English: St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church, 651 Washington Street, Buffalo, New York, January 2020. Erected in 1867, this building was the second one to house the congregation, comprised of an ethnically Alsatian faction which had split away from St. Louis church due to a struggle over control of parish finances; it superseded a modest brick church erected in 1851 on what was to have been the site of Buffalo's Catholic cathedral. The tower was not present at the time of the church's dedication; it was completed in 1876 and the lantern added in 1884. The Jesuits who administered the church in its early years were also responsible for the founding of Canisius College, Buffalo's first Catholic institution of postsecondary education which was located on the block immediately north of the church until its move to its current location in Hamlin Park in 1913. Later on, in 1962, a lightning strike sparked a fire that burned the building to its shell; the interior was completely reconstructed at that time and the height of the tower reduced by 55 feet.