USA: Boston's Ohabei Shalom's Byzantine Grandeur

Boston (Brookline), MA. Temple Ohabei Shalom (1922-28). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2010.

Boston (Brookline), MA. Temple Ohabei Shalom, 11 Union Park St (synagogue 1887-mid-1920s). American Jewish Historical Society as reproduced in The Jews of Boston, p 183.

USA: Boston's Ohabei Shalom's Byzantine Grandeur
by Samuel D. Gruber



I was in Boston last week for the Association of Jewish Studies meeting, and stayed in Brookline with a friend. Riding the Green Line T I had to hop off two stops early to take some photos of the grand domed Temple Ohabei Shalom (OS), at the corner of Beacon and Kent Streets. Dedicated in 1928, the synagogue was Boston's entry into the national Byzantine synagogue sweepstakes of the 1920s, where Boston set to compete with similar Byzantine-style buildings in Newark, NJ; Chicago (Temple Isaiah), IL; Portland, OR and elsewhere. A free interpretation of the style was first successfully used for synagogue architecture in Sofia, Bulgaria in the early 1900s, and was soon adapted by American architects.

Sofia, Bulgaria. Great Synagogue. Friedrich Gruenanger (1856-1929), architect (1905-10). This was the first major synagogue inspired in part by Hagia Sofia and other Byzantine buildings, but it also continues use of Islamic motifs. In Bulgaria (unlike Boston) Muslim and Byzantine styles are part of the local heritage. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber.

Portland, Oregon. Temple Beth Israel, Morris H. Whitehouse & Herman Brookman, architects (1923). In the building the Byzantine style is influenced by Art Deco motifs. Photo: from postcard.

Chicago, Illinois. Temple Isaiah, Alfred S. Alschuler, Architect (1924). This is one the most fully realzied Byzantine style synagogues, but it is more influenced by San Vitale in Ravenna than Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber.

Newark, NJ. Congregation B'nai Jeshurun (now Hopewell Baptist Church), Albert Gottleib, arch (1915). One of the earliest American examples of the Byzantine style. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber.

As David Kaufman has written in his essential article "Temples in the American Athens: A History of Synagogues in Boston," in Sarna et al, eds, The Jewish of Boston (1995, 2005), OS was also an fine example of the era's Synagogue-Center movement, where urban architectural monumentality was joined to the more many more mundane activities of sustaining a Jewish religious community. OS, Boston's oldest congregation (founded 1842) felt the need to position itself as a leader in architecture as well as communal education and programming.

The building, designed by Clarance Blackall is one of many contemporary designs that derive from Istanbul's 6th century Hagia Sofia in the latest and last serious bout of Jewish architectural historicism. Blacknell had previously designed Congregation Adath Israel in 1907. The popular Classical style of the first decade of the century had, if anything, become too ubiquitous after World War I, and congregation strove for new ways to establish Jewish and congregational identity in the American world of religious and denomination competition. In Chicago, architect Alfred Alschuler first made the claim that the Byzantine style directly referenced ancient newly excavated synagogues of the 4th-8th century, thereby establishing legitimacy and precedent for the style, but it remains unknown whether anyone really believed this. Architecturally, the Byzantine style as adapted for synagogues allowed the prominent incorporation of a domed sanctuary space and its exterior expression, an architectural and communal element that had been evolving dressed in other styles since the 1890s. The domed interior space gave a great sense of communal unity, and usually also provided better acoustics and sight lines.

David Kaufman quotes congregation Rabbi Samuel J. Abrams remarks at a 1922 find raising banquet for the project:

"what is this New Temple Ohabei Shalom? Let me tell you at least what we shall strive to make it - a monument of the standing of the Jews of this metropolis of the 20th century! more than that; it is to be a witness to the fact that though we have risen in wealth and power, and though we yield to none of our fellow-citizens in love of country, we have not forgotten the rock whence we were hewn. in its artistic completeness, it is to be an offering recoding for years, or - may God grant - for centuries to come, at once the prosperity and the gratitude which are ours in being privileged to be counted among those who served this holy cause."

Boston (Brookline), MA. Temple Ohabei Shalom presentation drawing, ca. 1922.
Reproduced in The Jews of Boston, p 204.

Blackall's original design called for a tall campanile-like tower to be set at the corner of the building, which would have been visible from afar, and also would have linked the building to the previous Ohabei Shalom (at 11 Union Park Street, now a Greek Orthodox church) which had a corner tower, and to the many Boston churches which employed this device of architectural advertising in the tightly built urban environment. The arrangement is described ca. 1925 as: "The dome is about ninety feet high and the tower is one hundred and seventy to the top of its Menorah. The tower, which has a lantern top, will provide a most distinguishing landmark on the long perspective of Beacon street. The lantern has a gilded patterned top surmounted by the Menorah and will have a large light source to stream from its arcaded windows." This tower is very different from the slender minaret-like tower Altschuler used at Temple Isaiah in Chicago, which actually masks a chimney.

In the end the Ohabei Shalom tower was not built, which actually better emphasizes the geometrical integrity of the synagogue design. The dome drum windows were also changed, and it was until a recent renovation of the building that a towering menorah was installed, now atop the dome replacing an earlier simple Star of David. There is rich and intricate brick, carved stone and metalwork detailing throughout the building. My favorite element are the bronze shofars sculpted as door handles on the entrance doors.

Boston (Brookline), MA. Temple Ohabei Shalom. Shofar shaped door handles. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2010.

The interior is also impressive, and over the past two decades the sanctuary has been restored to it original appearance. I'll report more on that space when I have a longer time to visit.


Even before the sanctuary was built the congregation erected an adjacent school, activities and office building that still serves these functions. It was normal for synagogue centers at the time to be built in phases - and remains so today. I can think of several instances where congregations built their school buildings first with flexible space to be used for worship as well, and then never went to build their planned sanctuaries. The best known instance of this is Union Temple in Brooklyn. Ohabei Shalom's school wing is now as often reached by car as by public transport or on foot, so an ample parking lot is in the rear, and a new modern style entrance has been created in the back of the building - which now serves as the de facto front.

USA: Adolph Gottlieb Stained Glass Windows at Kingsway Jewish Center

USA: Adolph Gottlieb Stained Glass Windows at Kingsway Jewish Center
You can read my latest article in Tablet: Magazine: A New Read on Jewish Life here:

Paned Expressions

Though a bit tarnished, the Abstract Expressionist windows at Brooklyn’s Kingsway Jewish Center still glimmer

By Samuel D. Gruber

There is no shortage of synagogues in Brooklyn. Many are beautiful and some are unusual, but most are unknown except to their congregants. In order to help protect this heritage of often aging religious buildings, the New York Landmarks Conservancy embarked in 2006 on a project to survey them.

As a result, several synagogues have been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, and among these is one special for its place in modern art: the Kingsway Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue in the borough’s Flatbush section. Built from 1951 to 1957, the sanctuary was decorated with a suite of stained glass windows designed by Adolph Gottlieb. These little known windows are precious examples of the position of New York’s abstract art outside the world of galleries and museums. They also provide positive evidence of a Jewish component in Gottlieb’s work. The windows are in poor condition, but the Kingsway congregation and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation anticipate that National Register designation would help spur fund raising for their conservation. Ann Friedman, director of the Sacred Sites Program of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, says that it was when viewing Kingsway in 2004 that she realized “the great but under-recognized synagogue architecture in New York.”

read the full article and see more pictures here

Richard Meier Luxury Apartments Completed on Brooklyn Site Once Set for Brunner’s Monumental Union Temple

Richard Meier Luxury Apartments Completed on Brooklyn Site Once Set for Brunner’s Monumental Union Temple

Construction is complete and sales are underway of the apartments in the new luxury building “On Prospect Park” designed by architect Richard Meier at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, on the site that was once designated for the monumental Union Temple, a project scuttled by the Great Depression.

Union Temple was created in 1921 by the merger of two older Brooklyn Reform congregations: Temple Israel and K.K. Beth Elohim. The new congregation decided to build a new home at 17 Eastern Parkway, and commissioned Arnold Brunner Associates for the design. Brunner had designed four important synagogue in Manhattan, and many public buildings. The new design was in two parts. First, there was an eleven-story community house, dedicated on the eve of Sukkot in 1929. The building closely resembles the contemporary luxury apartment buildings of Manhattan’s Park Avenue. Union Temple’s Community House was luxurious, too, with all the amenities demanded of a 1920s Synagogue-Center, including a swimming pool and gymnasium (now used by an independent health club).

Work was then to begin on the grand Temple, intended to seat up to 2,000 worshippers. The building design, which is known from only a few presentation drawings, was the last synagogue designed by Brunner, the most prominent and successful American Jewish architect of his generation, who died in February 1925, shortly after the project was announced. Work on the Community House was overseen by William Gehron, who took over most of Brunner’s projects. The design for Union Temple combines two major trends in Brunner’s career; the creation of a classical vocabulary appropriate for American synagogue design, and the creation of monumental pubic buildings to create impressive public spaces in American cities.

The stock market crash of November 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression put an end to those plans. Like many of congregations at the time, Union Temple had to struggle just to maintain membership, and to survive. Worship took place within the Community House. For High Holy Daus the congregation worshiped at the nearby Brooklyn Academy of Music. Only in 1942 was a theater on the lobby level of the Community House was converted into a sanctuary. The site intended for the grand sanctuary was used as a parking lot until it was sold at a high price for the construction of “On Prospect Park.”

When synagogue building revived after the Depression and World War II, Brunner’s classicism was passé. European modernism, of the very type has inspired Richard Meier’s work, was dominant. Meier, whose “On Prospect Park” now “replaces” the unbuilt Unity Temple, knows this history well, since forty-five years ago he organized the influential Jewish Museum exhibition “Recent American Synagogue Architecture.” At that time Meier, still a recent graduate of Cornell’s School of Architecture, had been working for Davis, Brody and Wisniewski (1958-59); and Marcel Breuer (1960-63), both of which firms had been engaged on synagogue projects, which were featured in the exhibition (of related interest, about this same time Meier also shared a studio with artist Frank Stella. Later, he gave Stella a copy of Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka’s Wooden Synagogues, which greatly influenced Stella’s Polish Village series of the 1970s.)

What a shame that Meier himself has never (to my knowledge) designed a synagogue. He has preferred museums as his form of public architecture. There is still time; he recently designed a church a Rome.

Synagogues now Churches

NY Times Story and On-line Presentation Gives a Close-up to Former Synagogues now Needy Churches
by Samuel D. Gruber

Throughout the United States there are hundreds of former synagogues that are now churches. No one knows how many...I keep my own lists but they are woefully incomplete. In each city one can usually find an historian, preservationist or journalist who has a pretty good idea and in the right circumstances can help set up a tour, or at least provide a list of addresses.

But in New York City, and particularly in Brooklyn, this is hard work. Until this year nobody had reliable lists of even the extant synagogues, let alone the former ones, and no one that I know of had visited many of these buildings in recent years.

In 2007, the New York Landmarks Conservancy began a systematic survey of "historic" synagogues in New York - ones that might be eligible for preservation grants. This is part of a larger multi-year effort to survey all the religious buildings in New York City, something that has been talked about for years but only now with the Conservancy's work does it seem to be seriously underway. For synagogues, already the Conservancy team has visited scores of synagogues in Brooklyn and a much smaller number in Queens. I had the privilege to tag along as an "advisor" a bit last summer, and even in those short visits I was impressed by the quality of previously “undocumented” synagogues, and the richness of their decoration - and particularly the stained glass.

Even the Conservancy survey has not yet visited all the many former synagogues that are now churches - usually serving small independent Protestant congregations - especially Baptist - and increasing Pentecostal and other charismatic sects, as well as Jehovah's Witness congregations. And these buildings are often the ones that need the most care, because they are run independently, often without regular membership and funding, and because they were often bought by their new congregations when they were old and cheap, and maintenance and expensive repairs have often been deferred for years.

In thinking about the problems of these congregations, and the often seemingly irresolvable state of repair of their (often once-impressive) buildings, I re-read the excellent New York Times story by David Gonzalez that ran this past January 28th (2008). Gonzalez and photographer Ruth Fremson take the reader into two of these congregations - the well-maintained Linden Church of Seventh-day Adventists in Queens (formerly Laurelton Jewish Center) and the large and dilapidated St Timothy Holy Church in Brownsville, Brooklyn (formerly the Amboy Street Shul), and present their difficult situations in a broader context.

Since - when the New York Times is concerned - I'm still a print guy, I did not notice that the author and photographer had posted an audio-visual presentation on-line that presents even more - especially visually - of the story. Ms. Fremson's photos are especially noteworthy and should be more widely seen.

Below is a link to the story. Click the modest link to the audio-visual presentation under the second photo. Watch the slides at full screen for best effect. My compliments to Mr. Gonzalez and to Ms. Fremson. We need more main-stream media stories about the plight of our religious buildings. Whether we are religious or not, we must recognize that these buildings carry much of our history and art, and importantly stand as architectural landmarks - centers of gravity, if you will - in countless urban neighborhoods across America. We must first document these buildings, and then where possible, assist to protect them a preserve them for present and future use.

(More on how we can do this in future posts)

Once a Synagogue, Now a Church, and Ailing Quitely
By DAVID GONZALEZ
New York Times, Published: January 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/nyregion/28citywide.html?pagewanted=1&sq=jewell%20cunningham&st=nyt&scp

For more on the Sacred Sites Program of the New York Landmarks Conservancy see:
http://tools.isovera.com/organizations.php3?orgid=79&typeID=643&action=printContentItem&itemID=5040