Swan Tower is the other name for the Fidelity Trust Building, the Renaissance Revival office building you face at 284 Main Street in downtown Buffalo, New York, inside the Joseph Ellicott Historic District. The lot beneath your feet was once The Weed Block at Main & Swan, built in 1857, home to Millard Fillmore's law office and other prominent Buffalo businessmen. In May 1893 John J. Albright, with George V. Forman, John Satterfield, and Franklin D. Locke, founded The Fidelity Trust and Guaranty Company of Buffalo, New York.
That very block was demolished in 1901 to make room for a new headquarters. In 1909 the officers of the Fidelity Trust commissioned Green & Wicks to build what you now see. The building’s alternate name, Swan Tower, hints at its corner, and the history layered here ties law offices, financiers, and architects across decades.
Even Anson Goodyear wrote of George V. Forman, one of the founders who helped shape the institution that ordered this tower. Picture the corner across Main Street where the old Weed Block once held Millard Fillmore's law office.