Eldridge Street Synagogue :: New York City :: 360° Virtual Tour
The Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first synagogue built in the United States by Eastern European Jews. It opened at 12 Eldridge Street in New York’s Lower East Side in 1887. When completed, the synagogue was reviewed in the local press, writers marveled at the imposing Moorish-style building, with its 70-foot-high vaulted ceiling, magnificent stained-glass rose windows, elaborate brass fixtures and hand-stenciled walls.
For fifty years, the Eldridge Street Synagogue flourished, but eventually, membership began to dwindle as members moved to other areas, immigration quotas limited the number of new arrivals, and the Great Depression affected the congregants’ fortunes. The exquisite main sanctuary was used less and less from the 1930s on. By the 1950s, with the rain leaking in and inner stairs unsound, the congregants cordoned off the sanctuary.
Without the resources needed to heat and maintain the sanctuary, they chose to worship downstairs in the smaller study hall. The main sanctuary remained empty for twenty-five years, from approximately 1955 to 1980. Currently, after extensive renovations, evening services are held in the study hall and daytime services in the main sanctuary.
On December 2, 2007, after 20 years of renovation work, overseen by the non-profit Museum at Eldridge Street, the synagogue reopened to the public. It continues to serve as an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, with regular weekly services on the Sabbath and Holidays, and is also the Museum at Eldridge Street offering informative tours that relate to American Jewish history, the history of the Lower East Side and immigration.
The effort to return the sanctuary to its Victorian splendor, while maintaining the idiosyncrasies of the original aesthetic and preserving patina of age, included plaster consolidation and replication of ornamental plaster elements, over-paint removal, conservation, in-painting replication of stenciling, wood finishing and decorative painting including: faux-woodgraining, marbleizing, and gilding by skilled craftsmen.
The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996.