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"Spanning the space between the front wings, eight massive stone columns support a large carved stone parapet - the entrance frieze. The figures balanced in groups on each side of the central figure are intended to represent Buffalo in the present [1932]. "The central figure is a woman, representing the city of Buffalo, ready to record further events of the city's history in the record book she is about to open. The book may be seen as a centennial journal, for City Hall was dedicated on the centennial of the city of Buffalo. "The colossal frieze is over eleven feet high and nearly one hundred feet long. Sculptor Albert T. Stewart has given his own description of the meaning of the figures: "The central figure is representative of the government of the city crowned as the Queen City of the Lakes, entering into her historical record, the present era. In the background are the electrical rays symbolic of her unlimited power, whilst half concealed back of the throne are the symbols of authority. Beneath her foot is the suppressed serpent of vice. On each side is a horn of plenty - on the left that of wheat and corn depicting agricultural prosperity, and on the right, water, indicative of Buffalo's dependence on the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal." - Buffalo City Hall: American Masterpiece," by John H. Conlin. Pub. by the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier, 1993, p. 21

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