The 1908 Synagogue at 242 East 7th Street

photo cityrealty.com

After the failed Hungarian Revolution led by Louis Kossuth in 1848-1849 the small Hungarian population of New York City began to swell.  According to Robert Perlman in his “Bridging Three Worlds: Hungarian-Jewish Americans, 1848-1914,” of the thousands of Hungarian immigrants streaming into Manhattan in the 1880s, “it is reasonable to think that half or more of them were Jews.”


The Hungarians settled in the Lower East Side along with a large number of German and Polish immigrants. Here numerous Jewish congregations developed, including the 1883 Beth Hamidrash Hagodol Anshe Ungarn – or the Great House of Study of the People of Hungary.

By 1908 the congregation had moved several times as its numbers grew. That year it would contract architects Gross & Kleinberger to design a new synagogue on the site of a three-story brick home at 242 East 7th Street recently purchased from Lena Zeichner.

photo by Alice Lum

Rather than demolish the existing structure totally, the front and rear walls were removed and the building was extended by four feet at the front and 32 feet to the rear.

After the late 19th Century when synagogue architecture in America tended towards elaborate Moorish or Byzantine edifices with keyhole arches and minarets; a quieter, more classic style was taking hold. 

Scattered throughout Manhattan extremely similar attractive but unassuming "vernacular" synagogues began being built in the early 20th Century.  This would be one of them.

The new synagogue, which cost $10,000, would reflect the success of the congregation. The architects produced a Neo-classic and refined façade clad in stone. With understated elegance, it rose two stories above a high basement. Four flat pilasters on the first floor supported a cornice on which the second story – essentially a classic Greek temple unto itself – rested.

Photo by Alice Lum

Above the polished wooden double entrance doors was a stained glass fanlight.

The handsome paneled double entrance doors are topped by a large fanlight backed with "slag" glass -- photo by Alice Lum

At the time of the synagogue’s completion, Hungarians were migrating northward to the Yorkville area to escape the crowded conditions downtown. Two years later there were 22,000 Hungarians on the Lower East Side while 17,000 were now living in Yorkville. As the century progressed and more and more Hungarians dispersed, the old synagogues were abandoned or destroyed.

The congregation at 242 East 7th Street, however, stood pat.

Not until 1975 did the members finally give up. That year the last service was held and the doors were locked for good. The beautiful stone synagogue stood quiet and abandoned for nine years.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1984 a developer purchased the building. All traces of the 1908 interiors were destroyed and the structure underwent a three-year renovation into what a real estate agent would later term “five intimate residences.”

Sleek apartments occupy the space where Jewish Hungarian immigrants once worshipped -- photo zillow.com

In his “From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship,” David W. Dunlap said “There are apartment buzzers at the front door, but the exquisite Neoclassical building at 242 East 7th Street is unmistakably a synagogue.”

Although Gross & Kleinberger’s Edwardian interiors have been replaced by sleek, modern spaces, the façade is unchanged --a refined reminder of the days when the voices of this neighborhood rang out in Polish and German and Hungarian.

Congregation Adath Yeshurin of Yassay--No. 58-60 Rivington Street

A brutal commercial gate replaces the former portico.

Although Jews first arrived in New Amsterdam in September 1654; their numbers would remain relatively low for almost two centuries and they endured severe discrimination.   But between 1812 and 1846 the Jewish population swelled from 400 to 10,000, and by the start of the Civil War there were than two dozen synagogues in the city.  Larger numbers did not translate, however, to wide-spread acceptance.

The Lower East Side in 1886 was the center of the German culture; but it was also populated with Polish, Dutch, Russian and other Central or Eastern European immigrants.  Manhattan’s Jewish residents settled here as well—not only because of the shared ties of culture and language; but because of the still rampant antisemitism.   Four years earlier James D. McCabe, in his New York by Gaslight, reflected the general attitude.

“The dealers in the street are nearly all Jews, the sharpest and most unscrupulous of their class, who do not hesitate to swindle their customers before their very eyes, and then call on the police to arrest their victims if they resist.”

In 1886 a group of Romanian Jews established the congregation Kehal Adath Yeshurin of Yassay, variously spelled Adath Jashurun of Jassy.  The immigrants had come from Lasi in Romania and established their synagogue at No. 131 Hester Street.  But by the turn of the century they were prepared to erect a fine new building.

At Nos. 68 and 60 Rivington Street were what the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide described as “brick dwellings, three stories, 21x 40.”  Adolph Schlesinger, a tenement owner, lived in No. 60.  In 1903 the venerable old houses were demolished and the congregation put architect Emery Roth to work designing a handsome synagogue to replace them.

Roth was born in Austria-Hungary to a Jewish family and arrived in the United States in 1884 at the age of 13.  He would become known for his Beaux Arts-style apartment houses; but this commission would require special consideration.  Like so many synagogue designers, he turned to Moorish Revival.   Gothic Revival by now was identified with Christian churches, and Greek Revival smacked of pagan worship.  Moorish Revival harkened to the pre-Inquisition days of relative freedom in Spain.

Roth designed a three-story brick and stone façade with cast iron details.  Contrasting rows of yellow and beige bricks created a striped effect.   The arched entrance was ornamented by two rampant lions each holding a shield.  Dominating it all was a sumptuous arched cornice over the “circle of light.”   A Hebrew inscription translated “This is the gate of the Lord where the righteous come to.”   Originally, onion domes would perch upon the flanking piers. 

The Rivington Street neighborhood in 1904 bustled with shoppers and push-cart vendors.

Construction had its snags.  On August 20, 1904 the city suffered a 10-hour downpour, described by The New York Times as a “deluge.”   The storm destroyed the portico, still under construction.

“Down at 58-60 Rivington Street a new synagogue is being built, and an ornamental arch of artificial stone is in course of construction.  This arch was so seriously damaged that it will have to be rebuilt,” reported The Times.  The lion figures had been cast in a concrete-like material which had not yet totally set.

“When the skies cleared the only things that remained of the lions were the rock pedestals on which each had rested.”

The lions were recast, installed, and within two weeks the synagogue was completed.  On September 5, 1904 the congregation’s scrolls were transferred from Hester Street to the Rivington Street synagogue.  It was no small affair.  The following day The Timesremarked “The east side yesterday saw a parade the duplicate of which, it is said, had never occurred before in this country.”

According to the account, thousands of onlookers lined the streets and 300 policemen escorted the marchers.  The scope of the procession was such that it took four hours to complete.  A band led the parade, followed by an open carriage in which four men rode; two held staffs with the flag of Zion and two held “a gorgeous cushion, on which rested a key of solid gold.”

Following the carriage were eight coaches.  In each were four congregation members who carried two scrolls each.  “Then came a thousand members of the congregation on foot, walking in fours,” said the newspaper.  But that was not nearly the end.

“Another band led a second division, in which were carriages containing the President and three Vice Presidents of the congregation, and then twenty coaches, in which were seated the members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the congregation.”

At the Rivington synagogue speeches were made on the stoop and then the keys were presented.  “The paraders then sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ The outer gate and the door were unlocked with the keys, and the members of the congregation filed into their new house of worship.”

Following the “simple” services inside, the newspaper said “The meeting ended with the singing of ‘Home Sweet Home.’  The crowd which followed the carriages and the marcher numbered 10,000, according to police.”

Despite the spectacle surrounding the opening of the synagogue, it appears that the congregation over-extended themselves in its construction.   On January 25, 1905, just four months later, congregation officials found themselves in court defending a $20,750 lawsuit filed by The Universal Building and Construction Company.   Two weeks later the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that the Eagle Iron Works in conjunction with Universal Building and Construction had placed a lien on the property.

By 1907, mostly because of the infamous steamship General Slocum disaster that killed 1,000 immigrants, most of the German residents of the Lower East Side had moved northward to the Yorkville neighborhood.  This migration possibly contributed to the membership of Adath Jashurun of Jassy, recorded as 1,000 in 1904, to fall to just 200 in 1907.  Although the congregation tried to continue—holding a mass meeting in the synagogue on March 24, 1907 to protest Romanian antisemitic riots for instance—but time had run out.

The congregation was sued in foreclosure.  Although the synagogue was repeatedly on the list of properties to be sold at auction, somehow the officers managed to stall for a year.  On July 19, 1907 the New-York Tribune mentioned that the structure was “not offered for sale” in the Vesey Street auction rooms; and on January 8, 1908 the newspaper reported that the “sale of Nos. 58 and 60 Rivington street, a three story synagogue, 42x80 feet, was adjourned to January 14.”

But the sale was inevitable and the handsome synagogue became home to the First Warschauer Congregation.  Founded in 1889 by Polish Jews from Warsaw, the congregation had been worshiping at No. 84 Suffolk Street a few blocks to the east.

Roth gave meticulous attention to the exquisite details.

The Lower East Side was the heart of Manhattan’s Jewish community throughout most of the 20^th century, and First Warschauer Congregation would remain here for decades.  In 1924 the synagogue was the scene of an unthinkable act when John Berthold of No. 644 East 133^rd Street made the trip downtown to rob its poor box.  On December 6 Judge Mancuso of the General Sessions Court imposed a sentence of two years in Sing Sing for the crime.  Berthold had made away with a total of $5.36.

Although still heavily Jewish, by the 1970s the neighborhood had greatly changed.  First Warschauer Congregation moved out and in 1973 the building was converted to artists’ studios and living space.  A gruesome corrugated security gate replaced the portico with its rampant lions, and equally unappealing industrial doors were installed in the flanking entrances.  Nevertheless, much of Emery Roth’s façade survives as a reminder of a much different Rivington Street in 1904.

photographs by the author

The 1904 Sons of Israel Kalwarie Synagogue --Nos. 13-15 Pike Street

At the turn of the last century the Lower East Side was still the center of the German immigrant population in New York City.  It had also become the enclave of the thriving Jewish community. 

The first Jewish citizens arrived in New York in the late 17^thcentury and by now the city had the world’s most populous Jewish community—twice as large as the next largest group, in Warsaw, Poland.  In 1853 a faction of Russian-Polish Jews broke away from the Orthodox synagogue of Beth Hamderash, forming its own congregation which was named Beth Hamdrash Livne Yisroel Yelide Polen.  The rather ungainly name translated to the House of Study of the Children of Israel Born in Poland.

Three decades later the congregation renamed itself; choosing another name that, too, did not readily roll off the tongue: Congregation and Chevra Ukadisha B’nai Israel Mikalwarie, or the Sons of Israel from Kalwarie.  Kalwarie, or Kalwarja, was a small town on Poland, near Lithuania, from which many of the congregants hailed.

In 1882 the group purchased two building lots on Pike Street, Nos. 13 and 15, and remodeled the existing building as a synagogue.  By 1903 it was the wealthiest Jewish congregation in New York and a new shul was deemed necessary.

On April 14, 1903 The Sun reported that plans had been filed for a new synagogue, “three-story and basement,” to be built on the existing site.  The article promised a “façade of ornamental limestone” and projected the cost of construction to be about $75,000 (nearly $2 million today).  The estimate would prove to be highly understated.

In February 1904 Victoria Gordon’s wedding date was nearing and she had her heart set on being married in the new synagogue.  The trouble was that the building was still in the finishing phases of construction.  Her father, Louis Gordon, (deemed by The Sun as “the Mayor of Canal street”) was a powerful man.  He was not only the chairman of the building committee, he was, as reported in the newspaper, “said to be the wealthiest real estate owner in that part of the city.”

If Louis Gordon’s daughter wanted to be married in the uncompleted synagogue, he would see to it that she got her wish.  The Sun reported on February 22, “As a compliment to Gordon it was decided to allow the ceremony to be held in it.”

The opulent ceremony (which the newspaper said “broke the records for gorgeousness”) caused a near riot on Pike Street on February 21.  “Victoria Gordon, the young and pretty daughter of Louis Gordon…and Joseph Edelson, a lawyer, were married last night and East Side social authorities say that no wedding on the East Side in years has been its match,” reported The Sun.

Two hours before the 5:00 ceremony “the street in front of the synagogue for a block distant was packed from curb to curb  by a crowd of girls and women.  It was necessary to call out the reserves from the Madison street station to preserve order.”  As the guests arrived in smart carriages and shining automobiles policemen had to form a human wall from the sidewalk to the entrance to keep back the feminine mob.

Gordon not only got his way in staging his daughter’s wedding in the unfinished structure; he was given other, more shocking, indulgences.  “Although an orthodox synagogue, some innovations were permitted,” said The Sun. “It is a rare thing for music to be allowed at an orthodox service, but for this occasion an orchestra and a choir of twenty boys were present.”

The ceremony was performed by Rabbi Israel Cooper, head of the congregation for 25 years.  The cantor was renowned for his voice and was “spoke of frequently as the Jewish Caruso,” according to the New-York Tribune.

Following the ceremony a reception was held in the Palm Garden on East 58^th Street.  The Gordon's influence was reflected in the guest list which included the Borough President, the Acting Mayor, a Congressman, two judges, three Senators, and various aldermen and other politicians.

Three weeks later the completed building was dedicated.  On March 14, 1904 The Sun reported that the new synagogue of the Congregation Sons of Israel Kalmarie “was dedicated yesterday afternoon with elaborate ceremonies.”  The newspaper said it “is built of Italian limestone and will seat 1,500 persons.  The interior is finished in hard wood and marble trimmings.”  The basement level served as a school where Eddie Cantor would study, and where a year later that he celebrated his bar mitzvah.

In 1978 Chinese-language signage is seen on the shops near the synagogue--a sign of changes in the neighborhood -- photograph by Edmund V. Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWBZ328G&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The congregation had commissioned the little-known architect Alfred E. Badt to design the building.  He drew on several styles to create the striking synagogue; heavily turning to the German version of Romanesque Revival known as Rundbogenstil.  By placing a grand, split staircase on either side of the triple-arched entrance, Badt create the effect of a grand palace.  The splendid European design in gleaming white limestone, was a striking contrast to the brownstone and brick tenements and commercial buildings along Pike Street. The Sun said it “is considered the most beautiful Hebrew place of worship on the lower East Side.”

Even though the synagogue was designed to accommodate 1,500 worshipers, more than double that amount showed up.  The New-York Tribune, which now estimated the cost at $85,000, reported that “Admission was by ticket only, several thousand persons being turned away.” 

Twenty policemen under Captain Shaw were on hand to preserve order as the throngs tried to gain entrance to the ceremony.  “The interior of the synagogue was decorated yesterday with a profusion of American flags and bunting,” reported The Sun.  The patriotic decorations were not merely for show, apparently.

“Rabbi Schulman made a plea for the spread of Americanism among those of the Jewish faith who had not received the benefits of an education in our institutions, but he advised them also to see that their children, who are receiving an English education, are taught Hebrew also, that they may be able to teach their elders, in the tongue they understood, the principles of free government and give them some of the benefits of the education received in our public schools,” said The Sun.

The New-York Tribune noted that Rabbi Schulman declared “that nowhere in the universe had Judaism such opportunities for development than in this country.”

Five years after the dedication the congregation was shocked when, on January 12, 1909, the New-York Tribune reported that "the Rev. Israel Cooper, one of the best known and oldest Jewish cantors in the city…died yesterday at the age of sixty-nine years, at his home.”  Rabbi Cooper had been suffering from “an acute nervous illness” for the past six months.

Before coming to New York Cooper had been cantor in Bucharest, Romania.  An authority on Central-European music, he left five sons and two daughters along with his widow.  His funeral brought a halt to the streets of the Lower East Side.

The following day the New-York Tribune reported “Twelve hundred Hebrews attended.  Thousands lined the streets of the lower East Side as the funeral procession passed from one synagogue to another.”

The services began at the Sons of Israel Kalwarie where one hundred well known cantors sang.  After that ceremony, the body was carried to the Beth Medrasch Synagogue on Norfolk Street where another ceremony was conducted.

If mourners had been shocked by the suddenness of Rabbi Cooper’s death; they were more so when they returned home to read the article in The Sun that afternoon with the headline “Jewish Singer a Suicide.”

Apparently depressed over his worsening health, he “killed himself yesterday morning by inhaling gas through a tube at this home,” reported the newspaper.

In 1911 the celebrated Reform Rabbi Judah Magnes was asked to give a series of speeches in the Sons of Kalwarie synagogue.  According to Lawrence J. Epstein in his At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side, congregants here wanted to lead traditional Jewish religious lives “but to do so in a specifically American way.  They wanted to speak English.  They wanted to be able to speak—or even dance—with women.”

Thousands crowded Pike Street on the evening of his initial address and police once again had to be called in to maintain order.  The Friday evening lectures laid the foundation for the Young Israel movement.

In 1912 another movement took root at Congregation Sons of Israel Kalwarie.  Young people were seen to be drifting away from traditional Jewish values and observations.  A mass meeting was held  “to bring together the younger generation of Jews and stimulate them with a stronger religious feeling.”

Justice Greenbaum recognized that “Young people had come to think that, as the clothes and traditions of their parents were old-fashioned, the religion of their parents also must be old-fashioned.”  But he saw a shared blame.  “I fear, too, sometimes that the old people do not understand the dangers that beset the young.  There are temptations here that must be fought, and the young must fight them.  One of the saddest sights is to see our girls coming out of the factories, and then to see them again on Sunday on the streets with paint and powder on their faces, looking like women we cannot mention.”

That same year, in March, The Sons of Israel Kalwarie held a two-day jubilee celebration of the 50^th anniversary of its founding.  In announcing the coming celebrations, the New-York Tribune inflated the cost of the building once again, saying “the present synagogue was erected at a cost of $200,000.”

As war ravaged Europe in 1916, congregants had difficulty obtaining news from Poland.  So when Mrs. Mary Watkin of Borough Park returned from Kalwarya and offered to tell of her experiences on May 29, the synagogue was packed.

She told the audience of “the suffering and desolation” there.  The New York Times reported that “Many of those belonging to the synagogue came from Kalwarya, and have either friends of relatives there.  As Mrs. Watkin told her experience many were in tears.”

After spending a year in the little town she had seen much suffering and destitution.  She told the congregants that “many had fled and were now scattered throughout Poland and Russian.”

Rabbi Samuel Schulman added to Mrs. Watkin’s experiences.  “He pointed out that the Jews in the war-ravaged countries were caught between the millstones of war and many had been ground to death,” said The Times.  “He depicted the destitution of those between the contending armies and how their full measure of suffering had come when their towns were captured and recaptured as the tide of fighting rose and fell.”

Following the speeches and collection for victims was taken.  About $1,000, specified for assisting those in Kalwarya, was turned over to the General Committee for the Relief of Jews in the War-Stricken Countries.

On January 18, 1917 a fire broke out in the basement of the synagogue.  Although damage to the structure was minimal, it was a devastating loss to the congregation.  The Sun reported that “Valuable Jewish records, costly books and scrolls were destroyed yesterday in a fire in the basement of the Sons of Israel Synagogue, 13 and 15 Pike street.  “Many of the scrolls and records cannot be replaced.”

The wealth of the congregation was made obvious on March 16, 1928 when Murray Silverstein was arrested for burglary of the synagogue.  The 20-year old was nabbed while pawning pieces of jewelry and silver candelabra in a shop on Second Avenue.  Murray was accused of larceny of more than $6,000 worth of “religious jewels, ornaments and shawls” on complaint of Israel Berg, sexton of the Pike Street synagogue.

As the century progressed, the Lower East Side changed.  By the 1920s most of the German immigrant population was gone; and while the Jewish community still remained for decades, the ever-growing Chinatown area slowly engulfed more and more real estate.

In September 1979, just before Rosh Hashanah, congregants found themselves padlocked out of the Pike Street synagogue.  Where once 1,500 worshipers crowded in for Saturday services, recently only about two dozen showed up.  Without notifying the congregants, the trustees sold their synagogue to a Chinese group.

Esther Singer told Ari L. Goldman of The New York Times, “I was planning to come here Rosh ha-Shanah.  Now they tell me don’t come—the place is for Buddhists.”

Trustees said that they accepted the $180,000 offer—the funds from which would be used to maintain the synagogue’s cemetery in Queens—because the Lower East Side had “drastically changed over the years to the extent that few Jews remain who attend religious services.”

The remaining congregants tried hard to save their synagogue.  They held services on the sidewalk and vowed to prevent a Buddhist temple from taking over their building.  They managed to stave off the sale on the legal grounds that religious property cannot be sold without prior notification of the congregation.

But in the end their protests and efforts were fruitless.  In 1994 the building was sold to a developer who converted the school to retail space, a “community facility” (the Sung Tak Buddhist Temple) in the former sanctuary and residential apartments on the upper floors.

The façade of the Congregation Sons of Israel Kalwarie was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1997—two years too late to save the stained glass windows.  Despite the architectural sacrilege committed to Afred E. Badt’s glorious structure, its integrity is still evident behind garish advertisements.

photographs by the author