Synagogues in Advertisements

Synagogues in Advertisements
by Samuel D. Gruber

New York, NY. Congregation Shearith Israel, Brunner and Tryon architects.
Architectural League of New York Annual Exhibition Catalog (1897)

When I see advertisements in old architecture catalogs and magazines ads touting recently constructed synagogues, I often wonder about the long disconnect between synagogue architecture and its acknowledgment by architectural historians. Until quite recently synagogue architecture was virtually absent from any mainstream teaching and writing in the field.

In years of study in the 1970s and 1980s at prestigious universities I remember only encountering one or two synagogues in the curricula of dozenS of art and architecture classes. These included, of course, the ancient synagogue at Dura-Europos and Frank Lloyd Wright's Beth Sholom synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. And even those buildings got short shrift. Why was this? Is it because synagogue architecture did not measure up in the architectural canon? Or does this - or did it - reflect an inherent bias against synagogues - in the teaching of architectural history?

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. There are plenty of bad - or just derivative - synagogues. But there have been many innovative and beautiful synagogue designs, often created by the leading architects of the time. Often, it seems, architects have been less reluctant to take on synagogue work than critics and historians have been willing to write about those works. Leading architects such as William Strickland and Gottfried Semper in the 19th century, and scores of important 20th century architects designed synagogues. But through the early 1990s there were only a few books - in any language - written on the topic of synagogue architecture (this has now changed). A particularly galling example to me of neglect is the failure to mention Gottfried Semper's influential Dresden synagogue in the long entry on the architect in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects - no mention even in the appended list of the architect's works! There are many other such examples of neglect.

What now surprises me is that synagogue architecture was hardly unknown. It was not a secret guarded by the Jewish community, or somehow shunned by embarrassed architects. Important new synagogue buildings were often illustrated in popular magazines and newspapers in the 19th century. By the 20th century they begin to appear with some regularity in building ads in the trade magazines. These are ads aimed at professionals, and represented architects, engineers, contractors and material suppliers boasting of their accomplishments in the search for new work.

Chicago, Illinois. Temple Isaiah, Alfred Alschuler, architect, 1924.

Ad for R. Guastavino Tile from Architectural Forum, April 1925.

Houston, Texas. Former Beth Israel, Joseph Finger, arch (1932). Ad from Pencil Points (Feb. 1933)

I include here three such ads that I have recently stumbled across in old architecture magazines. Two of them are for buildings that I have previously mentioned in this blog - New York's Congregation Shearith Israel and Chicago's Temple Isaiah (now Isaiah/KAM) . The Chicago example is relevant in that it emphasizes the role of Guastavino vaulting in the the making of impressive domed synagogues. It also gives more information about the use of a Guastavino material - Akoustolith - for the interior construction of the sanctuary. Akoustolith is a light plaster like materials used to give the illusion of heavy stone work. As its name suggests, it is also intended to improve acoustics.

Such ads are not cataloged and therefore their discovery is usually accidental. These ads span the period of the 1890s through the early 1930s - very good years for synagogue building in America. I invite my readers to alert me to more such public references to synagogue design and construction.

USA: New York's Schiff Fountain Has Seen Better Days

New York, NY. Schiff fountain in its original position with Brunner's Seward Park Bath Pavilion on left - facing Essex Street. Photo courtesy of New York City Parks Photo Archive.

New York, NY. Section drawing of Schiff fountain, probably from the 1930s. Photo courtesy of NYC Dept of Parks/Recreation.

New York, NY. Schiff fountain in the 1980s, still essentially intact. Photo courtesy of New York City Parks Photo Archive.

New York, NY. Seward Park. Schiff Fountain in present condition. Photo: S. Gruber 2010.

USA: New York's Schiff Fountain at Seward Park Has Seen Better Days
by Samuel D. Gruber

Turn-of-the-20th-century financier and philanthropist Jacob Schiff and American Jewish architect Arnold W. Brunner had a long and productive relationship, especially when it came to designing useful buildings to aid the material and cultural condition of New York City Jews. Brunner designed many charitable and educational structures funded all or in part by Schiff, and many of these were on the Lower East Side. Brunner especially made a mark on the small area around Rutgers Square located between Seward Park and the The (former) Forward Building.

One of the earliest Brunner-Schiff collaborations was the five-story Educational Alliance, built in 1891 (Brunner and Tryon, architects), and still in use. In 1904 Brunner designed the Bath Pavilion for Seward Park, but this was replaced in the 1930s.

In 1894, Schiff and Brunner collaborated again when the philanthropist donated a fountain to the city to be installed at Rutgers Square. The city voted to accept the gift in November 1894. The Board of Aldermen voted to connect the fountain in August 1895. Though simple, the fountain supplied an unusual element of elegance in the neighborhood, at a public square better known as the meeting point for political demonstrations. A few years later, in 1909, the Seward Park branch of the Public Library (Babb, Cook & Welch, architects) was erected near-by, and this provided an appropriate palace-like background for the fountain. According to a report on the fountain provided to me from the New York City Department of Parks, Schiff "donated the fountain to the City, asking not for recognition of the deed, but only that it ‘be kept in proper condition so that the people of the Seventh Ward may have an opportunity to enjoy it.’

Given the history of the fountain, Schiff's concern with upkeep was legitimate. Within a short time the fountain was being regularly defiled, with its basins field with garbage. To counter this, according to the New York Times (Sept. 27, 1895). The Henry Street settlement organized neighborhood boys to watch over the fountain. The fountain was moved in 1936 to its present location on the western edge of Seward Park. Ironically, this was the same year that Brunner’s Pavilion in Seward Park was demolished.

New York, NY. Seward Park Pavilion, Arnold W. Brunner, architect. Built 1904-05, demolished ca. 1936. Architectural League of New York Annual Exhibition Catalogue,1903.

Since then the fountain has deteriorated. I was recently in the neighborhood and noted its broken condition and inquired to the City of New York/Parks & Recreation, Department of Art & Antiquities, which has (until now unsuccessfully) promoted the fountain's restoration. 

The fountain consists of large circular ground level basin in the center of which is a pedestal supporting a small raised basin. Originally it had two bronze basins surmounted by a finial, an attached drinking fountain with bronze appliques with grotesques at the spouts, and granite semi-circular seats set apart from the fountain itself. The stone seats have been relocated to opposite ends of the park and the lower basin is all that remains of the fountain itself.

The Parks Department has wanted to have the fountain restored for many years. According to a report on the fountain last updated in 2006, "Restoration would include the replacement of missing granite and bronze elements, the cleaning and repointing of the existing granite, and the repair or replacement of the plumbing to make the fountain operable." Unfortunately all efforts to date to fund the project - which would cost between $500,000 and $1.5 million, have been unsuccessful. Work would include:

• Structural Assessment
• Repair and Replacement of Missing Elements
• Graffiti Removal
• Bronze Repatina and Application of Protective Coating
• Plumbing Repair
• Possible Relocation of Benches to Original Position

New York, NY. Seward Park. Schiff Fountain inscription. Photo: S. Gruber 2010.

At first glance there is nothing inherently Jewish about the fountain except its history and the many Jewish communal projects of its sponsor and architect. But a close look reveals a worn inscription from Exodus 17:6 on the pedestal:

"... and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink."

[of course this isn't inherently Jewish, since Christians including Pope Sixtus V in Rome have used it on fountains, too)

USA: More on HUC in Cincinnati - Past and Future

USA: More on HUC in Cincinnati - Past and Future
by Samuel D. Gruber

A few days ago in my blogpost about American Jewish History Month I mentioned the troubles at Hebrew Union College, and the possibility that HUC will close at least one of its four campuses – quite possibly the original campus in Cincinnati. On May 5th, 2009, the HUC Board issued a statement meant to diffuse some of the angst evidence on the blogosphere and in messages sent to HUC:

The Board has charged the administration to devise a plan that will attain financial sustainability and enhance our academic excellence while preserving our presence in Cincinnati,Los Angeles, and New York. The model being developed includes innovative strategies for learning and teaching, increased use of technology, a firm commitment to the Klau Library and American Jewish Archives, and an evolving vision of education that will meet the needs of the 21st century. Significant financial restructuring will establish a sustainable, balanced budget, ensuring the future of the College-Institute.

(Click here for the transcript of HUC’s press release offering a commitment to the three campuses).

As you can see, the Board maintains a commitment to all of its present locations, but demurs about exactly what the presence is. While the likelihood of the preservation of the Klau Library and the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati remains high, the future of the rest of the campus as a Jewish seminary is still in doubt. A website is tracking developments and those who are interested and concerned should a make a point of logging in.

The history of the HUC in Cincinnati is undeniable. Isaac Wise made Cincinnati the center of the distinctly American Reform movement when he moved there from Albany in 1854. The seminary was founded in 1875, and the beginnings of the campus were planned and built from 1907 on (see below). For a long time HUC in Cincinnati was as relevant to American Jews as 777 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn is to the Lubavitch Movement today. Demographic change, and the changing profile of American Judaism has changed that, and the Jewish leadership (and many rabbinic students) much prefer the 21st century Jewish power centers of New York and Los Angeles. Still, a large percentage of American Jews – and especially Reform Jews – still live in urban centers far from the coasts. And it can be argued that not only history, but contemporary American Reform Judaism deserves a center that is not in competition with the hundreds of New York and LA Jewish organizations agencies, institutions and events, and one where students will be trained to be rabbis in “heartland” communities. But it all comes down to money – though I assume the costs of everything – from facilities to salaries to housing and meals for students are more expensive than NY and LA in Cincinnati.

I have a scholarly interest in the early history of the HUC campus, too. Arnold W. Brunner (1857-1925), the American-born Jewish architect that I have been researching recently, was called in as an adviser to HUC when it was first commissioning its Cincinnati campus buildings. The fact that Brunner was the designer of the first building for the Jewish Theological Seminary didn’t matter. After all, Brunner’s patron Jacob Schiff was a contributor to both institutions.

Here are few notes from a still unpublished article about Brunner’s Jewish projects:

Probably in large part because of the success of JTS, but also because of his pre-eminent role as a Jewish architect with planning experience, Brunner was engaged by JTS’s “rival” institution, the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati. Despite their differences in approaches to Judaism JTS and HUC shared a number of prominent donors. Brunner was also well known in Ohio, where since 1901 he had been working on the FederalBuilding and Group Plan in Cleveland. The choice by Hebrew Union College then, to hire Brunner as consultant to help jump-start their new effort to create a campus is not surprising.

In March 1903, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which had oversight of the seminary, appointed a committee to consider moving the College to anew location within Cincinnati. Eventually land was purchased near the University, across form Burnet Woods. The parcel consisted of 18 acres and faced Clifton Avenue. Raising funds to pay for site – which cost far more than HUC’s old site returned, proved difficult. On top of this, funds were needed to erect new buildings.

While this process was on-going, Brunner was hired as a consulting architect to design a program and to help select architects for the specific tasks (unfortunately, no correspondence or other records of this arrange survive at HUC, and no copy of the original prospectus or competition guidelines have been yet found). Jacob Schiff’s $25,000 contribution to the building program may have had something to do with Brunner begin called in. Probably the program Brunner designed was not too different from that of the Jewish Theological Seminary. On January 14, 1907, the Executive Board of HUC heard that “The Building Committee, aided by their Consulting Architect, Mr. Arnold W. Brunner of New York, after a competitive submission of plans, adopted those prepared by Mr. A. Lincoln Fechheimer, who has associated with himself Mr. Harry Hake. These plans are now on exhibition in the hall wherein the Twentieth Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations will meet.” (Proceedings of the Executive Board, Hebrew Union College (Jan. 14, 1907)). Both Fechheimer and Hake subsequently designed buildings for the University of Cincinnati.

For more on the history of Hebrew Union College see Samuel E. Karff, ed. Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion at One Hundred Years (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1976).

USA: Philadelphia Prison Synagogue Restored

USA: Philadelphia Prison Synagogue Restored

The 1920s Alfred W. Fleisher Memorial Synagogue at Eastern State Penitentiary Has Been Rediscovered and Restored
by Smuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) A small synagogue built behind the walls of Philadelphia's historic Eastern State Penitentiary has been rediscovered, researched and restored as part of the ongoing restoration of the famous prison, now a National Historic Landmark and historic site. Historic Preservation student Laura Mass first brought the room to the attention of historians and conservators and she subsequently wrote her Masters Thesis (2004) about the history, architecture and conservation needs of the space. Now, after a successful fund-raising and restoration campaign the Alfred W. Fleisher Memorial Synagogue (its original name) is open to the public. According to the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site websitte: "The synagogue is named for Alfred W. Fleisher, President of the Board of Trustees of Eastern State Penitentiary from 1924-1928, who was an active prison reformer and helped found the synagogue. Upon his sudden death in 1928 at age 50, the Jewish inmates were so moved by their loss, that they placed a bronze tablet in the synagogue, dedicating the room to his memory."

Over $345,000 was raised for the project with lead funding from The Suzanne F. and Ralph J. Roberts Foundation and the Aileen K. and Brian L. Roberts Foundation.

You can read about the opening in a New York Times article of March 27, 2009.

For a more detailed history of Jews at Eastern state and the founding of the synagogue, you can read excepts form Maas' MA, Thesis, “The Synagogue at Eastern State Penitentiary: History and Interpretation: A Thesis in Historic Preservation,"

Congratulations to Laura and the conservation team led by led by Andrew Fearon of Milner and Carr Conservation for this project. You read a detailed account of the restoration here.

Laura had called me when she first started work for some advice - I'm not sure I was able to tell her much that was useful. But I was excited by her work and the project for several reasons. First, in the 1950s and 1960s my father Jacob W. Gruber and his colleague and mentor Negley Teeters were deeply involved in the history and sociology of the prison. My father, in fact, discovered numerous documents pertaining to the prison history, which were donated to the American Philosophical Society. He was intrigued by the obvious long history of Jewish prisoners - and I think he wrote a short article about this. I remember how the Jewish establishment of the time did not think that the history of Jewish criminals was worthy of attention (that was before all the interest in Meyer Lansky and other Jewish gangsters).

Second, I thought that this discovery would make a nice "bookend" to the already restored Landmark Frank Memorial Synagogue at the Albert Einstein Medical Center (formerly The Jewish Hospital), built in 1901 by Arnold W. Brunner. These two very different institutional prayer halls expand the idea of what an American synagogue is. The Eastern State Synagogue is thought to be the first synagogue in any prison in the United States (Of course, synagogues and prisons have a long joined history, since in Europe synagogues were often used as prisons. A good example is the synagogue in Tykocin, Poland, where Jewish criminals were apparently kept in the tower).

The Synagogue Restoration Committee was led by Cindy Wanerman, who led an energetic and innovative group of volunteers, donors and professionals in this effort.

Obama's Chicago Jewish Neighborhood

Obama's Chicago Jewish Neighborhood
by Samuel D. Gruber

On election day I wrote about presidents and synagogues, but at the time I didn't realize that then candidate and now president-elect lives in a former Jewish Day School, and lives immediately across the street from one of my favorite synagogues, Temple Isaiah - K.A.M. in Chicago, the quintessential Byzantine Revival synagogue designed by Chicago Jewish architect Alfred Alschuler in 1924. I featured this synagogue in my 2003 book (American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community), but I never realized when I stood facing and photographing the facade that I had my back to the Obama home. I'm thinking that since the synagogue has a chimney disguised as a minaret, maybe that's where the story of Barack being a Muslim started. But its not the Muslim call to prayer one hears on Greenwood Ave., and certainly now not "Barack Who?," but rather the Baruch hu.

Charles B. Bernstein and Stuart L. Cohen have researched the history of the Hyde Park house which could become the Chicago White House (unless they sell when they move to DC, as many speculate they will), and presented their findings in the Chicago Jewish News. They write that " Indeed, the title history of the Obama house shows it has a rich Jewish history, one that encompasses both of Chicago's rival communities, the Reform Hyde Park German Jews and the Orthodox West Side Russian Jews." The house was built around 1908, and was bought by the Hungary-born Max Goldstine, its first Jewish owner in 1919. By the 1940s, a small but active group of Orthodox Jews were living in Hyde Park in 1947 they established the Hebrew Theological College (a yeshiva) in the former Goldstine House. In the late 1940s, the house was also the home of the South Side Jewish Day School. When Hyde Park's Orthodox population dwindled, the Yeshiva sold the property to the Hyde Park Lutheran Church in 1954.

Click here for the full and highly detailed story

Another story ran in the Forward about the affect of the Obama election congregation KAM-Isaiah Israel, which has found itself in the middle of a high-security zone. Marissa Brostoff writes that the congregation seems to be taking it all in stride - they have long been familiar with the Obamas for many years. Most congregants find that the excitement of Obama's victory far outweigh the security hassles. The following account of Temple Isaiah is adapted from American Synagogues:

Temple Isaiah dedicated in 1924 was inspired by the 6th-century Byzantine churches of San Vitale in Ravenna and Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. The octagonal plan synagogue is topped by a low tile dome. According to the architect, “We have not designed a Byzantine building but have endeavored to produce in concrete, stone, brick and steel, the mental picture developed by the study of this style modified by its contemporary influences and co-ordinated with the proper spirit and functioning of modern Jewish synagogues.”

Alschuler maintained, in much the manner of Arnold Brunner, that his style was more truthful to early synagogue architecture than other forms. There is some basis for this claim, as there were synagogues throughout the Byzantine Empire. Alschuler wrote of how he incorporated motifs of “fragments form an ancient Hebrew Temple recently unearth in Palestine.”

Alschuler was somewhat disingenuous, however, as no known central plan synagogues like Temple Isaiah had ever been found. The inclusion of a tall thin minaret-like tower next to the main sanctuary to mask the facility’s tall chimney is a particularly unusual, albeit picturesque, addition. One critic, obviously unfamiliar with Jewish tradition, but full of love for the exotic, wrote:

"It is a beauty and a joy, surrounded by a spacious lawn, trees and a dwelling house environment. Its low, flat dome and horizontal lines are delightfully accentuated by the tall slender chimney, reminiscent of a minaret from which the faint, intoned voice of the musessin would complete the picture of beauty. It is one of those structures that we return to, always eager to get our feel of its beauty of form and color."

Others found the mosque analogy puzzling, and even offensive. But preoccupation with the mosque detracts from the real elegance Alschuler’s geometric solution – an octagonal space surmounted by a high dome supported on vaults that spring from eight massive free standing piers. There is a semicircular balcony included to increase seating in close proximity to the bimah and Ark. The supporting piers are close to the walls to keep the sanctuary space uncluttered. The dome was made of Guastavino tile, like that of Rodeph Shalom in Pittsburgh. The tile was both structural, but also covered wall areas to improve acoustics. The use of Guastavino tiles allows other attractive details, such as the sinuous stairs the twist up to the balcony from either side of the vestibule.

Overall, the building maintains two levels of decoration. The first derives solely from the careful mix of materials and combination of soft earthy colors in the tile and brick. The seconds is an extensive overlay of explicit Jewish symbols, which crescendo as one progresses through the building. The stylized Decalogue is set over the main entrance, and a more traditional Decalogue sits within the arch above the Ark, designed as a large Syrian arch – a motif known from Byzantine Palestine. In the ornate vestibule there are Emblems of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Star of David of prominently depicted in inlaid brick in each of the four great pendentives of the interior vault and in a large roundel at the apex of the dome. The six-pointed star also stands out in a roundel at the apex of the architectural composition of the Ark wall. Stars are embedded throughout the building, including on the impost blocks set above ornate capitals in the Byzantine manner. Large freestanding menorahs flank the Ark.

Perhaps the most remarkable decorative element in Temple Isaiah is not architectural. It is a large figurative stained glass window representing Moses. This tall image of the Prophet holding the tablets of the law is set in the balcony level, and is not easily visible form the sanctuary below. The depiction of figures, even of Moses, was still unusual in synagogue art, but by the 1920s not entirely uncommon in Reform Temple.

For those visitors to the Chicago’s south Side who cannot pass the congregation KAM – Isaiah Israel security cordon, there are still other opportunities to visit historic and architectural distinctive synagogues. I’ll be writing about two of these soon – one designed by Dankmar Adler and the other by Alschuler. Both are now churches, and are well-maintained and welcoming to visitors.

Photos: Congregation KAM - Isaiah Israel, Samuel D. Gruber

Quick Visit to Former Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Connecticut: Once Grand Reform Synagogue by Brunner & Tryon (1895-1897)

Quick Visit to Former Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Connecticut: Once Grand Reform Synagogue by Brunner & Tryon (1895-1897) Now an Arts School
by Samuel D. Gruber

Last week on a drive up I-95 from New Jersey to Rhode Island I did a quick detour in New Haven to visit the former Temple Mishkan Israel Synagogue, once New Haven’s grandest Jewish building, now serving as an arts magnet school. Located just 2 blocks east of Yale University, Mishkan Israel opened in 1897, and served the until 1960 when the venerable congregation moved to a new suburban building in Hamden (designed by important modernist and German refugee Fritz Nathan). The big building is worth a visit. It is one of a small number of late 19^th-century grand American Reform synagogues that survive in urban America.

The downtown building was designed by Arnold W. Brunner and Thomas Tryon just at the time they were building Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. Both buildings are large and imposing, but otherwise quite distinct. Temple Mishkan Israel was one of four large synagogues the firm built in the 1890s, and the last before Arnold Brunner fully committed to Neo-classical style. Temple Mishkan Israel combines the popular European 2- tower design for synagogues with an eclectic mix of Italianate and Colonial elements, which show Brunner using Classicism, but still filtering it through other historical styles.

Mishkan Israel was founded as a Reform congregation in 1843, the same year that the Connecticut General Assembly permitted public Jewish worship. The congregation bought it first building in 1856 – the former Third Congregation Church, an Ionic hexastyle Greek-temple style building on Court Street between State and Orange Streets. When that building was sold for $20,000, funds were used to buy the property at 380 Orange Street at the corner of Audubon Street in a prosperous residential neighborhood. Construction began in 1895. The congregation took out a $60,000 mortgage, and laid the cornerstone on January 30, 1896. At the time, the congregation was no longer sole face of New Haven Judaism, as several East European Orthodox congregations were founded about this time. Therefore, it was most important that architecturally the congregation present an imposing, impressive and acceptable face

Brunner’s building (for according to the building committee minutes, Brunner was the lead architect on this project) is noteworthy for its large size, and the tall and massive towers that flank a symmetrical façade dominated by three large arched windows. This is the east end of the building, but this being a Reform synagogue, orientation was not important, and Brunner did not have to place an interior Ark against the main façade wall as he would do at Shearith Israel in New York, which also faces east. Below the arched façade windows are three entrance openings created by square piers, reach by a flight of wide steps. The piers support a wide, decorated brownstone frieze. Above the frieze is a continuous balustrade atop of which sit the large windows. Inside, this theme was picked up at the west end, where a combination of arches and a balustrade emphasized the Ark wall and surmounting choir loft. Brunner filled the interior with classical elements – arches, pilasters, Corinthian Columns. Unfortunately, the interior was gutted after the building was sold in 1960, and there are few known photos of the inside. Some of the abundant stained glass windows remain in situ, but these are not visible from the interior – now a theater – or from Audubon Street. Each flank of the building was divided into three bays by heavy buttress piers which break the cornice line and are surmounted with stepped caps. Pairs of tall arched windows fill each bay, totally twelve windows on both sides. The building terminates on the west end in a cross gable resembling a transept on the outside, which would have corresponded to the bimah area of the sanctuary, just before the Ark Wall.

The adaptive reuse of this historic and impressive building demonstrates some of the pros and cons of historic preservation of religious buildings. Unfortunately, the original interior is lost – and that was the space that most defined and reflected Reform Jewish practice and Jewish community in New Haven for more than a half century. On the other hand, the massing of the building and most of its exterior survives. This was the public face of Reform Judaism and its effect can still be felt – even though there are no Jewish symbols or inscriptions on the building. Importantly, too, as a piece of urban design, the former synagogue acts as an effective transition from the historic 19^th century architect of Orange Street to the modern (and not very distinguished) architecture and urban plaza of Audubon and adjacent streets. Since the building dominates it corner site, it is able to withstand the pressures of size of new structures. Its brick exterior, with a lot of flat wall surface, also is compatible with newer buildings behind it. Unfortunately, the grand south flank has been girded by a unsympathetic one-story addition of brick, glass and broad concrete arches that while practical, undermines the building’s base.

N.B. For more on this building and other historic synagogues in Connecticut consult the essential guide by David F. Ransom, "One Hundred Years of Jewish Congregations in Connecticut, An Architectural Survey: 1843-1943," Connecticut Jewish History, Vol. 2:1 (1991), 7-147.

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.

Arnold W. Brunner, Denzel Washington & American Gangster

Arnold W. Brunner, Denzel Washington, American Gangster & Temple Israel of Harlem
by Samuel D. Gruber

Many of you may know that I have been researching the life and work of American Jewish architect Arnold W. Brunner, in this 150th year since his birth. So it is natural that I might tend towards over emphasizing Brunner's importance, presence and influence. Indeed, I have recently identified a few unattributed synagogue buildings outside of New York as likely works by Brunner, or at least high-quality knock-offs.

Still, I wasn't thinking Brunner when I took time off to relax and watch the very good (but very violent) Ridley Scott film American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. But sure enough, as the film reaches its climactic end, there was Brunner! With the cops closing in, Denzel Washington (as drug dealer Frank Lucas) takes his family to church, and as soon as he opened the door - without even revealing much - I knew he was in Mt. Olivet Baptist Church at 120th & Lenox Ave. (now also Malcolm x Boulevard) in Harlem, formerly Temple Israel, Brunner's most monumental (completed) synagogue, dedicated in 1907. Most of the camera work is on Denzel Washington, so one only glimpses the impressive east wall of the sanctuary. There one sees the classical aedicule of the original Ark still intact, now (and probably since 1920) with a cross suspended above it. This continues this weeks theme of synagogues into churches - and expands it it include churches into Hollywood sets.

This building was only a synagogue for a short time. It’s dedication on May 17, 1907, was covered in the New York Times. The new building was described, but the architect was not mentioned: “The new edifice is of the Grecian type of architecture, and is built of light gray brick and granite. Within the temple is severely simple, being entirely in white. The only bit of gorgeous color is made by the doors of the ark. This, like the pipes of the great organ, is of gold, and the arch over it is supported with columns of marble. The choir loft is sustained by six monoliths of marble.”

Today the interior is richly painted, so Brunner’s serene classicism (still visible in Syracuse’ Temple Society of Concord - see earlier blog) – is less easy to see. But all the original architectural details, and the stained glass windows, are there.

The opening of the synagogue coincided with the beginning of the transition of Harlem to New York's (and America's) Africa-American cultural capital. Temple Israel sold the building in 1920 and moved to the Upper West Side (to another classical-style synagogue, this one designed by Willian Tachau and now Young Israel of the Upper West Side). The building as church witnessed the Harlem (Black) Renaissance and the subsequent vicissitudes of the neighborhood - now once again on the up-and-up.

I attach some recent pictures of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church which show it better. It is well maintained, and a much loved Harlem landmark - at least unofficially. I think it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places, nor is it a New York City Landmark.

This isn’t the first Brunner building to make it to the movies. The 1981 film version of E.L, Doctorow’s Ragtime (directed by Milos Forman) featured the former Renaissance Revival style Free Public Baths on East 11^th Street near Tompkins Square, built in 1904-05. That structure was designated a New York City Landmark earlier this year.

Syracuse (USA) Temple Society of Concord added to National Register

(ISJM) On June 18th, the nomination of the 1910-11 Classical Revival style Temple Society of Concord synagogue in Syracuse, New York to the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places was unanimously approved by the NY State Review Board meeting in Syracuse. Final designation is expected in Washington, DC later this summer. The historic designation helps kick off the congregation's centennial celebrations for the building.

Temple Concord is home to one of the oldest Jewish congregations (1839) in America. The present building is the congregation third home. It was designed by local architect Alfred Taylor and noted American Jewish architect Arnold W. Brunner, whose 150th birthday is
begin celebrated this year. The nomination was prepared for the congregation by ISJM which, since 2007, has used former classroom space at the Temple for its offices.

For more on the history and architecture of the building see:
http://www.isjm.org/AboutISJM/OurHistoricHome/tabid/100/Default.aspx