although based in the nearby city of Buffalo, has an extensive portfolio of work in East Aurora - the building is a fine example of the neo classical architecture that typified the design of the areas bank buildings. The majestic façade is a freewheeling mix of both Roman- and Greek-derived elements: note, respectively, the triple arcaded portico set into a tetrastyle mock temple front wherein Doric pilaster strips "support" a dentillated frieze, projecting cornice, and cast stone balustrade. The stone panels that adorn the flanking bays, engraved with cartouches, ably represent the aesthetic too. The earliest financial institution to have set up shop in the village, the Bank of East Aurora was founded in 1882 by local dry goods merchant Henry Z. Persons. Serving as a trusted lender for many of East Aurora's most prosperous citizens and businesses of the era, the bank was long headquartered in the Louise Bethune-designed brick block further down Main Street that is now home to Pacific Underground Catering. It reached an impressive capitalization of $150,000 by 1890. The prosperity of the 1920s led to another period of rapid growth, which in turn necessitated the construction of the building seen here, which remained the bank's head office for the rest of its existence as an independent institution. Thereafter, the building served as a branch location of the Buffalo-based Marine Trust Company (which acquired the Bank of East Aurora in 1936), HSBC (Marine's corporate successor), and First Niagara Bank (which purchased HSBC's Buffalo-area branches in 2011 as part of the latter's global restructuring) until its closure in 2016. After a thorough $1 million historically-sensitive renovation by local developer Todd Stine - made financially feasible largely thanks to its 2021 listing on the National Register of Historic Places - it now functions as an event venue with bed & breakfast-style lodging in the upper story rooms, which are named after notorious bank robbers.